From Jonathan Poupart
Andy Coghlan’s article on the possible link between an individual’s fear of strangers and racial prejudice (17 April, p 9) reminded me of studies in the field of terror management theory, which suggest that fear of one’s own mortality motivates people to cling more strongly to their cultural world view and sense of identity.
This idea has been tested by research into subliminal death primes – where words like “corpse” and “dead” are flashed in front of participants faster than their conscious minds can register them. Jamie Arndt and others showed that exposure to this kind of subconscious stimulus led to an increased defence of an individual’s cultural world view, as measured by their assessment of the authors – whom they had been told were foreign students – and the content of pro- and anti-American literature (Psychological Science, vol 8, p 379).
From Philip King
Coghlan describes research that used cartoon characters to demonstrate the lack of racial prejudice in children with a congenital condition that makes them unusually sociable.
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But why were only white children chosen to participate in this test? Wouldn’t it have been informative to perform a corresponding test with children from different racial backgrounds to see whether they responded to the cartoon characters in the same way as white children?
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