People with Williams Syndrome lack 26 genes found in a typical human genome. As a result they are inordinately friendly, and experience no social anxiety. Now a new study reveals that they may also be free of racial bias.
PRAM-II consists of a picture book where every page includes a pair of people of different genders or skin types. The researcher tells a selection of stories to accompany the images and the children have to point to the person whom they think the story is about. As they hear positive or negative adjectives, they reveal any underlying racial bias if they point to light-skinned or dark-skinned people, or men or women, more frequently.
The typical children showed a strong tendency to view light-skinned people well and dark-skinned people poorly. Out of their responses, 83% were consistent with a pro-white bias. In contrast, the children with Williams syndrome only showed such responses 64% of the time, which wasn’t significantly different from chance.
So it would seem that removing social fear from the human emotional range might also cut down on racism. Though it’s worth noting that it wouldn’t help with sexism, since Williams Syndrome kids scored close to typical kids when it came to gender bias. But there are also problems with the PRAM test, which limits children to choosing either white people or people of color – there is no option to choose both, or “either one.”
Still, we’re left with further evidence that racial bias and racism are connected to social fear. Now all we need to do is sit back and wait for the studies that show whether taking meth helps eradicate racial bias too.
Also, I’d like to point out to everyone that link underneath the headline sounds like a horribly hilarious scientific story.