This is cool - it seems to be proof that racial stereotyping and prejudice are fear-based behaviors, not rational, not genetic - LEARNED, as are nearly all fears (including fear of predators in animals, which we might tend to think are innate fears).
Because racism is still ubiquitous in America (despite Obama's claims about a post-racial country), this research is interesting.When social fear is missing, so are racial stereotypes
April 12, 2010Children with the genetic condition known as Williams syndrome have unusually friendly natures because they lack the sense of fear that the rest of us feel in many social situations. Now, a study reported in the April 13th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, suggests that children with Williams Syndrome are missing something else the rest of us have from a very tender age: the proclivity to stereotype others based on their race.
More information: Meyer-Lindenberg et al.: “Absent racial stereotypes in Williams syndrome: Dissociable genetic influences on social bias.” Publishing in Current Biology 20, 7, April 13, 2010. http://www.current-biology.comThe findings support the notion that social fear is at the root of racial stereotypes. The researchers say the results might also aid in the development of interventions designed to reduce discriminatory attitudes and behavior towards vulnerable or marginalized groups of society.
"This is the first study to report the absence of racial stereotypes in any human population," said Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim/University of Heidelberg, who coauthored the paper with Andreia Santos and Christine Deruelle of the Mediterranean Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Marseille.
Previous studies have shown that stereotypes are found ubiquitously in typically developing children—as early as age 3—as they are in adults, Meyer-Lindenberg explained. Even children with autism display racial stereotypes, despite profound difficulties in daily social interaction and a general failure to show adapted social knowledge.
In their study, the researchers showed children a series of vignettes with people differing in race or gender and asked the children to assign positive or negative features to those pictured. Typical children made strongly stereotypical assignments both for sex roles and for race, confirming the results of previous studies. On the other hand, children with Williams syndrome showed no evidence for racial bias.
"The unique hypersociable profile of individuals with Williams syndrome often leads them to consider that everybody in the world is their friend," Meyer-Lindenberg said. "In previous work, we have shown that processing of social threat is deficient in people with the syndrome. Based on this, we suspected that they would not show a particular preference for own-race versus other-race characters. The finding that racial stereotypes in children with Williams syndrome were completely absent was nevertheless surprising in its degree."
The children with Williams syndrome did make stereotypical sex role assignments just like normal children. That finding suggests that different forms of stereotyping arise from different brain mechanisms, the researchers say, and that those mechanisms are selectively affected in some way by the genetic alteration that causes Williams syndrome (the loss of about 26 genes on chromosome 7).
In this new article, we see that how people handle racism is crucial to its impact on their lives. We can't ignore it, and we shouldn't ignore it - doing so makes things worse for the victims of racism.
Ignoring racism makes distress worse, study finds
April 6, 2010 by Elaine Bible
A 1930s photograph of a hotel entrance with a sign reading “Positively no Filipinos allowed.” This blatant racism stands in contrast to the subtle 'everyday racism' that Professor Alvin Alvarez has found still exists today.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Subtle forms of racism are part of the fabric of life, according to Professor of Counseling Alvin Alvarez, but the way people choose to cope with racist incidents can influence how much distress they feel.
Alvarez' latest study, published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, found that denying or ignoring racial discrimination leads to greater psychological distress, including anxiety and depression, and lowers self-esteem."We found that some coping methods are healthier than others for dealing with everyday racism," Alvarez said. "When people deny or trivialize racist encounters, they can actually make themselves feel worse, amplifying the distress caused by the incident."
The study focused on what is referred to as 'everyday racism' -- subtle, commonplace forms of discrimination, such as being ignored, ridiculed or treated differently.
"These are incidents that may seem innocent and small, but cumulatively they can have a powerful impact on an individual's mental health," Alvarez said. "Trying to ignore these insidious incidents could become taxing and debilitating over time, chipping away at a person's spirit."
Alvarez surveyed 199 Filipino-American adults, both men and women, in the Bay Area and found that 99 percent of participants had experienced at least one incident of everyday racism in the last year.
The findings challenge the stereotype of Filipino-Americans as 'model minorities' -- ethnic groups that are typically successful in society and believed to no longer experience discrimination. "What's striking is we found that racism is still happening to Filipinos," Alvarez said. "Therapists need to look beyond the frequent portrayal of Asian Americans as model minorities and help clients assess what their best coping strategy could be, depending on their resources, what's feasible and who they could turn to for support."
While further research is needed to determine what makes a healthy coping method, the study did find that for men, dealing with racism in an active way, such as reporting incidents to authorities or challenging the perpetrator, was associated with decreased distress and increased self-esteem. For women, ignoring racism was linked to increased distress, but no significant correlation was found between other coping methods and psychological distress.
The study was published in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology and was co-authored by Linda Juang, associate professor of psychology at SF State.
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