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People start stereotyping early. Even toddlers react positively to members of their own race, but often distrust those from different groups. The seeds of racism are planted in most everyone. Everyone, that is, except people with a rare genetic condition called Williams syndrome.
Williams syndrome is marked by heart defects, mental retardation, and a lack of social anxiety that produces exceedingly friendly human beings. And a new study published in the journal Current Biology finds that children with Williams syndrome don’t make racial stereotypes. [See Andreia Santos, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg and Christine Deruelle, http://bit.ly/9K0YSx]
Researchers re-did previous social-bias experiments on 20 children with Williams syndrome and 20 control kids. The children viewed pictures of people of assorted races and genders and assigned negative or positive storylines to each picture. True to form, the control group preferred their own race and gender. The children with Williams syndrome, however, had no racial preference—although they still discriminated by gender.
The results imply a nuanced neural mechanism to stereotyping, the further study of which “may suggest ways of reducing biased behavior towards vulnerable or marginalized groups.”
—Adam Hinterthuer
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
See also Children who form no racial stereotypes found
And Genetic Condition's Interplay With Culture
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6 Comments
Add CommentHay! Great! They finally found a cure for that disease called "racism". "Williams syndrome is marked by heart defects, mental retardation, and a lack of social anxiety that produces exceedingly friendly human beings." We all can live with that for awhile. When we are all mentally retarded, no one will notice the difference.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas Williams syndrome already been injected into all our politicians?
Evolution has instilled a sense of caution when confronting the unkown and if that is "racism" then the term is useless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe just have to accept people as they are whether they are born racist or perhaps gay.
Great! We have actually found a start place to study human reactions to "otherness". I believe that we will find that the sense of "otherness" is probably located in several neuron nodes in the brain and is the result of vary closely knit nature and nurture reactions throughout development. I have always believed that racism, "otherness", is triggered more by subtle cultural differences than skin colour or physical features.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbsolutely, Bill. When kids of different 'races' are raised together, they have no 'racial' consciousness at all!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow!!!! Good to know. So now people can blame Williams Syndrome. I will have to agree with (RDH) We just have to accept people as they are whether they are born racist or gay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow this is pretty crazy I mean how could ther be something like this. I would think even if they have the William syndrome they would voice out racial comments as they got older. They here there friends do it and so they want to be cool so then they start doing it. I just dont see how this would work. No matter who you are and what issue you may have everyone makes fun of the other race.
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