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12/29/2008: "Science discovers a lack of empathy between races"

The results of the study, reported in the December issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that we are better able to detect anxiety in members of our own racial group than in people of different racial backgrounds. Only the same-race observers detected an increase in anxiety when participants were engaged in an interracial encounter; different-race observers failed to detect this change. And even more interesting, only the same-race observers noticed changes in anxiety that matched up with the participants' actual stress levels (as determined by measuring cortisol).

The authors suggest that "race-matched observers appeared to draw upon subtle nonverbal indicators of intergroup anxiety that were undetectable to race-mismatched observers." They note that being out of tune to the emotional states of people from different backgrounds "may make it difficult to develop a sense of shared emotional experience."

[ "People from different backgrounds" is not really what they mean. What they mean is people who are racially (therefore very genetically) different - race is not "background". After all, you can have people from a variety of backgrounds who are still the same race - and this research suggests they can detect anxiety amonst each other. But scientists are on thin ice with such politically incorrect, yet biologically correct, observations. ]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222122605.htm