A new study published on racism, one of humanity’s biggest ongoing problems, has revealed a solution to racism. Scientists reported that experiences with different cultures can reverse racial prejudices.
Through brain imaging, scientists identified neural networks that become particularly active when people feel empathy for others. Past research has also revealed that it is precisely this activity in people’s brains that creates racial bias. The team leading the latest study also examined whether sociocultural experiences could reverse these biases.
Students who spend a little and a lot of time in China were compared:
For their study, the scientists sampled 35 white students from North America and Western Europe currently studying in Beijing, China. Students in the experimental group spent 6 to 36 weeks in China, while students in the control group only spent 2 to 4 weeks.
In the study, students were shown a set of human faces that were either white or Asian and featured neutral or bitter expressions. Participants rated the intensity of the ‘pain’ of each face and the extent to which each face triggered its own painful emotions. In this process, the magnetoencephalography method was used to record the neural responses of the people.
The brain activity of those who spent more time in the different culture also changed:
The results revealed that the group of students who had just spent 2 to 4 weeks in China showed a stronger neural response to pain expressions on white faces than Asian faces. However, these participants also performed better at distinguishing pain in white faces from neutral faces.
On the other hand, participants who spent 6-36 weeks in China showed a higher neural response to pain in Asian faces, in contrast to the control group. Also, this group showed more neural activity in the right insula and sensorimotor areas after seeing the painful expressions on Asian faces as opposed to white faces.
According to the scientists, these results suggest that it is possible to reduce racial prejudice through empathy through interaction with other cultures in a new environment. However, since the number of participants in the study was very small, larger studies are needed to fully prove this.
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