In a new study, Michigan State psychologist Carlos David Navarrete used mild shocks to make black and white men and women fearful other black and white men and women. That is, white men were conditioned to be fearful of black men and white men as well as black women and white women, and so forth with the others. Then Navarrete observed to see if these fears lasted or not.
The findings, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, were intriguing and unexpected. It's known that people are more fearful of "out-groups" - that is, people who are different from them, and this fear of "the other" has been clearly demonstrated with race. But Navarrete found that volunteers' most persistent fears were reserved for men - that is, male members of the out-group. So white men and women feared black men, and black men and women feared white men; all the other lab-induced fears, including any conditioned fear of women diminished.
Why would gender influence these ingrained fears as much as race? It may be that men were more often the aggressors over evolutionary time, so that male faces became a potent cue for danger. So xenophobia is not an equal-opportunity emotion. Association for Psychological Science:
um. wow. I'm trying to think of the social implications of this article, but I'm having trouble finding good, optimistic ones. It's ok to fear black men if you're a white woman because years of evolution have conditioned you to do so? It's ok to harrass women if you're a man because you're only doing what your ancestors did? It seems to me that on a personal level, yes, it would be helpful to investigate your own ingrained biases in order to overcome them, but what can this study do for society as a whole? Where do we go forward from this? As always concerns me, connecting such things to genetics or evolution gives the sense that there's nothing we can do about it so we might as well stop trying to overcome racism and sexism. I guess the hopeful bit here is the fact that people who have close relationships with members of other races held onto the conditioned fears for less time. Surprise surprise, loving one another rids us of our fears.
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Your concern over connecting behavior to genetics and claiming evolutionary application is insightful as it's a favorite of EPs (evolutionary psychologists) and one they use to get us to do precisely what you state:there's nothing we can do about it so why try.
It's a neat trick to control your sexual beliefs and behavior, but a trick nonetheless--a fallacious, but effective method of manipulation designed to meet their agenda. Ignorance, fear, self-doubt, and coercion are their weapons.
Our current behavioral characteristics have nothing to do with our biologic disposition and are certainly not evolutionary, they are cultural constructs, based entirely on the past 3,000 years of patriarchal male domination. Prior to that time, our ancestral women had no fear of men or of domination. If only more of us would demand evidence-based data and eschew ideology, as you do, then we will continue to make progress toward our individual autonomy.
Thanks for the post.