Facing up to racial fears all in the mind

Tim Radford
Monday May 9, 2005
Guardian
Photographs of black faces trigger the brain's "alarm button" in almost two-thirds of both white and black people, according to the results of a study by American neuroscientists published today. The findings could help explain the pervasive impact of racial stereotypes and the "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" effect.
They could also throw light on how people deal with their unconscious responses to ethnic minorities, outsiders or strangers, because when volunteers in the study were told to label the photographs with descriptions such as "African-American" the response changed.
The amygdala is a tiny bit of the brain which serves as an alarm bell: it sets off a cascade of biological changes that prepare the body to respond to danger long before the brain is consciously aware of any potential hazard.
Matthew Lieberman, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues report in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience that they asked eight African-American volunteers and 11 Caucasians to look at photographs of expressionless faces, black and white.
The scientists scanned their unconscious brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Five of the eight black volunteers showed a bigger amygdala response when they saw pictures of other black individuals than when they saw white faces. Seven of the 11 white volunteers produced the same result. There was nothing in the brain responses that revealed whether the viewers were white or black.
"Even people who believe to their core that they do not have prejudices may still have negative associations that are not conscious," said Dr Lieberman. "One theory is that people are likely to pick up the stereotypes prevalent in a society, regardless of whether their family or community agrees with those stereotypes."
When the team applied the words "African-American" to black faces, the amygdala response disappeared.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1479333,00.html



Subconscious negative feelings about black people are created by American culture, suggests a brain imaging study using black and white participants SUBCONSCIOUS negative feelings or stereotypes about black people are learned through American culture, suggests the first brain imaging study to test both black and white people's racial biases.
"I think the results are very specific to this society, where portrayals of African Americans are not very positive on average," says Matthew Lieberman at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the research.
Hidden prejudices have been revealed before with brain scans. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have found that white Americans show more brain activity in a region called the amygdala when viewing images of black faces than when viewing white faces. The amygdala is involved in emotional reactions and becomes very active in fearful or threatening situations. But it also reacts to novelty, so activity there could just be the result of seeing a less familiar kind of face.

Yes that is an interesting article Newstyle but like you said I think we know the underlying reasons for that"Alarm".



Funnily enough this same" alarm" is triggered in me when I see ugly people,with bad teeth-especially men,but I know this is just my brain warning me not tomate with anyone bruk up!

Not surprising study results.

Wehave more than an enough studies and real life experiences which show us that this exists but never an attempt to truly address anything.

Well very interesting study. I think the next study that should be carried out should be based on race in relation to reflexes... you know what I'm talking about... The white woman " bag clench " reflex when she see a black person walking her way - and the " lock the car doors " reflex when shes stopped at the zebra crossing, cos some young black boys are crossing over - but I guess the reflex action is in response to the brain alarm anyway.

Niceness wrote: FREQUECNY................. KMT..... AGAIN!!!

SUBCONSCIOUS negative feelings or stereotypes about black people are learned through American culture, suggests the first brain imaging study to test both black and white people's racial biases.


We sure can blame the white dominated world view that builds negative sterotypes of black people which both white and black may subscribe to.

i used to go to a london, wimbledon art college. in that college i was the only black student amongst a majority white school. on the whole the majority white students were cordial to me.

but on a school trip abroad my opinion of them changed. we were drinking quite

heavly late one night and i decided to go to bed a bit early....the walls of the bed sit were thin so i still heard what they were talking about.....they started to talk about me

and how much BLACK people hated them etcc..!...this rant by some idiot went on for some time....none of ( what i thought were )my friends defended me or said any thing ....

......little incidents like this over the years in the majority white establishments i've attendented persisted...

when that black lapdog Trevor Phillips said that ethnic minorities needed to integrate more i laughed, more from anger than surprise....

Afrocarribeanshave done more to integrate than any other minority in Britain and what do we have to show for it,record unemployment, recordimprisonment,our children getting murdered by rascist whites ( read: jermanielynsey, steven lawrence) being ghettoised by fear of discrimination outside of the major citys. demoralised because realistically afrocarribeans will never be allowed by run major business companies (you can never really be all that you can be) we should look at the Jews and the Chinese have they intergrated ? no!!! and look how successful they are!

it's time for a new direction support the new black panthers

TREVOR PHILLIPS! When ever i see his face, or when ever ihear him speak,it provokes extreme, violent reactions within me.

I just want to rip his guts out and cut him up into billions and billionsof little pieces. And to feed what is left of him to the Londonpigeon population!

That isn't too much too ask nowis it?

Why would an alarm go off in your head from a photograph, it's not like your in any immediate danger. Looking at a photograph is not a threatening or fearful situation. Reacting to unfamiliar faces is bull...unless these white and black people were closed off to the ENTIRE world and them blacks grew in a white world

You may CONSCIOUSLY think of the connotations that photo has for the individual, i.e meeting the person in the photo down a dark alley BUT who the hell is shook from seeing a mug shot.

And what was the photo actually like because as the article said they added the word african-american and the response disappeared hence it can't just be stereotypes can it, because those are the stereotypes OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS. Sowhat words did they use in the first place...seems a whole lot of bull to me.

White establishment trying to prove a point.