HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Mahzarin Banaji (right) and Jeffrey Ebert found that race influences our response to threats. They measured the persistence of fear in white and black people who viewed threatening white and black faces (lower right). (Staff photo Jon Chase/Harvard News Office)

Researchers from Harvard and New York University did some neat experiments to find out.

They started by showing some 20 young black and white women and men pictures of a snake and a spider, followed by pictures of a bird and a butterfly. Humans, apes, and monkeys have a harder time shaking off a learned fear of snakes than of butterflies. Would humans demonstrate the same difference of feeling for people of a difference race who they perceived as a threat. To make a long story short - yes.

All this goes to help determine if fear of outsiders is inborn or acquired by experience. Is biology to blame, or is it an acquired dislike?

In the next part of the experiment, 37 black men and women and 36 whites were shown pictures of two frightening black and two frightening white male faces. Male faces were used because they are considered more intimidating than females.

Following that, everyone received a mild electric shock along with a showing of one of the white and one of the black faces. Finally, the subjects viewed all the faces without the discomfort of an electric jolt. The question to answer was whether blacks would show greater fear of intimidating white faces than of threatening black faces, and vice versa.

Psychologists use a time-tested way to measure fear - how much someone sweats. Fear opens the pores of sweat glands in the skin more than neutral emotions.

You may have guessed the result. Fear of the face from the other race persisted longer than fear from the face of the same race. Both found it easier to overcome fears of faces of their own race.

Although the study did not directly speak to dread of terrorists of the same and other races directly, it is suggestive. "The greater persistence of fear to members of other groups suggests that we may persist in our fear of acts of terrorism committed by those who are different than us," says Mahzarin Banaji, a professor of psychology at Harvard who participated in the research. "So, an unknown Muslim terrorist may provoke a greater persistence of fear than, say, Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma bomber) may have in Americans."

Nature or nurture

Is such persistent anxiety or bias rooted in our biology or the result of a cultural climate that nourishes interracial fears? The experiments cannot clearly answer that question. Nevertheless, the researchers believe that sharing a language and a particular environment fosters skepticism toward strangers that can easily develop into fear.

While apes had millions of years to learn to fear snakes and spiders, Banaji and her colleagues argue that not enough time was available for humans to develop the same kind of biological fright of different racial groups. Separation into distinct races occurred relatively recently, within the past 100,000-200,000 years ago, they say in the report of their results, which appears in the July 29 issue of Science. Rather, the researchers speculate "humans might have evolved a general preparedness to fear others who were dissimilar to them or who otherwise appeared not to belong to their social group, because such individuals were more likely to pose a threat."

The report goes on to state that attitudes and beliefs about other races likely are "what provide the basis for the greater persistence of fear conditioning involving members of another group. Most notably, individuals acquire negative beliefs about outgroups according to their local cultures, and few reach adulthood without considerable knowledge of those prejudices and stereotypes." Besides Banaji, the authors of the report include Andreas Olsson and Elizabeth Phelps of New York University's Department of Psychology and Jeffrey Ebert, a graduate student in psychology at Harvard.

Dating softens fears

Whatever the reason we don't like people who are not like us, the researchers point out that this does not mean that racial hatred and conflict are inevitable. They found that close positive contact can reduce bias and fear, particularly interracial dating. "We looked at several factors that involve intergroup contacts," Banaji notes. "Only intergroup dating significantly reduced fear and bias. It can soften a lifetime of negative social learning.

"Our discovery shows how strong is the 'pull' that groups we belong to exert on us," she continues. "We can't shake that off easily. The good news is that this predisposition to fear members of other races may be changed by close personal contact."

Asked about the possibility of reducing terrorist attacks by getting to know them better, Banaji replies, "Islamic terrorists would be less likely to harm us if they knew us better. We'd be less likely to invade Islamic countries because of our fear, if we knew them better."