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Back in February I somehow missed this very important study (discussed in Scientific American) confirming that our brains react differently to people that seem like us and those that don't. Most importantly, they seem to have found "brain basis" for making us react with prejudice to those that seem different; there are distinct patterns of neural activity making us act this way (it was actually quite an interesting experiment in which groups of Harvard and other Boston-area students were subject to brain scans while being showed pictures of other college-age people described as either liberal northeastern students or conservative Midwest fundamentalist Christian students; they were also asked to fill in questionnaires to understand where they themselves fall on the political and social spectrum).

Here are their most important conclusions:

[The study] shows, for instance, that the recognition of a common interest or trait in an "outsider" has the potential, at a brain-based level, to make that outsider seem less foreign and threatening. Prejudice may in part arise (and be easily aggravated) when people assume that members of an outgroup do not have corresponding mental states, due to their different backgrounds. Without a self-referential basis to mentalize individuals from an outgroup in a specific circumstance -- without the opportunity, in other words, to recognize the things they have in common -- perceivers may rely heavily on stereotypes to predict the mental states of outgroup members.

Some interesting discussions ensured. Joshua Porter, who runs a popular blog "Bokardo" about social design, used this study to ponder what implications this study has for recommendation engines, while David Galbraith wondered about the broader social implications of the findings:

a civilized society depends not on the people who are currently the most civilized, but those who are most willing to accept change, as social or cultural groupings change, split or coalesce. Inevitably this means reasonable people rather than faithful people.

The abstract of the study can be found here, and the full text in PDF here.


Technorati Tags: neuroscience, brain, mind, prejudice, diversity