Children who form no racial stereotypes found: Brain disorder eradicates ethnic but not gender bias
The obvious conclusion… is that social fear is not required for gender stereotyping, but it is important in forming racial stereotypes.
“Until this study, I think people never imagined that these two stereotypes would be biologically separable,” Gabrieli says. “Whether it turns out to be due to genes, the environment or a complicated interaction, it shifts the discussion.”
I see what they’re saying, and I feel like it can only backfire.
Showing a biological basis gives folks the opportunity to spin the real issue in a different way. And this is a really small population of people we’re talking about.
But it does make a good point about how fear plays into racial stereotyping. Maybe it does shift the discussion, but I suspect it will not be far enough or in quite the right direction. The fear part is what we should pick up and run with (in case, for some reason, we didn’t already know that fear plays into racial stereotypes).
(via)
