Hidden bias

Most people in the United States say they accept interracial relationships, but a new study of brain activity shows some hidden bias.

Researchers surveyed students at the University of Nebraska — young people, not those who grew up in a more overtly racist time — and recorded their brain activity while they looked at pictures of hundreds of couples.

In a survey of attitudes about relationships, the students reported little disapproval of interracial couples. But photos of interracial couples triggered activity in a part of the brain that registers disgust.
[...]
Researchers conducted three experiments from 2013 to 2015, studying the views of college students at the University of Nebraska on heterosexual couples in which one person was black and the other white.

“We chose to limit our investigation to black-white interracial romances because previous research indicates that whites show the strongest opposition to black-white interracial couples,” according to the study. “We chose to avoid adding an additional layer of complexity by restricting our investigation to heterosexual couples.”

In the first experiment, 152 students were asked whether they accepted mixed-race relationships. The respondents were about evenly split between the sexes; 87 percent were white, 5 percent were Latino, 3 percent were Asian, 3 percent black and 2 percent were of some other race.

As part of a longer survey, participants were also asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 100 how disgusted they felt about a black man in a romantic relationship with a white woman, or a white man in a relationship with a black woman. Participants were also asked whether they would date, marry or have a child with a black person. Acceptance was high overall for both sets of relationships, but for those who disapproved, “the less accepting you are of interracial relationships, the more disgusted you are by them,” Skinner said.

In the second study, 19 participants had their brain activity monitored by electroencephalogram (EEG). They were shown 200 real engagement and wedding photos: 50 black men with white women, 50 white men with black women and 50 each of same-race black and white couples.

While sitting in front of a computer, the photos of mixed-race and same-race couples were randomly shown to participants. They were told that they had to quickly respond to whether the couple should be “included” or “excluded” from a future study on relationships by pressing a button that corresponded to each answer.

Researchers found that the insula, a part of the brain that registers disgust, was highly active when participants viewed the photos of the interracial couples, but was not highly engaged when viewers saw the images of same-race couples, whether they were white or black.

“There’s a significant difference between the activation of the insula between interracial and same-race couples,” Skinner said. “The way we have been interpreting that is that people are experiencing a heightened level of disgust when they are socially evaluating or viewing interracial couples relative to same-race couples.”

Rowe, 32, walked up to the couple and, without warning, yelled a racial slur and lunged with his knife, police say. The blade grazed the woman and went into the man’s hip, according to a news release from Olympia police.

“The suspect is unknown to the victims and the attack appears to have been unprovoked,” police said in the statement.

After the attack, Rowe ran off as stunned onlookers dialed 911. The 47-year-old male victim, not realizing how badly he was injured, chased Rowe and “tripped him up,” said Lt. Paul Lower, a police department spokesman. Rowe hit his head on the ground and was knocked unconscious.

No one involved had life-threatening injuries, but police said Rowe’s behavior grew stranger as officers tried to wrestle him into the back of a patrol car.

“He tells them, ‘Yeah, I stabbed them. I’m a white supremacist,'” Lower said. “He begins talking about Donald Trump rallies and attacking people at the Black Lives Matter protest.”

According to court documents obtained by the Olympian, Rowe, who was unconscious when police encountered him, had tattoos that read “skinhead,” “white power” and “hooligan.” One tattoo showed the Confederate flag.

Rowe was arrested and booked into the Thurston County Jail on two charges of first-degree assault and possible malicious harassment, which in Washington state is a designation used for hate crimes. The investigation continues.

“This has all the hallmarks of a hate crime,” Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Wheeler said at Rowe’s court hearing Wednesday, according to the Olympian. “This black-and-white couple was simply expressing their love for one another.”