The Blackening of Barack Obama
Technological Change and Neuroracism
Targeting the amygdala: the Clinton campaign was accused of darkening Obama's face in one of its ads
How much "reason" is actually applied in one's political opinions? Do we simply pretend to reason to mask our personal agendas, allowing us to better maintain a prosocial facade? Do people give their political arguments logical faces to hide their own self interest? Further, are they even aware they are doing it?
"Reasoning" has historically been categorized into deduction and induction, with deductive reasoning being an unequivocal result from an initial set of presumptions. For example, if A > B, and B > C, therefore, A > C. How the human brain is able to derive the obvious relationship between A and C is still the subject of much debate, centered on the linguistic and visuospatial neural networks engaged in deductive reasoning.
Inductive reasoning is open-ended. The result cannot unequivocally be derived from the initial set of propositions, and requires additional information and hypotheses. For example, if politicians often lie to get elected, and a politician makes a promise during an election: is he lying? Probably, but we can't be sure. We can either gather more information, make additional hypotheses, or let our biasing systems make the inference for us. In most cases, the biasing systems prevail, as their value can be substantial: they save time, effort, and promote our self-interest.
The neural correlates of "reasoning" have been the primary target of Vinod Goel, the most prolific researcher in the neurocognitive subfields of reasoning and belief. Even though Goel has no "neuropolitical" publications to date, his research on the way the brain integrates reasoning and belief is the gateway for how political and religious opinions persist, even when presented with a lot of contrary evidence.
The Deductive Conservative
Do conservatives and liberals vary in how they generate hypotheses, insights, and reason deductively and inductively? This is probable, and explains some of the variations in how they integrate belief into their various approaches for reasoning and debating. The conservatives seem to be more likely to frame their political arguments as an extrapolation of an established and more predictable pattern of reasoning, which follows the general mode of left hemispheric cognition.
Conservative deduction in overdrive
The conservatives tend to make logical inferences in a single frame of reference, a distinctive trait of left-hemispheric cognition. This is evident in the current conservative defense of Iraq: "the surge is working". On the other hand, the liberals are less reliant on deductive reasoning processes, and take the form of context shifts, following the general mode of right hemispheric cognition. This is evident in the liberal attack on Iraq: "what are we doing in Iraq in the first place?"
The difference between deductive and inductive reasoning highlights this variation. Deductive reasoning, or reasoning where the result is derivable from the set of postulates, is a "closed" system. For example: all dogs have fleas; a poodle is a dog; therefore, all poodles have fleas. How does the brain make the obvious connection between poodles and fleas? Two theories reign over the "reasoning" debate: the mental logic and mental model theories.
The mental logic theory is a syntactical theory, whereby the brain's organization to support language syntax is adapted in reasoning problems. The mental model theory is a visuospatial theory, whereby the brain's geometric and numerical approximation systems are adapted into the same problems. Which model is correct?
Goel is at the center of this debate, and it appears that the relationship between the brain's syntactical and visuospatial organization is a close one. The brain has somehow managed to closely integrate these divergent cognitive systems, and when it did, humans became humans.
Both deductive and inductive reasoning are predominately the domain of the left hemisphere, especially for "familiar" stimuli (Goel and Dolan, 2004). As soon as the brain detects a familiar situation, it diverts control to the left hemisphere for more extensive analysis. Given the left-hemispheric bias of conservative cognitive styles, this suggests an enhanced conservative propensity for deductive reasoning, especially for familiar stimuli. Indeed, in our surveys, conservatives tend to think they are more logical than liberals.
But the neurological picture of "logic" is not that simple. The brain seems to be all over the place when it comes to logical reasoning, engaging the frontal, temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes, along with the basal ganglia and cerebellum (Goel, 2007). There appears to be no single system that handles all the permutations of logical reasoning, and Goel proposed that "human reasoning is underwritten by a fractional system that is dynamically configured in response to specific task and environmental cues....(i) systems for heuristic and formal processes; (ii) conflict detection/resolution mechanisms; and (iii) systems for dealing with certain and uncertain inferences. There are undoubtedly others".
But if conservatives are more likely to favor more familiar, deductive reasoning strategies, what are the liberals contributing to the cognitive arsenal of the human species?
Creativity and Liberalism
The neural correlates associated with creative thinking (Vartanian and Goel, 2005) are heavily reliant on the right hemisphere, which we have proposed to be the most "liberal" of the two cerebral hemispheres (see Conservative Left Brain, Liberal Right Brain). This has further fueled our proposal that secularism, a distinguishing trait of liberalism, is more conducive towards technological advancement than religious conservatism (see Religion and Technological Change).
The liberal Steve Jobs: The technological value of the right hemisphere?
The neurological picture of creativity is a complex one, and has historically been associated with the asymmetric hemispheric engagement during "routine versus novel cognitive strategies" (Goldberg et al.). While the divergent nature of left versus right hemispheric cognition has played well in Brack's and Previc's theories of political and religious disposition, hemisphericity also forms the framework for the various reasoning tactics of the brain.
Creative thinking encapsulates several modes of reasoning strategies, with slightly different neural substrates. Goel describes Goldberg's ideas on the subject: "Goldberg has argued that the differential performance of patients with frontal lesions supports the notion that the left PFC [prefrontal cortex] is more likely than the right PFC to be influenced by the patterns and features of the environment and explains why the right hemisphere is more likely to be engaged in cognitively novel situations where such patterns or features are absent".
Goel introduced the concept of "lateral transformation" (Goel, 1995), something analogous to thinking outside the box. Goel states: "Mental representations that are imprecise, ambiguous, fluid, indeterminate, vague, etc., facilitate lateral transformations. Mental representations that are overly precise and concrete can hinder lateral transformations". The regular reader of this web site will see the connection between cognitive ambiguity and political-religious disposition: the secular liberals are shifted towards ambiguous cognitive styles, while the religious conservatives are shifted towards unambiguous styles.
Goel proposed that the right prefrontal cortex was involved in hypothesis generation, a fundamental creative process, and his subsequent imaging experiments would validate this proposal. When it came to the generation of multiple hypotheses, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was especially prolific. This region of the brain will be important in our later discussion on neuroracism.
Goel further outlined the mental process of insight, something akin to a subconscious inspiration, like those you wake up with in the morning. Insights occur after a period of knowledge accumulation, without the concentrated and conscious process of hypothesis generation . The neurology associated with insight was again localized to the right hemisphere, this time to the right temporal lobe and hippocampus.
Overall, the contributions to reasoning by the respective hemispheres were diverse and complementary. Goel summarizes: "The left PFC is more likely engaged when a problem allows for the extrapolation of patterns to reach correct solutions....the right PFC is more likely to be engaged by problems that do not have a single predetermined correct response, but allow the agent to generate multiple strategies".
While the right hemisphere is segmented into regions that contribute to different aspects of creativity, such as hypothesis generation and insight, it also performs asymmetrically depending on the size of the cognitive load. As problems become more difficult, the right dorsolateral PFC is disproportionately engaged.
Amodio Deux: The Politics of Behavioral Inhibition
The moral conservative and the empathetic liberal. These two political affiliations view each other with much contempt, puzzled by the curious ways they think and conduct themselves in society. However, they are collectively part of a bigger process, and one of the most important evolutionary developments of gregarious species--the social integration of hemispheric asymmetry. Cognitive and behavioral asymmetries are a common attribute among social species, as they support divergent and symbiotic adaptive strategies, allowing for larger animal populations to inhabit a finite territory.
The cognitive asymmetries of humans come to surface in the occupations they pursue, their varying educational backgrounds, the social groups they affiliate with, and their political-religious affiliations. It also is apparent with their decision-making strategies. While most humans can agree upon simple mathematical logic, the rate of agreement on political and religious topics is very poor.
Deductive and inductive reasoning, when applied to familiar stimuli, is predominately the construct of the left hemisphere. Conservatives and even liberals are favoring their left prefrontal cortices in processing familiar situations. But what about when something unusual happens? What happens when something changes, and the predisposition to analyze something in a familiar way is now incorrect?
We have long proposed that conservatives and liberals vary in how they inhibit their selfish and antisocial behavior, which is seen in the dichotomy between conservative morality and liberal empathy. Out of the blue, or so it seemed, David Amodio et al. (2007) took this same tactic in the study of political orientation (see The Amodio Experiment).
His tactic was behavioral inhibition, quite an unusual ploy given the current direction of neuropolitical experimentation, which was focused on various forms of political stimuli, such as photos of politicians and political advertising. The only place where conservatives, liberals, and behavioral inhibition happened to be mentioned was this web site. In any event, the experiment ended up quite well, as Amodio's results were evidence for the theory of liberal and conservative variations in behavioral inhibition.
To briefly review, the Amodio experiment (2007) tested the reaction times of conservatives and liberals as they were deliberately conditioned for a "Go" response to the letter "M" displayed on a computer screen, while intermittently requiring a "NoGo" response to an alternating "W". The liberals were elevated in registering "conflict" related neural activity, that is, the liberals were more responsive to the novel "NoGo" condition.
Further, this elevation correlated with the strength of liberalism. Curiously, Amodio did not report the all-important laterality data, and based on our correspondence, was unaware of any hemispheric asymmetries in his own data. But the gap in laterality data from the Amodio experiment could be filled by Braver et al. (2001), as that experiment confirmed that "inhibition (i.e. No-go responses) identified an almost wholly right-lateralized network". So the liberals were exhibiting a greater neural response to novel stimuli than were the conservatives, and further, this elevated response was localized to the right hemisphere, as would be predicted by the hemisphericity theory of political orientation.
Interestingly, in a virtual clone of Amodio's 2007 conservative-liberal experiment, Amodio et al. (2008) reported a left-hemispheric frontal cortical elevation associated with behavioral activation, the opposite of behavioral inhibition. In this experiment, Amodio linked increased ERN and "NoGo" N2 amplitudes (that were associated with liberalism in his 2007 experiment) to the BIS (behavioral inhibition system), which has historically been associated with the functioning of the right hemisphere (see Demaree et al. for a discussion).
Amodio was focused on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the design of his experiment favored the detection of activation in this region. The ACC was more active in liberals, something to keep in mind when we discuss its relationship to neuroracism.
The Reptiles and I: Belief versus Reason
The human brain is as remarkable in its capacity for reason as in its capacity to subvert it. Evolution has provided a "off" switch for the ordinary deductive and inductive reasoning engines of the brain, tended by the ever watchful eye of self-interest. Without this "off" switch, political behavior might cease to exist.
The current contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is an almost perfect study in the propensity to turn off the ordinary mechanisms of deductive and inductive thought. Both candidates have nearly identical political viewpoints, providing an almost laboratory-like control to expose the political biases associated with race, age, and gender. And the biases are substantial.
In the Mississippi primary, 90% of blacks voted for Obama, while about 70% of whites voted for Clinton. In California, 60% of females voted for Clinton. In Texas, 60% of those with ages 60 and over voted for Clinton, while 60% of those between 18 and 29 voted for Obama.
Why do whites tend to vote for white candidates, blacks for black candidates, older people for older candidates, men for male candidates, and women for female candidates? How do these biases originate, and further, how do they hijack the brain's ordinary reasoning processes to favor outcomes motivated by race, gender, and age?
From the perspective of the neurobiology of political-religious affiliation, two of the most important papers are Goel and Dolan's Dissociation of Mechanisms Underlying Syllogistic Reasoning (2000) and Explaining modulation of reasoning by belief (2003). It would be easy to presume that bias would make its way into the subversion of the more ambiguous process of inductive reasoning. But what about deductive reasoning? Surely that should be immune from human bias?
Far from it. Belief-laden reasoning, according to Goel, is facilitated by a dopamine-fueled left temporal system. This is interesting, since there is substantial evidence for the temporal lobe's elevated role in religious disposition (see Previc's discussion on this), and one of the reasons why we have proposed the left temporal lobe to be a key region in religiosity, while the right temporal (and parietal) lobes are key regions for more ambiguous spiritual constructs.
But we must note that "belief" to Goel was not specifically religious belief, but rather the general bias towards learned responses when confronted with stimuli that counters that learning. Goel found that a bilateral parietal system was activated during belief-neutral reasoning, which "suggests that the neural structures involved in spatial processing are the basic building blocks for belief-neutral logical reasoning". Goel was laying most of the burden of belief-bias firmly on the neurology of the left hemisphere.
Some of Goel's syllogisms would require the subjects to validate the conclusion from a set of premises that ran counter to their learning. For example, let's take a look at this syllogism: no addictive things are inexpensive; some cigarettes are inexpensive; therefore, some cigarettes are not addictive. While this is logically correct, such counter-intuitive syllogisms are accepted as correct by only about one-half of all subjects tested.
Correct responses would engage the right prefrontal cortex, which seems to be countering prepotent or learned responses, and facilitating the correct completion of deductive reasoning tasks. On the other hand, the rejection as false would engage the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). In other words, the VMPFC, along with the left temporal cortex, would prefer biased responses over pure deductive reasoning, and form the neural foundations for the stability of beliefs in the face of contradictory stimuli. The religious conservatives maintain higher levels of belief stability than the liberals (see Who Killed JFK?), and it appears that this left hemispheric system facilitates this.
The Original Sin: The Politics of Reward
The VMPFC is a politically hot region of the brain, and it should be no surprise that it is heavily implicated in the most important behavioral function of the cerebral cortex: reward. Rewards are fundamental to survival, and reward-seeking is the original sin of animal behavior, evolving around three billion years ago in single-celled organisms.
Three billion years later, the human cerebral cortex is still obsessed with reward, and has evolved a sophisticated mechanism to record and compare reward-values, along with the quantitative reasoning associated with selecting alternate reward-seeking strategies. The evolution of the neural substrates of arithmetic and language are deeply enmeshed with the evolution of the reward system. The impact of the reward neural networks on religious and political disposition is immense, and has both facilitated and undermined the accuracy of the deductive and inductive reasoning networks depending on the nature of the stimulus.
The neurological picture of the VMPFC is highly enmeshed in reward, particularly in the evaluation of the value and selection of alternate rewarded outcomes (Arana et al.), which the VMPFC seems to be very specialized for, as opposed to resolving differences between two alternate punishments, or the difference between a reward and a punishment (Blair et al.).
Both the VMPFC and the amygdala, which itself has been implicated in maintaining the reward values for food types (see Arana), are part of the brain's neural network for generating emotive states. The evolution of emotion can be partially attributed to its evolutionary predecessor, the reward system. This is seen today in the strong correlation between the neural networks associated with emotive states, reward seeking, and reward valuation. Indeed, the concept of reward is used heavily in religious contexts. Also note that the VMPFC has been noted by d'Aquili and Newberg to be more active during meditative (prayer) states.
As Goel noted, the left temporal lobe and VMPFC can hijack the normal processes of reasoning, leaving people with the impression that they are being perfectly logical when engaged in agendized political and religious arguments.
The Westen Experiment: Motivated Reasoning
Political pundits have had quite the free ride when it comes to the legitimacy of the logic used in their political arguments. However, what is unashamedly pandered as "logic" can be now be safely filed under "agenda", thanks to Drew Westen. Westen et al. (2006) performed the first experiment highlighting the motivated reasoning associated with political beliefs. Motivated reasoning is similar to Goel's belief-bias, and defined by Westen as "reasoning biased to produce emotionally preferable conclusions". Westen performed fMRI on 30 Democratic and Republican males as they were exposed to a series of contradictory and exculpatory statements about John Kerry and George Bush in an attempt to elicit motivated reasoning.
The Westen experiment evoked a wide range of neural activity, and as the participants encountered contradictory information about their favorite political candidates, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), along with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were activated. In this case, the activation of the anterior cingulate could be interpreted along the lines of the Amodio experiments, that is, the detection of conflict. Also note that in the contradictory versus exculpatory condition, the right lateral orbital frontal cortex was activated, which Westen ascribed to the elicitation of "negative [emotional] affect".
It is interesting to note that Westen et al. detected a rapidly habituating activation of the left amygdala when the subjects were exposed to "emotionally threatening information" about their preferred candidate. In the comparison between the contradictory phase activations minus the exculpatory phase activations, Westen found an elevation in the lateral frontal cortex and left insula activity.
The proximity of these structures to the left temporal lobe is suspicious, in light of Goel's results indicating a left temporal system contributing to "belief-laden reasoning". However, the syllogistic nature of Goel's tasks were quite different from Westen's contradiction-exculpatory political stimulus methodology, so we shouldn't expect the neurological images to be identical. Note also that Goel's experiment (2003) used an equal mixture of males and females, while Westen's was completely male.
When the subjects were presented with exculpatory information about their preferred candidates, Westen noted a large activation in the dopamine-rich ventrial striatum, which is implicated in reward and reinforcement learning. This obviously implies that the conservatives and liberals are stimulating "reward" neural networks when they watch or read political-religious literature, as long as it confirms their favorite viewpoints.
Continuing with the leftward bias of neural activity in the Westen experiment, there was an interesting activation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) that Westen interpreted to facilitate motivated reasoning. That is, the left DLPFC seemed to be engaged in providing a logical argument to support a bias towards one's candidate. This contrasts to the inhibition of belief bias attributed to the right DLPFC in the Goel experiment. Also note that the DLPFC is activated as cognitive tasks become more difficult.
The Westen experiment did not break down neural activation patterns by political affiliation, which ironically is a problem in many neuropolitical experiments. It also does not address the origins of the variations in conservative and liberal cognition.
In any event, the right DLPFC, the inhibitor of belief-bias in the Goel experiment, was not activated in Westen's experiment. However, the left DLPFC was, and Westen interpreted this activation as facilitating the subject's bias towards their preferred political candidate. The VMPFC was activated by contradictory stimuli towards one's preferred candidate, which could be interpreted, in light of Goel's findings, as preserving the bias towards one's preferred political opinions.
It is also interesting to note that the process of experiencing contradictory information about one's politcal viewpoints, followed by favorable information, seems to facilitate the experience of "reward" and reinforcement learning to a greater degree than only being exposed to favorable information. The ubiquitous usage of "point and counterpoint" media strategies during elections (e.g. Clinton versus Obama) may indeed be facilitating greater "highs" in the sensation of reward (and dopamine release) than a steady stream of unchallenged information.
Neuroracism and the Amygdala
Obama's grandparents: countering the white amygdala
Communistic behaviors are common among close family members, which break down into indifference and spite as genetic distance grows. In larger groups, this harsh Darwinian reality surfaces as political behavior. Genetic distance and political polarization are correlated variables, and political and religious behavior promote changes in gene frequencies within a population.
Genes are successful if they pursue the reproduction of themselves. In species that reproduce sexually, this is accomplished by finding a mate with a close genetic match. This sort of "self-love syndrome" that genes have for themselves is a circular evolutionary process: the genes that survive are the ones that are good at surviving, and further, promoting their own reproduction.
The human spectrum of approaches to genetic distance is revealed in their racial preferences for mating. There is indeed quite a divergence by political affiliation, with the conservatives showing a distinctive tendency to prefer their own racial group for reproduction (see Who are the caucasians attracted to?). There is also an interesting divergence in racial preference by gender.
Females are more aware of a potential partner's genetics than are males. This does not necessarily mean they are more prejudiced than males, rather, their higher level of reproductive investment and lower reproductive capacity make them more likely to apply genetic prejudices in mating. In short, males are more oriented towards quantity, and will consider a wider variety of genetics in reproduction--unless they happen to be politically conservative, in which case, their tolerance for genetic distance looks suspiciously like that of females.
In our surveys, over 70% of our respondents indicate some level of racial prejudice, highlighting its deep neurological roots. This self-reported percentage is probably low, as there is good reason to believe that people underestimate their own level of racial prejudice (Vanman et al.).
The first volley in the war of neuroracism was fired by Allen Hart et al. (2000), with their Differential Response in the Human Amygdala to Racial Outgroup vs Ingroup Face Stimuli. The authors selected an equal number of blacks and whites, repeatedly showing them pictures of white and black faces while performing fMRI.
They noted: "across all subjects, we observed significantly greater...BOLD signal in the amygdala to outgroup vs ingroup faces, but only during later stimulus presentations". In other words, when it came to the pictures of the other race, the subjects were still exhibiting bilateral amygdala activity after repeated presentations, while the same-race pictures were having no effect. But was this elevated activity racism?
The amygdalae have the interesting property of "conditioned response", that is, neutral stimuli pick up negative valences when combined with negative stimuli. The amygdalae can also learn emotional responses without ever directly experiencing the negative stimuli. This is especially true of the left amygdala.
After Hart, the amygdala had taken center stage in the study of neuroracism. But the amygdalae were not the only regions reacting to race. Hart noted an interesting activation of the left ventral temporal lobe, which has been implicated in both religiosity and political conservatism, along with Goel's belief bias.
The amygdala-racism connection would gather steam with Phelps et al. (2000). There are several important findings from this experiment, which gave some subtle clues that regions in the brain were indeed competing with each other when it came to racial cognition. Phelps found this out with the combination of three tests: the Implicit Association Test, Modern Racism Scale, and the Startle Eyeblink test. White subjects were found to be impaired in their reaction times in matching black faces with "good" words, although they reported pro-black racial beliefs on the Modern Racism Scale.
While the subjects were undoubtedly steering their responses to socially-acceptable racial attitudes, it is indeed the "steering" neural networks that were counteracting the amygdala's tendency towards facilitating racial bias. Further, Phelps found that activation in the left amygdala and right amygdala (all the way to the insular cortex) were correlated with a negative bias towards black faces on the Implicit Association Test.
However, the only region that was activated in both the Implicit Association and Startle Eyeblink tests was the left-superior amygdala. (Phelps employed a 2 second exposure to the pictures of sequentially alternating whites and blacks). Phelps noted: "the region in the amygdala most strongly correlated with negative evaluation [of black faces] was the left-superior amygdala".
Phelps did a similar experiment, this time using well-known famous black and white faces. The implicit association test results revealed a smaller gap between the famous white and black faces, with whites still being favored. In the Startle Eyeblink test, the famous white faces actually drew a higher startle response than the famous black faces. Further, there were no distinctive differences in the activation patterns of the amygdala to the famous white and black faces. The amygdala was being neutralized.
The Race War Within: The Richeson and Cunningham Experiments
While the amygdala was being much maligned as the neural center for "racist" tendencies, the handful of neuroracism experiments were also hinting at a distinctive tendency for amygdalar inhibition. Something was putting the brakes on the amygdala's racist tendencies. But what?
Enter Jennifer Richeson, the most prolific researcher in the field of neuroracism. In An fMRI investigation of the impact of interracial contact on executive function, Richeson et al. uncovered three critical findings with regards to racial prejudice: it is inhibited by right hemispheric neural networks such as the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate; exposure of whites (with elevated levels of "repressed" racial prejudice) to blacks decreased their prefrontal cortical performance on subsequent cognitive tasks; and, people with lower racist tendencies may be more cognitively efficient in mixed-racial environments.
The implications of Richeson's work are enormous. First, the regular readers of this web site will note the connection between the right hemisphere and liberalism, and Richeson's findings of a right-hemispheric network that inhibits racial prejudice certainly is consistent with the hemisphericity theory of political orientation. Second, racial (or any other type of social prejudice) may carry an evolutionary cost under certain conditions, such as multi-ethnic environments with high levels of economic integration.
Indeed, one function of segregation could be interpreted as facilitating cognitive functioning for those with strong racist tendencies. However, complete segregation in a dynamic secular economy is impossible, and the demands of economic production are a continual assault upon the general tendency for people to isolate themselves genetically.
In a related experiment, Cunningham et al. (2004) would clarify some of the confusion regarding the amygdala's role in racial prejudice. As opposed to the 2 second exposure period of black faces in the Phelp's experiment, Cunningham used two different exposure periods: an subconscious exposure of 30 milliseconds; and, a conscious exposure of 525 milliseconds.
During the subconscious exposure, which was not long enough for most of the subjects to even be aware of the black and white face photos, Cunningham found the right amygdala to be activated in the black minus white condition, which was in contrast to Phelp's finding that "the region in the amygdala most strongly correlated with negative evaluation [of black faces] was the left-superior amygdala". Perhaps Cunningham's rapid and subconscious presentation of the photos exposed the right amygdala's greater role in perceptual monitoring, along with implicating it in racial bias. Longer presentations of racial stimuli favor activation in the left amygdala, at least according to Phelps.
But with the 525 millisecond presentation, the amygdala's racial responsiveness was inhibited, meaning it didn't take very long for another area in the brain to assume control. And that region was located predominately in the right hemisphere, confirming the work of Richeson. Cunningham noted: "the regions Richeson et al. identified as underlying the control of prejudice were nearly identical to the regions identified in this study as being associated with modulation of automatic evaluations".
Thus, a right hemispheric network associated with the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate (ACC) were dampening the reaction of the amygdala to race. But attention to race occurs very early in the process of facial recognition, and there is evidence that activation of the fusiform face area in the brain is actually more sensitive to race than facial features (Golarai et al.).
In fact, race seems to be processed before individual facial features, implicating a phylogenetically ancient process that may have its roots in reproduction and harm avoidance. However, there seems to be a curious connection between the repression of racist tendencies, group size, and the upward spiral of science and technology.
Technology and Racism
The technological state of humankind has been disproportionately fueled by the development of one of the more recent additions to the human cognitive arsenal--the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). It's simultaneous impact on technological advancement and social behavior is one of the more curious coincidences in human evolutionary history.
In both areas, the DLPFC inhibits prepotent responses. It inhibits belief bias, motivated reasoning, facilitates alternate strategies towards problem solving, and sharpens the capacity for inductive and deductive reasoning. But it also functions to increase the size of social groups. The right DLPFC inhibits the natural tendency for genes to recursively replicate themselves into future generations, and in doing so, dampens ethnic, gender, and age bias, and allows humans to organize into very large cooperative social groups.
Racism will likely persist as long as races persist, and its only prevention would be complete genetic homogeneity--a catastrophy for the human species. Gene flow is now under the influence of technology, and the relationship between technological change, group size, and the inhibition of racist tendencies is a close one. Indeed, technological change and genetic diversity are correlated variables.
Barack Obama, an equal mixture of black and white genetics, will indeed be quite a test for the American electorate. In the collective American consciousness, this will be a battle waged primarily between the right prefrontal cortex and the left hemisphere. While the educated white demographic responds well to Obama, exposing the high influence of the right prefrontal cortex in their cognitive styles, his success will be ultimately be determined by how white he can be.
Charles Brack, April 2008
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