A post at Science Blog reports a study from Arizona State University in which it is suggested that prejudice is a hardwired reponse to perceived threats.

Contrary to what most people believe, the tendency to be prejudiced is a form of common sense, hard-wired into the human brain through evolution as an adaptive response to protect our prehistoric ancestors from danger.

Subjects rated different groups on the level of threat they posed to American society and then associated emotions with the groups. Researchers found that "the different 'flavors' of prejudice were associated with different patterns of perceived threat" -- threats to physical safety, health, and economic resources.

It must be made clear that an argument for the evolutionary roots of prejudice is not a justification for prejudical behavior. As Steven Neuberg, ASU professor of social psychology, who co-authored the study, says

What we think and feel and how we behave is typically the result of complex interactions between biological tendencies and learning experiences. Evolution may have prepared our minds to be prejudiced, but our environment influences the specific targets of those prejudices and how we act on them.

Prejudice hard-wired into the human brain | Science Blog

TrackBack