A racist person’s brain is governed by unfounded prejudice and a sense of threat to the unknown, which is different, so many people get carried away by unconscious racial prejudices, sometimes it is enough for a certain situation to happen for the person we least expected to react with prejudice.
Some racial psychology experts, such as Drs. Leslie Zebrowitz and Yi Zhang of Brandeis University in Massachusetts, draw our attention to something surprising: according to their studies, a large part of the population has many of these unconscious but automatic traits or patterns, these traits can cause the person to act or think racistly at some point.
- Similarly.
- Another no less interesting aspect: neuroscience now offers us tools to understand and even identify a racist’s brain.
- So much so that.
- As an article from The Guardian newspaper reveals.
- A brain scan-based technique that detects activities in areas of the brain related to racial prejudice has developed in the United States.
As surprising as it may seem, there are neural pathways that create the imprint of racism, they are mechanisms formed, basically, on a very concrete emotion: fear, let’s look at more data on the subject below.
“Racism is the greatest threat to man, the greatest hatred for the least of reasons”?Abraham J. Heschel-
Professor Jennifer Richeson, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, conducted a curious study published in the journal Nature in 2003. According to this study, it is possible to identify the brain of a racist person by observing whether certain areas are activated by stimuli that are presented , or rather, depending on the conversation that the person has and with whom they have it.
So one thing Jennifer Richeson’s team observed when interviewing several white cops in the United States was that some of them had to work hard to be convincing. This concentration, to say nothing offensive or demeaning, activated certain areas of the brain. on the other hand, those with obvious racial prejudices also showed greater activity in some regions.
These regions would be
The amygdala is a small brain structure of fundamental importance to our emotions, through it we create memories related to the emotional aspect, besides she is also the sentinel of fear.
One of your main responsibilities is to interpret what may be a threat to us, and then to awaken the feeling of rejection, discomfort, alarm, etc.
In this way, Richeson’s study was able to observe how a racist’s brain is immediately activated in this area when he sees people of other races or ethnicities.
From a neuroscientist point of view, people without racial prejudice show a clear difference with those who have them, this difference is in the prefrontal cortex.
Ventral striatum is one of the most interesting areas related to racial prejudice, it is linked to the process by which we choose social fulfillment, that is, we follow what our group says, what our family, friends or part of the population advocates. In other words, a reward system is activated.
Whether your ideas are clearly sessed or not, it doesn’t matter. Do, say and think about how most people generate complacency, and it is the ventral striatum that rewards us by releasing dopamine and serotonin.
This mechanism is, in fact, a very primitive instinct that has allowed, in the past, groups to remain united and distrust other individuals outside their social unity.
At the beginning of the article, we cited researchers Leslie Zebrowitz and Yi Zhang of Brandeis University, who in 2012 conducted extensive research to demonstrate two things.
That is, it is enough to constantly expose the racist to people he rejects and his prejudices will weaken, allowing him to evaluate his behavior and let his reflection of avoidance, fear or rejection lose strength.
Without a doubt, from there, we realize the importance of the cooperation-based educational models advocated by psychologist Elliott Aronson in his time, and addressing these realities from an early age would certainly help us create fairer and more respectful societies.
“Fascism is cured by reading and racism is cured by travel” – Miguel de Unamuno-