Discord Over DNA: Ideological Responses to Scientific Communication about Genes and Race

Abstract

The American public's beliefs about the causes of social inequality vary greatly, with debates over the causes of racial inequality tending to be the most salient and divisive. Among whites in particular, liberals tend to see inequality as rooted in society's ills, whereas conservatives tend to see inequality as rooted in individuals’ shortcomings. Given this, many infer that white conservatives are more likely than white liberals to adopt the controversial view that racial inequality is “natural,” i.e., due to genetically inherited characteristics. We argue that genetic explanations for racial inequality, in and of themselves, offer little appeal to white conservatives. However, when white citizens are exposed to media messages that emphasize the egalitarian implications of genetic similarity between racial groups, those on the left and right engage in biased assimilation, resulting in a “nature” (conservative) versus “nurture” (liberal) divide. Data from two studies of white Americans—one representative survey and one experiment—support this theoretical framework.

Asymmetrical genetic attributions for prosocial versus antisocial behaviour

“…Our findings add to the substantial body of existing evidence suggesting that factors beyond the inherent quality of biological explanations for behavior can influence people's likelihood of endorsing them. [24][25][26][27][28] The findings have specific real-world implications, particularly for situations in which genetic explanations for antisocial behavior are deployed strategically, such as when genetic evidence about a defendant is introduced in court as a means of seeking more lenient sentencing. If people are generally resistant to genetic explanations for antisocial behavior-including crime, as we observed in Study 6-judges and jurors may be unlikely to be swayed by such evidence.…”

“…22,23 Additionally, there is ample evidence that people's willingness to accept genetic and other biological explanations for the behaviors and characteristics of others often depends on factors beyond the intrinsic quality of the explanations themselves, including aspects of the perceivers' own social identities and whether they view the genetic explanations as consistent with their preexisting social and political commitments. [24][25][26][27][28] Although to our knowledge no research has examined how the moral valence of a behavior affects its likelihood of being attributed to genetic causes, a variety of studies have uncovered other kinds of intuitions and judgments about behavior that can be influenced significantly by moral considerations. [29][30][31] One well established example is that people attribute more agency, intentionality, and control to actions that have negative consequences than to those with positive consequences.…”

Toward a more humane genetics education: Learning about the social and quantitative complexities of human genetic variation research could reduce racial bias in adolescent and adult populations

“…Such individuals try to convince other people that racial stereotypes are caused by genetics because they want to mislead people into thinking that racial inequality is natural and therefore not worthy of redress (Graves, 2015;Morning, 2011;Smedley & Smedley, 2005). People who have been misled may then use stereotypes as a way to make sense of the social world around them, further reinforcing the false idea that racial inequality is genetic (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004;Morin-Chassé, Suhay, & Jayaratne, 2017). Next, we told students that a second possible reason why people tend to believe misleading information about the race is because people live in segregated communities in the United States (Allport, 1954;Clark, 1991).…”

“…Therefore, people will tend to believe misinformation about race and genetics because no one has ever taught them an alternative way of thinking (e.g., Figure 1). This alternative explanation that we offered to students is grounded in social constructionist research about racial bias, such as literature on socialcontact theory (Allport, 1954;Pettigrew, 1998;Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), ideologically motivated reasoning (Morin-Chassé et al, 2017;Morning, 2011), and racial categorization (Chao, Hong, & Chiu, 2013;Williams & Eberhardt, 2008).…”

Learned inequality: Racial labels in the biology curriculum can affect the development of racial prejudice

“…For example, the curricular materials in the racial condition may have caused an increase on the GBRI amongst students who tend to be more prone to expressing racial bias whereas those same materials could have had no effect or the opposite effect on students who tend to be less prone to expressing racial bias. Several scholars have uncovered experimental effects in samples of adults using conceptually similar treatments which are consistent with this explanation (Morin‐Chassé et al, ; Morrin‐Chassé et al, ; Ramsey et al, ) Unfortunately, random effects models do not tell us whether variation in slope estimates reflects natural variation between students or differential responses to the same treatment moderated by pre‐existing prejudice. Therefore, it is impossible to determine whether the differential response to treatment reflects ideologically motivated reasoning or natural variation in the treatment effect.…”