15 month old babies show racial bias

[Victorian Gray]

Racist gay babies are one of the biggest problems of our time. They are directly responsible for, um . . .

Gonna need a minute here.

Haven't you seen the baby brawls breaking out in most preschools? I's been on the news everywhere.

This one was over hockey

 

[werepossum]

Haven't you seen the baby brawls breaking out in most preschools? I's been on the news everywhere.

This one was over hockey

LOL!

 

[Victorian Gray]

LOL!

In Canada we take our hockey seriously.

 

[emanresUa]

Maybe society needs to stop using hateful terms such as racist and bigot.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...acial-bias-picking-playmates-study-found.html


There is mindset that children are blind to race, and racism is a learned behavior. With studies like this can we honestly say racism is a learned behavior?

Infants raised in racially homogeneous environments probably perceive people who look different as members of a different group. I suspect they also take into account accent, language, clothing, mannerisms, smell, etc. I believe there have also been studies which showed that infants who were raised in racially heterogeneous environments didn't show any bias regarding races of which they were familiar.

I think we can say racism per se is learned. In-group chauvinism is probably natural though, and infants seem to perceive an unfamiliar physical appearance as an indication that a person belongs to a different group.

On a side note this might explain why so many people dislike gays. Gays are not in our group so people show a natural bias towards them.

Yes, there is a tendency to dislike people with different sexual preferences, members of different political parties, people who aren't part of your religious group, people who like different sports teams, people with different musical taste, and virtually everything else about which people can differ.

The probable reason gays in particular are singled out in our culture is that, until recently, expression of antipathy towards people with unusual sexual preferences was considered acceptable, and in some cases encouraged. Now it's generally repudiated, and if that continues, most people won't dislike gays so much in a generation or two.

The main question I have, where is the dividing line between in-group bias and racism?

I think race is just one of the many factors which we use to construct our personal identities, and thus our group identities.

If you identify yourself as a member of the group "White people", and that means something to you emotionally, then you will probably show a natural bias in favor of others who belong to that group. If you identify yourself as a member of the group "Geeks", then you will probably prefer others who you identify as fellow geeks. If you identify yourself as a member of the set "x", then you will probably prefer others who you identify as fellow xs.

That is simply not true.

Racism is being addressed as if it a learned behavior. Racism is not a learned behavior. It is natural and probably part of a survival instinct.

This in-group bias probably is hard programmed into our genes from when our ancestors were foraging and fighting for food. There is a reason why homo-erectus and the neanderthal are no longer here. This in-group bias may be a reason why our species survived while others went extinct.

Racism itself is not a very good evolutionary strategy. Our ancestors survived by forming large tribal confederations, often allying themselves with foreigners, in order to dominate neighboring tribes. They adopted any foreign ideas, technologies, and practices that proved to be useful. Once all of the tribes in their region had been defeated, and absorbed into the larger nation, they went out and conquered the fragmented tribes in other regions, and formed empires. Our ancestors enslaved, or at least exploited the conquered, for a time, but eventually they too became ordinary citizens, who worked to expand and/or improve the empire.

In-group bias however is extremely important evolutionarily, and it's difficult to imagine how we could survive without it, even now. The questions are how large and inclusive our groups should be, along what lines we ought to discriminate between members within our groups, whether we should emphasize conformity within our groups, or encourage tolerance and pluralism, etc.