Abstract
Much research has shown that people tend to view genes in rather deterministic ways-often termed genetic essentialism. We explored how people would view the causes of ethnic stereotypes in contexts where human genetic variability was either emphasized or downplayed. In two studies with over 1600 participants we found that people viewed ethnic stereotypes to be more of a function of underlying genetics after they read an article describing how ancestry can be estimated by geographic distributions of gene frequencies than after reading an article describing how relatively homogeneous the human genome was or after reading a control essay. Moreover, people were more likely to attribute ethnic stereotypes to genes when they scored higher on a measure of genetic essentialism or when they had less knowledge about genes. Our understanding of stereotypes is a function of our understanding of genetics.
Highlights
Csanad Szegedi, member of the European Parliament, converted to living his life as an Orthodox Jew at the age of 30
What do people believe is the cause of these ethnic differences? Do they think that they are largely the result of people’s cultural experiences, or do they think of them as the result of innate, genetic factors? how does learning about population variation in genetics affect people’s views about the underlying causes of ethnic differences? In this paper, we explore how people’s theories about the bases of ethnic differences are affected by encounters with scientific descriptions of population variation in gene frequencies
Because social dominance orientation is associated with more prejudicial attitudes towards outgroups [39], we explored how this variable would relate to people’s understandings about the causes of ethnic stereotypes
Summary
Csanad Szegedi, member of the European Parliament, converted to living his life as an Orthodox Jew at the age of 30. What makes his conversion remarkable is that shortly before his conversion he was the vice president of the anti-Semitic Jobbik Party in Hungary, and had published a book full of anti-Semitic sentiment. Why would such a person convert to Judaism? Despite being raised as a Christian, and not having any Jewish experiences, Szegedi came to identify himself in line with his genetic ancestry [2]
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