When people are exposed to information that leads them to overestimate the actual amount of genetic difference between racial groups, it can augment their racial biases. However, there is apparently no research that explores if the reverse is possible. Does teaching adolescents scientifically accurate information about genetic variation within and between US census races reduce their racial biases? We randomized 8th and 9th grade students (n = 166) into separate classrooms to learn for an entire week either about the topics of (a) human genetic variation or (b) climate variation. In a cross‐over randomized trial with clustering, we demonstrate that when students learn about genetic variation within and between racial groups it significantly changes their perceptions of human genetic variation, thereby causing a significant decrease in their scores on instruments assessing cognitive forms of prejudice. We then replicate these findings in two computer‐based randomized controlled trials, one with adults (n = 176) and another with biology students (n = 721, 9th–12th graders). These results indicate that teaching about human variation in the domain of genetics has potentially powerful effects on social cognition during adolescence. In turn, we argue that learning about the social and quantitative complexities of human genetic variation research could prepare students to become informed participants in a society where human genetics is invoked as a rationale in sociopolitical debates.

Recently, it has been argued that improving students' genomics literacy could prevent students from developing erroneous beliefs about social identity, such as the belief that racial groups differ cognitively and behaviorally because of their genes; a belief called genetic essentialism. To date, however, little research has explored if or how a conceptual understanding of genomics protects against the development of genetic essentialism. Using a randomized control trial (RCT) (N = 721, 9th–12th graders), we explore if students with more genomics literacy are more able to conceptually change their genetic essentialist beliefs after engaging in a learning experience designed to refute essentialist thinking. The results of the RCT demonstrated that students with higher genomics literacy (relative to those with lower genomics literacy) exhibited greater reductions in the perception of racial differences and greater reductions in belief in genetic essentialism after learning how patterns of human genetic variation refute genetic essentialism. These results suggest that genetics education can protect students from developing a belief in genetic essentialism when it provides them with opportunities to learn multifactorial genetics and population thinking in conjunction with how these concepts refute essentialist thinking.

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Undergraduate genetics courses have historically focused on simple genetic models, rather than taking a more multifactorial approach where students explore how traits are influenced by a combination of genes, the environment, and gene-by-environment interactions. While a focus on simple genetic models can provide straightforward examples to promote student learning, they do not match the current scientific understanding and can result in deterministic thinking among students.