Danger! Interacting with someone of a different race may impair your mental functions

[Theophylact]

...if you're a bigot.

People with implicit racial prejudices are left mentally exhausted after interacting with someone from a different race, perhaps because they are trying to quell their feelings.

The new study, the first of its kind, shows that areas in the brain associated with self-control light up in white people with implicit racial biases when they are shown images of black people.

Furthermore, the study showed that the level of this brain activity correlated very closely with poor performance in a test of thinking ability given right after a face-to-face interview with a black person. The researchers believe this indicates that the subject's mental resources have been temporarily drained by their efforts to suppress their prejudices.

[U-96]

not only feelings - it must be hard to keep up the lie directly to someone whose demeanour, experience and knowledge can dispel a life's worth of preconception in a single conversation.

(actually, this can also occur when talking to the disabled, women, foreigners, and so on...)

[shahani]

So the question arises as to how some people have this implicit prejudice while others don't.

Is it environmental/demographic influence or genetic make up or diminished intelligence?

[J-Excel]

Hmmm. This creates a dilemma using liberal logic. This makes bigots a victim. And liberals have to do everything in their power to protect victims. That means they will be fighting for whites-only schools for racist white kids. Can you imagine the court battle? It'll be the ACLU vs the ACLU.

[B71655]

Pop up time

[U-96]

This creates a dilemma using liberal logic

Wrong. It creates a tedious opportunity for political point scoring based on straw-man arguments.

Your point was...?

[Galaxy_EGS]

Originally posted by shahani
So the question arises as to how some people have this implicit prejudice while others don't.

Is it environmental/demographic influence or genetic make up or diminished intelligence?

"Culture" is the keyword.

[RADAR1797]

Damn, I guess my wife and I are screwed.

-RADAR