Williams Syndrome is a genetic defect that deprives children of the ability to read social danger signals. They are at higher risk of being victimized.
The silver lining of this risk, though, is that they do not have social anxiety. Little kids with a normal genetic configuration strongly favor their own race at three years old. Williams syndrome kids do not. Researcher Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg concluded that racism requires social fear.
Equally interesting, I think, is that Williams syndrome kids are just as likely as other kids to see strong differences between males and females.
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The article neglected to mention that those with Williams Syndrome typically have IQs in the 60s, which is about 35 points off the norm. In other words, they're mentally retared.
True. And the study was of three year olds. Adults of every level of intelligence get more sophisticated about not simply preferring their own group to others. Nonetheless, the disparity between sex typing and race typing is really striking.
i'm really surprised that 3 yr olds prefer their own race. i havent observed that.
the toddlers i've seen seem pretty oblivious to racial differences.
in any case, i don't think a child of that age should evr be categorized as 'racist'. no little tyke has enough agency or ego strength to be mmuch of anything except a voraceous learner.
A truer title would be " People with severe mental retardation are not racist". Duh!
Sounds like agenda pushing to me. How astonishing!
You state that "adults of every level of intelligence get more sophisticated about not simply preferring their own group to others." Really? Have you every walked through the cafeteria at large corporations? I worked at a corporation and in our building, we have about 4000 engineers (fairly intelligent group). Go through the cafeteria and you will see table after table grouped by race and we are not grouped like that in the departments. I believe you would see this in universities and corporations alike. There are no race issues in our building but there is security and comfort in being with those who are like you and who understand you.
Three year olds will openly state that they like children who are the same color as they are. Most adults don't.
Gruntled said...
Three year olds will openly state that they like children who are the same color as they are. Most adults don't.
Here is a simple question for you.
Do you like adults that are the same color as you?
I know that color is not a good indicator of whether I will like someone.
Nice dodge.
No dodge, just good sociology. Color is not a good indicator of culture.
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