This project is part of the NeuroEpigenEthics ERC project (see http://www.neuroepigenethics.com/ for more information).
In this project we present participants with behavior that is disruptive in a classroom setting and query whether the participants tend to blame the person so behaving less the more that behavior is deemed biological. One such behavior (throat scraping) is then disclosed as either due to brain (tic) or psychological (habit) condition. We check how the type of disclosure impacts blame and social exclusion. The hypothesis is that neurological disclosure decreases blame but increases social exclusion (via the non-blame aspects of stigma). Finally we introduce an epigenetic explanation of the behavior that is not predicated on a nature/nurture dichotomy. We hypothesize that such explanations lead to a combination of less blame and less social exclusion in the two conditions.
