Categories: Society & Culture

The Otherside of Racism and Sexism

The News was just released. Scientists seem to have unlocked why people are prejudiced.

A paper released by the  American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, states that the brain of each person develops  a “cognitive illusion” of knowledge.  This makes people prone to be afraid of people who are ‘not like them.’

This illusion is a ‘shortcut’ in distrusting differences.

“We are prone to think that, because of our necessity to survive, anything that’s different might be threatening and that remains part of the human condition. So we tend to think of differentness as possibly dangerous.”   

The paper states.

 Once people recognise this,  society can be transformed.

There is an online test developed by Harvard University for people to appreciate just how biased they are.

The Flip side of Racism and Sexism, is to trust people ‘just like us’.   To believe in them, and feel they are ‘part’ of our ‘tribe’.

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Although the Paper doesn’t analyse this, perhaps thinking it is evident, the more significant part is not why we distrust people who are different, but why we trust people we think are the same.

We can all take the test, (I put the link at the bottom of the article) and see why we are afraid, dislike, maybe hate those of a particular race/culture/sex.  But to understand the obverse will afford us more protection.  It will expose  why people are often conned by those who appear to be just like them.

A stranger, unless considered weaker or stupider will instantly provoke the reluctance.  Someone who looks like us, talks like us, is ‘one of us’, and trusted.

People who know they are stupid, perhaps uneducated, slow, having to defer to others for information, will support someone who appears as stupid as they are.  After all, he can’t fool us… he’s no more intelligent than we are.

It is an interesting insight.

You can find the racism test here




  • kaylar

    View Comments

    • I don't trust science finding because they will one day come and disprove their own findings and tell us different things meanwhile they have created an information in the mind of people. They told us there were 12 planets in the univers and this was taught in schools over the year wbut now they are telling us they have found other planets disproving their own findings. There are many such things i cant talk about.

      • One of the reasons why this item caught my attention is because of the ease that people fall for scams. I won't go into the numerous scams that run in my country... but why do people fall for them?

        I have found that obverse of the scientific 'otherness' finding; that the person 'just like you' is the best scammer. The 'businessman' ropes in business men, the high school grad ropes in high school grads...

        In court the accused scammer looks just like the people he scammed. They way they dress, talk, hold themselves, often age groups.

    • Interesting as one thing I learned when I ran pre-school is that children settle best when their key worker looks like their mum or main carer. We do bond best with the earliest good caregiver and so are likely to prefer people like them. As the caregiver is usually the same race and ethnicity then that would figure. It does in a way, come down to survival. That said, most people when you scratch the surface are the same under the skin, but every family is in itself, a culture even within cultures.

      • The research proves this; the 'us' and 'them', which is the basis of racism... difference. I have observed a lot of scams and find that the automatic trust we give to 'us' can be used against us.

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