Racism makes you stupider
 

Here's an interesting article..

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGB633LED1.DTL

According to the findings, the more biased people are, the more their brain power is taxed by contact with someone of another race, as they struggle not to say or do anything offensive. The effect is so strong, the team found, that even a five-minute conversation with a black person left some of the white subjects unable to perform well on a test of cognitive ability.

"Just having a prejudice makes you stupider," said John Gabrieli, a professor of psychology at Stanford University who was not involved in the research. "It is really interesting."

Hahaha,..just having a predudice makes you stupider. Now that's classic.

Huh? Racists avoid offending people they hate?

No, it should say being PC makes you stupid.

from the Broadway show Avenue Q:

You're a little bit racist.
Well, you're a little bit too.
I guess we're both a little bit racist.
Admitting it is not an easy thing to do.
But I guess it's true.
Between me and you, I think...

Everyone's a little bit racist, sometimes
Doesn't mean we go around committing hate crimes.

Look around, and you will find
No one's really color-blind
Maybe it's a fact we all should fa-ace.
Everyone makes judgements...
Based on race.

You're a little bit racist... All right!
Bigotry has never been exclusively white.
If we all could just admit
That we are racist (a little bit)

Even though we all know that it's wro-ong
Maybe it would help us
Get along!

An interesting study, but perhaps the causal relationship is reversed -- that people with cognitive deficits form racist attitudes out of the need for a simple world model.

I highly recommend trying the Implicit Association Test at http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/index.html

You may find that, despite having no conscious racist attitudes, unconsciously there is some race-biased processing going on that you don't even recognize.

I'd like to think there's a way to use this study to make a "racist detector" so we can finally cleanse the world of all thought criminals.

After we get rid of racist thought, we can then move on to "dirty/sleazy/sex" thought and "religious" thought and finally to the all important "Independent" thought.

Everyone is a little bit racist. It's how we handle that part of ourselves that speaks volumes for the individual

I think it's dangerous to project racism on a certain group of people who happen to be conscious of their racism. By doing so, one neglects the unconscious racist attitudes that pervade society, often including one's self.

Again, I challenge anyone who claims to harbor no racism to the IAT, linked in my previous post. Some of you, I am sure, truly are race-blind. But many people who think they are are not.

Many people are not racists by choice.

Making infantile studies with zero scientific value using precious tax money makes you even worse.

Racists proven to be stupider? Damn, I've been saying that for years.

And yeah, we may all have a little something wired into us, but they're talking about people you would LABEL racist. People who are actively and functionally racist.

Care to qualify that? Seems like a very big opinion you have there, with nothing of substance backing it up. Why infantile? Oh, and if you read the article, it actually says it was performed at a college, so fear not about your tax dollars- the people there either payed to be there or have grants because they're SMART. Besides, if we don't allow people to do what we consider "infantile" studies, how will we make progress? What you consider infantile may actually end up turning into something very important.

I hardly thing this study is either infantile or without scientific merit. I think as our society gets more diverse, it's going to become ever more important to identify the roots of racism. If we can "unpack" how it works both cognitively and neurobiologically, we can produce better interventions than the stupid "diversity training" that is the useless treatment du jour. And Nature Neuroscience is a very highly-regarded, peer-reviewed journal. They don't let just anybody publish there, and they have very high standards for the research they do publish. Perhaps the study was performed with tax dollars - could have been privately funded through Foundations, could have been NIH/NSF funding, or a combination thereof. Even so, I don't mind my tax dollars going to fund research on racism - I mind it less than my tax dollars going to pay for a lot of other idiotic things our government does.

Edit: Oops! Analog beat me to the exact same point.

I'm pretty curious about how they measure racism exactly. One person's bias is another person's stone-cold truth. Did some highly liberal person stand there and say, "Well, this person pretty racist, but that person is really racist..." ??

The study doesn't say that racism makes people stupid. The study shows that a part of the brain is more active when a person is racist. :\

Unless I missed something :|

First, they measured "racism" with the implicit bias test. It's not self-report, it's an objective (and I think, pretty well-tested) measure.

What they showed is that people who had more racial biases weren't stupid, they just had to work harder on particular tests of cognitive abilities that required them to associate "black" (black images, black names, etc.) with positive stimuli. It's not saying their stupider, it's saying that they just have to work harder to overcome their innate impulses.

Very interesting study. I wonder if it applies to other biases people might hold. But, it does explain why society can't get through to racist people.

Any time you are uncomfortable (hungry, tired, around people you don't like), you are going to suffer mentally? This not only applies to racism but to being around people who you are really mad at. You are so focused on the anger that it can take away from your mental skills.

sweet. good test, jeebus.

i've really nothing to contribute to this conversation, as i think the strong points have already been made, and with a lot more eloquence than i can hope to muster.

i think, though, that perhaps Phaenx's point is a good one, and has yet to receive any real credit.
i didn't check out the article; instead, i am extrapolating from the excerpt Jesus Pimp presented... if indeed the brain worked harder -- to the point of sectional exclusion -- to limit the display of racial hatred, than racism itself isn't the cause of decreased cognitive faculties, but rather the desire to be "PC" and prohibit acting out uncouth tendencies would more likely be the cause...

just a thought.

also, Cynthetiq, your broadway play sounds like one i'd like to see...

Its 1984 all over again :)

Being racist makes you more ignorant...but adding more stupid is fine with me also :)

An unwillingness to expose yourself to things or people that are different than you will make you ignorant or stupid. If your brain cannot deviate from being focused on hating someone or something to take in new stimuli them you must be ignorant or stupid.

This was very interesting - I came up with little or no automatic preference, but that was just the racial bias test regarding b/w adults. Would like to take the others out of curiosity when I have more time.
Lots of people don't think they are racist, and perhaps they aren't as obvious as others, but most people hold some prejudices.
Thanks lordjeebus - interesting link.

Well, I wouldnt say that racism *makes* you stupider, but it rather arises out of stupidity.

bah... my code i live by..

"when it comes to racism, im color blind" everyone should be like that.. world would be better off

"I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally!"

Hahaha....love that quote. Kudos to my parents. They are from the deep South. Mom ws born in New Orleans, dad was born in Georgia. My bro and I were also born in Atlanta, but we moved soon after because my parents were smart enough to know that they wanted their children to be raised in a less prejudiced environment. So, they move to the most liberal state in the nation, California. My direct blood line actually founded the KKK, which is not something I am proud of. It is also a reason that my immediate family does not interact with the rest of my family back East. I have gone there on several occasions and have found that indeed, people are more stupid depending on the levels of their racist mindsets, my family included.