Race differences in behaviour: A review and evolutionary analysis

Awareness of vitiligo among multi-ethnic populations

BACKGROUND

Vitiligo is a common acquired pigmentary disorder reported worldwide. Although asymptomatic, vitiligo negatively affects the patients' quality of life because it provokes psychological stigmatization and social discrimination. There are several misconceptions regarding vitiligo.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge of and attitudes toward vitiligo in the general population and in different ethnic groups.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was conducted during which the participants were required to watch a brief video portraying a waitress affected by vitiligo and to fill a questionnaire related to the video content. Participants were recruited from among people who visited a private international hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, and who freely accepted to participate in the study.

RESULTS

Out of 405 participants who voluntarily participated in the study, approximately 30% were able to identify the condition as vitiligo. Approximately 66% and 88% of the participants had sufficient knowledge about and positive attitudes toward vitiligo, respectively. Those with sufficient knowledge scores significantly had more positive attitudes (p = 0.001). However, there were some differences among ethnic groups (p < 0.0001). Arabians had the highest knowledge and attitude scores. Regarding close-relationship attitudes, Asians tended to have perceptions that were different from that of others.

CONCLUSION

Knowledge of and attitudes toward vitiligo varied among ethnicities. Only 30% of the study population could identify this condition. Arabians had the highest knowledge score, whereas Caucasians had the highest prevalence of positive attitudes. Therefore, global awareness of vitiligo should be emphasized.

Race as Social Construct

It is often claimed that race is a social construct and that scientists studying race differences are disruptive racists. The recent April 2018 “Race Issue” of the widely distributed National Geographic Magazine (NG) provided its millions of readers with a particularly illustrative example of this position. As discussions of race issues often recur, in both scientific and lay literature, stir considerable polemics, and have political, societal and human implications, we found it of both scientific and general interest to identify and dissect the following partly overlapping key contentions of the NG race issue magazine: (1) Samuel Morton’s studies of brain size is reprehensible racism (2) Race does not relate to geographic location, (3) Races do not exist as we are all equals and Africans, (4) Admixture and displacement erase race differences as soon as they appear, and (5) Race is only skin color deep. Also examined is the claim that Race does not matter. When analyzed within syllogistic formalism, each of the claims is found theoretically and empirically unsustainable, as Morton’s continuously evolving race position is misrepresented, race relates significantly to geography, we are far from equals, races have definitely not been erased, and race, whether self-reported or defined by ancestry, lineage, ecotype, species, or genes, is much more than skin color deep. Race matters vitally for people and societies. We conclude that important research on existing population differences is hurt when widely respected institutions such as NG mobilize their full authority in a massively circulated attempt to betray its scientific and public readership by systematically misrepresenting historical sources and scientific positions, shaming past scientists, and by selectively suppressing unwanted or unacceptable results–acts included as examples of academic fraud by the National Academy of Sciences (US, 1986). Any unqualified a priori denial of the formative evolutionary aspects of individual and population differences threatens to impede the recent promising research on effects of genome wide allelic associations, which would lames us in the vital quest to develop rational solutions to associated globally pressing societal problems.

Differential Use of Reproductive Strategies by Human Groups?

J.P. Rushton has presented a series of articles proposing that different racial groups, having evolved under different environmental conditions, have been differentially selected, resulting in genetic differences in their reproductive behavior, intelligence, and “social rule-following.” Rushton's model is discussed with respect to two controversial points: criticisms of the nature of the data and analyses, and alternative explanations of the data. I concur with Rushton in the belief that different human groups utilize different strategies, but find the differential use of species-wide, environmentally contingent tactics a more parsimonious explanation than genetic differences.

Theory and Research on `Race' as a Natural Kind Variable in Psychology

This article examines a portion of the theory about and research on `race' in the field of psychology. Specifically, we examine whether the construct of `race' can be used efficaciously as a natural kind variable that explains data in psychological inquiry. The foregoing consideration involves an exploration of the so-called `biological/genetic' bases of `race' from the conceptual paradigms of (a) mutual exclusivity and inalterablity and (b) gradations on a continuum of genetic data. Our critique of these positions suggests an abdication of `race' as a natural kind variable because both of the above arguments for the concept are ultimately incoherent given the genetic data that they seek to explain. Consequently, `race' as a natural kind variable cannot explain psychological data. However, because the idea of `race' has become diffused into societies, `race' should be studied as a purely cognitive concept that influences social perception.

Examining the Potential for Academic Achievement among Inuit Children

A longitudinal design was used to examine intellectual potential and development of analytic intelligence among Inuit children in Arctic Quebec. Children completed the board form of the Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) on four occasions during the first two years of formal education. Inuit children's CPM scores were consistently higher than age-appropriate U.S. norms and were comparable with data for White children in southern Quebec. In addition, the scores of children with two Inuit parents did not differ significantly from those of children with mixed Inuit/White heritage. Finally, language of instruction and teacher's ethnicity did not affect scores. In terms of the capacities measured by the CPM, Inuit children do not appear to be deficient in intellectual capacity at the time of entry into school. The factors that contribute to their academic under-achievement appear to do so by preventing the learning of specific classroom materials rather than affecting their intellectual development.

Culture-Fair Cognitive Ability Assessment

Valid assessment with diverse populations requires tools that are not influenced by cultural elements. This study investigated the relationships between culture, information processing efficiency, and general cognitive capacities in samples of Caucasian and Mexican American college students. Consistent with the neural efficiency hypothesis, pupillary responses (indexing mental effort) and detection accuracy scores on a visual backward-masking task were both significantly related to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) Full Scale scores. These measures of information processing efficiency were similar in the two groups. However, they were related only to Caucasian American, but not to a comparable sample of Mexican American, students’ WAIS-R scores. Therefore, the differential validity in prediction suggests that the WAIS-R test may contain cultural influences that reduce the validity of the WAIS-R as a measure of cognitive ability for Mexican American students. Information processing and psychophysiological approaches may be helpful in developing culture-fair cognitive ability measures.

Rushton's Defenders and Their Hasty Rejection of the Null Hypothesis

Rosenthal and Rubin (1985) pointed out that in research on extreme situations (e.g., new treatments for terninally ill patients) any noticeable statistical trend in the desirable direction is valuable. It should be published even if it is of low magnitude and fails to meet our traditional criteria of statistical significance. Their approach is now being misused by those defending Rushton's (1988) "theory" about American Blacks (based on weak trends in excessively suspect data sets). Hasty and eager acceptance of weak, biased, and unrepresentative data as scientific evidence of genetically based and relatively immutable racial differences in human potential amounts to psychological warfare on oppressed racial groups. Similar defamation of vulnerable minorities by Nazi pseudoscientists led to the loss of millions of human lives in the past. Statistical theory classifies similar endeavors as a Type I error (a misleading rejection of the null hypothesis).

J. P. Rushton's Aggregational Errors in Racial Psychology

Contrary to Rushton 's postulates, aggregating large cohorts of methodologically weak studies leads to misleading conclusions. The review of his data shows that nonprofessional skull collections were included (race was possibly estimated from skull size) and the impact offactors, such as infant malnutrition and climate, on cranial or brain size was ignored. Statistical reanalyses of cranial data show that cranial size (a) is not a viable indicator of intelligence and (b) is similar in Negroids and Caucasoids from the same settings: It varies with the standard of living and climate (smaller crania are found in underdeveloped, wanner countries), not with race.

Ethnic Stigma as a Contextual Experience: A Possible Selves Perspective

This article critiques trait views of stigma that suggest that membership in a negatively stereotyped group leads to low self-esteem and self-hatred, and it builds from Erving Goffman's theorizing to define stigma as the expectation of a stereotypical and discrediting judgment of oneself by others in a particular context. Students (40 of color and 46 European American) watched a videotape of a prospective teaching assistant (TA) in an experiment in which ethnic match with the TA and frequency of imagined evaluation by the TA were manipulated. Students of color envisioned less positive views of self in ongoing interactions with a European American TA who would evaluate them in the domain of the stigma. Implications for stigma theory and education are discussed.

Evolutionary pathway of child development : Lifestyles of adolescents and adults from father-absent families

An evolutionary theory of socialization suggests that children from father-absent families will mature earlier, and form less-stable pair bonds, compared with those from father-present families. Using a sample of about 1,000 persons the recent study focuses on elements of father-absent children's behavior that could be better explained by a Darwinian approach than by rival social science theories. As a result of their enhanced interest in male competition, father-absent boys were found to engage in rule-breaking behavior more intensively than father-present boys. Compared with father-present children, adolescents from widowed households (both boys and girls) showed a higher intensity of various kinds of noncompliant behavior, which can be linked to their earlier maturation. School attendance, age at marriage, and marital success proved to be influenced by the children's early family experiences, governed by adapted evolutionary strategies. Father-absent daughters conceived more children than those whose fathers were present during their childhood. As evolutionary theory predicts, reproductive behavior of individuals from divorced households differed from that of individuals who grew up in widowed households. Finally, the strong correlation found between spontaneous abortion/stillbirths and family arrangement indicates that father absence has certain direct impacts on the neurohormonal processes of child development.

Cultural and reproductive success in industrial societies: Testing the relationship at the proximate and ultimate levels

In most social species, position in the male social hierarchy and reproductive success are positively correlated; in humans, however, this relationship is less clear, with studies of traditional societies yielding mixed results. In the most economically advanced human populations, the adaptiveness of status vanishes altogether; social status and fertility are uncorrelated. These findings have been interpreted to suggest that evolutionary principles may not be appropriate for the explanation of human behavior, especially in modern environments. The present study tests the adaptiveness of social status with actual mating and reproductive data in a representative sample of males from an industrial society. Reproductive success, even when assessed by a more reliable measure ofactualmale fertility than the one commonly used, fails to correlate with social status. In striking contrast, however, status is found to be highly correlated withpotentialfertility, as estimated from copulation frequency. Status thus accounts for as much as 62% of the variance in thisproximatecomponent of fitness. This pattern is remarkably similar to what is found in many traditional societies and would result in a substantial positive relationship between cultural and reproductive success in industrial populations were it not for the novel conditions imposed by contraception and monogamy. Various underlying mechanisms are suggested for these findings, illustrating the value of current behavioral and reproductive data in the study of adaptation. It is concluded that evolutionary explanations of human behavior remain entirely relevant in modern societies.

Group differences: is the good society impossible?

‘From a black perspective…the notion that a black (who passes for white) might reclaim his ethnic identity to take advantage of preferential admissions can only trigger an almost inexpressible sense of outrage.’ (Livingston, 1979)

‘Turning an elephant loose in a crowd offers everyone, except the beast and his rider, equal opportunities of being trampled.’ (Tawney, 1931)

Ethnic and gender differences in sexuality: variations in sexual behavior between Asian and non-Asian university students

Seven hundred and two (346 non-Asian, 356 Asian) undergraduate volunteers were assessed in a confidential laboratory setting on levels of interpersonal sexual behavior (e.g., petting, intercourse), intrapersonal sexual behavior (e.g., fantasy, masturbation), and sociosexual restrictiveness (e.g., lifetime number of partners, number of "one-night stands"). The purpose was to examine possible differences in sexual behavior between Asian and non-Asian Canadian university students and to determine the association between North American residency and the sexual behavior of Asians. The role of gender on sexual behavior both across and within ethnic groups was also examined. Statistical analyses revealed that Asian students were significantly more conservative than non-Asian students on all measures of interpersonal sexual behavior and sociosexual restrictiveness. Significant differences were also noted between Asian and non-Asian students on most measures of intrapersonal sexual behavior. With the exception of two fantasy items, length of residency in Canada was unrelated to interpersonal sexual behavior, intrapersonal sexual behavior, or sociosexual restrictiveness among Asians. Although gender differences were substantial for intrapersonal sexual behaviors such as fantasy and masturbation, no significant gender differences were found for measures of interpersonal sexual experience, with the exception of reported number of one-night stands.