 By: Robert Kurzban, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides PowerPoint By: Kate & Marla Can race be erased?

 People encode the race of people they encounter via both automatic and mandatory computational processes – categorizing them by race as a precondition for differential treatment.  The experiments in this study are aimed at showing the process of encoding by race evolved to detect coalitional alliances and such processes are reversible.  With less than 4 minutes exposure to an alternative social world, subjects not only will reduce their racial encoding but some cease all together  Suggesting that, racism may be a volatile and eradicable construct when linked with parallel systems of social alliance.

 Race will not be equally influential across all social contexts.  People do NOT have to look alike for the formation of coalitions to occur.  Arbitrary cues endowed with the same appearance of racial cues can infer racial alliances.  The strength of racial encoding can be diminished via social context.  Sex will be more influential than race.  Sex will not be an influential factor when forming coalitions even though it is more influential than race itself.

 Memory Confusion Protocol o Recalling Errors  No verbal or visual coalition cues present. 1) Subjects are asked to form impressions of people who they will see conversing with one another. – Rival Basketball Teams 2) Then are displayed with a sequence of sentences along with a picture of the person who said those sentences. 3) Picture and corresponding sentences are taken away. 4) A surprise recall test is then administered.

 All speakers were young men, represented by a photo.  They were all dressed completely alike.  Only verbal cues could imply coalition. o “You were the ones that started the fight.”  Race and sex are visible but do not imply coalition in any way. Why did you all do that? You were the ones that started it.

 Identical to experiment one except visual cues were added.  Members who were “grouped” in experiment one, were “grouped” in experiment two.  Yellow and grey shirts separated coalitions.  Could infer coalition status through verbal or visual cues. Why did you all do that? You were the ones that started it.

 Experiment One o Even though race was a factor, subjects encoded solely on verbal cues for coalition membership. – Confirming Prediction 2 o Subjects also encoded racial information of targets, forming social categories on this basis. o The effect of race was twice as large as the effect of coalition.  Experiment Two o Visual cues increased encoding accuracy. o Influence of race diminished substantially when visual cues were added. o Visual cues (shirts) were encoded stronger than race.  Overall o Verbal Cues Only = Race encoded stronger. o Visual Cues & Verbal Cues = Coalition encoded stronger.

 Methods were identical to experiments 1 & 2 except: o The sex of the targets were varied instead of their race. o Sex – unlike race – is a good candidate for a primary representation that our minds evolved to encode across most if not all dimensions.

 Subjects in Exp. 3 & 4 were categorized by coalition as in Exp. 1 & 2. Coalition Effect size: Cues for racial coalition: Exp 3 Exp 4 Exp 1 Exp 2 Utterances alone Amplified SEX Amplified.84  These results contrast with Exp. 2 in that in Exp. 2 sex was always encoded more strongly than coalition.

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13 Racial tensions as populations merged RACE CAN BE ERASED… Present day…