A team of researchers coordinated by the psychologist Ruben T. Azevedo, from the Royal Holloway Faculty, at the University of London, has found that what we think about people of other races can vary depending on when our brain processes information that comes from the heart . That is, whether or not we come to the conclusion that they constitute a threat depends in part on whether our heart muscle is contracting to drive blood – systole – or, on the contrary, whether it is dilating for vital fluid to penetrate. in him – the diastole.
To determine this, the scientists examined the heart rate of 32 Caucasian people who were shown a series of images in which black and white individuals appeared. They carried different objects, such as a mobile phone, a tool or a weapon. Azevedo and her collaborators observed that when they were shown a photo of an African-American during systole, they were almost 10% more likely to indicate that he was carrying something dangerous , even if it was only a smartphone.
In an article published in the journal Nature Communications , these experts point out that this inclination to take a harmless object for a weapon when it is carried by a person of another race is a bias that explains in a way some studies carried out recently in the United States. They indicate that if the police shoot down a person, there is twice the chance that the person is actually unarmed when it is an African American.
According to Azavedo’s team, the heart and brain communicate constantly, and this is an example of how certain stereotypes can have a physiological dimension and not only a cultural one and influence our behavior, even in those people who do not consciously support them.
Image: The All-Nite Images via Flickr / CC
