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Not all emotions are contagious. In fact, we are essentially immune to the influence ofthe emotions of rival or disfavored tribes. We can easily ignore the suffering of the poor,for example. Recent imaging research showed no activation of the medial prefrontalcortex, an area of the brain that is necessary to social perception, in response topictures of homeless people. Professor Cuddy notes, “People are not even recognizingthem as human.” 79That would seem to explain how public hangings could drawenormous crowds in bygone days, and any number of other examples of the crueltypeople can perpetrate against human beings who we see as being outside our owntribes.It may also help explain why so many people were incensed when the Supreme Courtinsisted that corporations are “people” that enjoy a right to freedom of speech. For mostpeople, it is hard to empathize with an abstraction, whether it is a corporation, thegovernment, or any group other than our own tribes. As a result, “[p]eople trust groupsless than individuals and expect interactions with groups to be more hostile thanperson-to-person interactions. People also act less cooperatively toward groups thanthey do toward individuals and behave more aggressively in intergroup as compared tointerpersonal interactions, holding all other factors constant.” 80People distrust large organizations. In one study, a team led by Dan Ariely askedpeople to affirm or deny the truth of statements such as “the sun is yellow” and “a camelis bigger than a dog.” When the team provided the statements without attributing themto anyone, participants affirmed the statements as true every time. But when the79 Cuddy, supra note 36 at 51.80 Cikara, supra note 31 at 121 (citations omitted).36