Neurology Study Uncovers a Tendency to Learn Racial Bias

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: August 2, 2005

Whatever their attitudes toward race, people notice and respond to racial differences almost instantaneously, often in subtle ways that psychologists have yet to fully understand.

In a study reported last week, researchers at New York University and Harvard found in a laboratory experiment that the sight of a stranger of another race can prompt a measurable nervous system reaction that probably reflects unconscious biases, as well as a natural caution around members of unfamiliar groups. The effect was equally strong in both white and black Americans, and all but absent in people of either race who had a history of interracial dating.