COULD racism be innate, a by-product of our evolutionary heritage? The idea has gained tentative support in recent years.
It rests on the assumption that violent competition between groups of early humans encouraged our ancestors to fear outsiders. If this innate fear remains to this day, it may in part explain negative attitudes to people perceived as different.
and colleagues at Michigan State University in East Lansing tested an aspect of the hypothesis 鈥� that women have evolved a desire to avoid being sexually coerced by an unfamiliar man during their fertile period.
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The team randomly assigned 85 women to one of three colour-coded teams, and found that women who were ovulating showed a subconscious prejudice against men whose T-shirt colour identified them as belonging to a different team 鈥� these women were quicker to categorise words such as 鈥渟pider鈥� as negative when shown photographs of the men (Psychological Science, in press).
Navarrete says the result may suggest that 鈥渞acism is a by-product鈥� of our evolution, but more study is needed.