Within a moment of seeing the photograph of an apparently homeless man, for instance, people’s brains set off a sequence of reactions characteristic of disgust and avoidance. The activated areas included the insula, which is reliably associated with feelings of disgust toward objects such as garbage and human waste. Notably, the homeless people’s photographs failed to stimulate areas of the brain that usually activate whenever people think about other people, or themselves. Toward the homeless (and drug addicts), these areas simply failed to light up, as if people had stumbled on a pile of trash. We were surprised—not by the clear sign of disgust, but by how easy it was to achieve. These were photographs, after all, not smelly, noisy, intrusive people. Yet we saw how readily physical characteristics could evoke strong, immediate, and deep-seated emotional reactions. Results like these have obvious implications for racial prejudice, which is often elicited by similarly superficial characteristics. Indeed, a great deal of recent research has shown how our knee-jerk biases are directed toward members of other races.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 11:46:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015