"When we talk about the concept of race, most people believe that they know it when they see it but arrive at nothing short of confusion when pressed to define it." E. Higginbotham (1992, p. 253)

Race is a topic that has been explored throughout the history of social psychology research. Typically, this research has focused on how our conceptions (or preconceptions) of race affect our attitudes and behaviors. There is a long line of research examining phenomena such as prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination, in-group bias, stereotype threat, self-fulfilling prophecies, and a whole range of related issues. One could argue that an underlying assumption of this research is that all humans are fundamentally equal, regardless of race. In the academic world, there has been consistent support this notion (Anderson & Nickerson, 2005; Sternberg, Grigorenko, & Kidd, 2005); however, folk notions of race, as a fundamental biological difference, still persist in the United States and many countries around the world (Jayarantne, Ybarra, Sheldon, Brown, Feldbaum, et al., 2006;Smedley & Smedley, 2005; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008).

These folk notions, sometimes referred to as biological essentialism, suggest that there are distinct races with distinct physiological and mental characteristics. Nonetheless, scientific research consistently indicates that race is primarily a social construct that does not reflect any significant biological differences (Ossorio, 2006; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Why then do these folk notions persist? It can be explained, in part, by a lack of education about race; however, efforts to educate the public can, ironically, reinforce misunderstandings about race. This article will discuss how folk notions of race relate to prejudice, stereotyping, and racism, as well as, how media coverage of genetic research may inadvertently reinforce those views. Also, I will explore research from social psychology, evolutionary psychology, and genetics in an effort to demonstrate that race is fundamentally a social construct.

Traditional folk notions of race in the United States were often based on the notion of biological essentialism—different races reflect distinct biological groups (Smedley & Smedley, 2005). For many years, this belief helped to fuel racist beliefs and to justify discrimination. While one could argue that traditional explicit forms of racism have declined in the United States, stereotyping, prejudice, and racism remain a major social problem. Moreover, recent social psychological research indicates that these racist attitudes continue to find justification in biological explanations (Bastian & Haslam, 2006; Jayarantne, et al., 2006; Keller, 2005;Williams & Eberhardt, 2008). For instance, Jayarantne and colleagues using randomized phone interviews found that approximately 51% of white adults in the United States believe that there is a genetic explanation for racial differences in individual’s drive to succeed, math ability, the tendency to act violently, and intelligence (Jayarantne, et al., 2006).

In another study sampling college students, Keller (2005) found that participants’ belief in biological essentialism correlated with increased levels of stereotyping and prejudice. This suggests that belief in biologically distinct races may reinforce stereotyping and prejudice. Williams and Eberhardt (2008) conducted a study that examined the relationship between biological conceptions of race and individuals’ motivation to crossracial boundaries. They found that participants who conceived of racial groups as biologically determined were more accepting of racial inequalities and less interested in interacting with racial out-group members. In light of this research, one could argue that folk notions of race continue to justify and reinforce stereotypes, prejudice, and racism; however, there has been little research conducted to determine how these notions are formed and maintained.

Condit and colleagues conducted a study that may shed some light on this issue. They found evidence that the media coverage of developments in genetic research may reinforce the public’s folk views of race (Condit, Parrott, Bates, Bevan, & Achter, 2004). In one study, they presented individuals with a mock public service announcement that described the potential links between race, genes, and heart disease. A group of predominately white college students from a large university in the southeastern United States were randomly assigned to one of four audio messages: 1) linked heart disease and genes (no race specified), 2) linked heart disease and genes (specifying "Blacks" as participants), 3) linked heart disease and genes (specifying "Whites" as participants), and 4) was a control condition where the participants received no message. After hearing the message (or not in the case of the control group), participants’ levels of racism and their belief in a genetic basis for that racism were measured using a variety of scales. These scales included the Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, Hardee, & Batts, 1981), the Racial Denial Scale (Entman & Rojecki, 2000), and the Genetically-Based Racism Scale (Condit, Parrott, Harris, Lynch, & Dubriwny, 2004, all scales cited in Condit et al, 2004). The participants who listened to the message linking heart disease to genes for "Black" participants were found to exhibit significantly higher levels of racism, as well as, an increased belief in a genetic basis for that racism, when their results were compared to those of participants in the other conditions. In other words, just hearing that some genetic markers for heart disease are more likely to be found "among black men and women" appears to increase racism, and more disturbingly, seems to provide a quasi-scientific basis for that racism (p. 404).

This is not the first time that scientific discoveries have been used to support racist ideology. In the early twentieth century, for example, Darwin’s theory of evolution was appropriated by those who believed that distinct races existed and that some races were inferior to others. For instance, the Eugenics movement, also known as Social Darwinism, suggested that we should selectively breed humans to enhance desirable traits and reduce undesirable traits (Hawkins, 1997). Based on this quasi-scientific rhetoric, there were efforts in the United States and other countries to forcibly sterilize those with physical and mental impairments (Larsen, 2004). In the most extreme example, Eugenics was the backbone for the Nazi’s notions of racial purity and part of their justification for genocide (Proctor, 1988).

In light of the increasing prominence of genetics research in the media, it is important that the public understand the true complexity of human genetics and its relationship to race. Empirical studies in psychology have consistently demonstrated that most basic psychological processes do not differ significantly across cultural, ethnic, or racial groups. In other words, the basic physiology of our nervous system is essentially the same for all humans. When we do find minor differences in basic psychological processes such as visual perception or memory, instead of suggesting racial groups are fundamentally different, cross-cultural research has found evidence that these differences are due to a complex interaction between development and the socio-cultural environment (Ross & Milson, 1970; Segal, Campbell, & Hersokovits, 1963, 1966). In other words, psychological differences found between races are a result of the human mind’s ability to adapt to different environments. So, it is not race that determines differences in mental abilities across cultures, but the influence of culture and the environment. Nonetheless, there are, of course, some physical differences between members of different racial groups.

The most obvious difference, variation in skin color, appears to have evolved to help early humans adapt to a range of climatic conditions (Bamshad & Olson, 2003; Ossorio, 2006). Darker skin, for example, is associated with our ancestors that lived near the equator, where more radiation from the sun reaches the Earth. Melanin, the hormone that produces skin pigmentation, works as a natural sunscreen protecting our body from harmful radiation. Even short-term exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation will result in an increase in melanin, temporarily darkening the skin (i.e., a suntan). Over thousands of generations, individuals that were better able to produce melanin were more likely to survive the harmful effects of UV exposure and thus more likely to live long enough to pass on their genes to their offspring.

On the other hand, we need to absorb some sunlight to enable our body to metabolize vitamin D. Human populations that migrated into northern climates gradually evolved to have less pigment in their skin. Less ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaches the surface as one moves away from the equator; therefore, melanin is not as crucial for survival in northern climates. Having too much melanin could even be harmful by preventing enough radiation to penetrate the skin to metabolize vitamin D. Also, consider that much of this change happened during an ice age, where humans dressed in clothes that covered most of their skin. This might have made the transition from dark to lighter skin occur at an accelerated rate because these humans had to absorb the required dose of sunlight through smaller patches of exposed skin (Ossorio, 2006). Overall, these climatic differences led to small mutations in the genes that produce melanin. In other words, differences in skin color are caused by small variations in the genes that are responsible for melanin, not because there are fundamentally different types of humans. Arguably, if you were to relocate lighter-skinned people to the equatorial region and those populations remained there for a few thousand years, their skin color would eventually become darker.

Geneticists are discovering that there are very few biological differences between the "so-called" races (Bamshad & Olson, 2003; Bonham, Warshauer-Baker, & Collins, 2005; Foster & Sharp, 2002; Ossorio, 2006). Furthermore, this research indicates that the very notion of race is an inaccurate way to categorize human variation. and Olson (2003), for example, determined that the hair, skin color, and facial characteristics that are typically associated with race are determined by a very small number of genes. Furthermore, they found that the rest of the genes that define human beings were much more similar between the so-called "races" than different. Research that directly compares the human genome of individuals from different racial groups indicates that there is more genetic variation within these groupings than between them (Pääbo, 2001; Bamshad and Olson(2003), for example, indicate that 90% of human genetic variation occurs within a continent’s population; whereas, differences across continents can be accounted for by approximately 10% of genetic variation. At first this may seem counterintuitive; however, these statistics simply point out that most of the differences between individuals (i.e., 90%) are due to factors that have nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or where one’s ancestors lived. While, we might appear to be very different on the surface, we are more alike than we appear. To test this we could take any two individuals at random from anywhere around the world and compare their genomes. They may appear very different on the surface, but genetically, they could be strikingly similar.

Yet, another issue that complicates attempts to compare racial groups is determining how to define these groupings. When looking at the genome of the modern human, geneticists are finding that the typical individual has genetic markers from multiple ancestral sources (Ossorio, 2006). In other words, even if there were distinct races at some point in the past (which is unlikely), the average individual today descends from ancestors belonging to many different regional, ethnic, and racial groups. For instance, there is no person alive today that is distinctly of European or African descent, let alone distinctly "white" or "black." If you look within or between any group(s) of humans you will see a continuous spectrum of skin color; there is no cut- off point that determines whether someone is "black" or "white."

Nonetheless, one of the benefits of decoding the human genome is that we are finding links between certain genetic variations and disease. The genes for sickle cell disease, for example, are more likely to be found in humans that have ancestors from Africa or the Mediterranean; while, cystic fibrosis is more common among those of European descent (Bamshad & Olson, 2003). Identifying who has these and other genetic markers for disease will help us to better treat and even prevent disease in the future; however, outward appearance is not always the best indicator of an individual’s origins. An individual can have European ancestors and have brown skin; likewise, an individual can have ancestors from Africa or the Mediterranean and appear light skinned. While skin color can be an indicator of some of one’s ancestors, this is not always an accurate way to determine one’s heritage. Furthermore, while some diseases are more likely to occur in some populations, we must be careful that this information does not lead to discrimination or the reinforcement of stereotypes (see Condit et al., 2004).

So, how should we think about race? Perhaps we should move from the level of categorizing based on skin color to thinking about family trees. Everyone is descended from a particular line of ancestors. Those lines have intersected with many other family lines over the millennia and ultimately those lines all originate from the same family of the first modern humans in African between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago (Behar, Villems, Soodyall, Blue-Smith, Pereira, et al., 2008; Caporael, 2004; Relethford, 2008). Take any two humans at random and their genomes will be 99.9% genetically similar to each other (Collins, Green, Guttmacher, & Guyer, 2003; Foster & Sharp, 2002). Of the 0.1% differences, only a small fraction of those are associated with racial or ethnic variation. While genetic research may find links between disease and genetic ancestry, we must keep in mind that no one is purely of any one racial group or ancestry. There is a rich diversity in how the human genome is expressed; yet, in the end, we are much more similar than different. We all descend from the same family, the human family. In light of the increasing amount of genetic research and its potential negative influence on racism, it is important that we conduct research that examines how folk notions of race are formed and how we can better help the public understand the relationship between genetics and race.

References

Anderson, N.B., & Nickerson, K. J. (2005). Genes, race, and psychology in the genome era [Special issue]. American Psychologist, 60 (1), 5-8.

Bamshad, M. J., & Olson, S. E. (2003). Does race exist? Scientific American, 289 (66), 78-85.

Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (2006). Psychological essentialism and stereotype endorsement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 228-235.

Behar, D. M., Villems, R., Soodyall, H., Blue-Smith, J., Pereira, L., Metspalu, E, et al. (2008). The dawn of human matrilineal diversity. American Journal of Human Genetics, 82 (5), 1130-1140.

Bonham, V. L., Warshauer-Baker, E., & Collins, F. S. (2005). Race and ethnicity in the genome era: The complexity of the constructs. American Psychologist, 60 (1), 9-15.

Caporael, L. R. (2004). Bones and stones: Selection for sociality. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 3-4, 195-211.

Collins, F. S., Green, E. D., Guttmacher, A. E., & Guyer, M. S. (2003). A vision for the future of genomics research: A blueprint for the genomic era. Nature, 422, 835-847.

Condit, C. M., Parrott, R. L., Bates, B. R., Bevan, J. L., & Achter, P. J. (2004). Exploration of the impact of messages about genes and race on lay attitudes. Clinical Genetics, 66, 402-408.

Condit, C. M., Parrott, R. L., Harris, T. M., Lynch, J. A., & Dubriwny, T. (2004). The role of "genetics" in popular understandings of race in the United States. Public Understanding of Science, 13, 249-272.

Foster, M. W., & Sharp, R. R. (2002). Race, ethnicity, and genomics: Social classifications as proxies of biological heterogeneity.Genome Research, 12, 844-850.

Hawkins, M. (1997). Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860-1945: Nature as model and nature as threat.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Higginbotham, E. B. (1992). African-American women’s history and the metalanguage of race. Signs, 17 (2), 251-274.

Jayarantne, T. E., Ybarra, O., Sheldon, J. P., Brown, T. N., Feldbaum, M., Pfeffer, C. A., et al. (2006). White Americans’ genetic lay theories of race differences and sexual orientation: Their relationship with prejudice toward blacks, and gay men and lesbians. Group Process and Intergroup Relations, 9 (1), 77-94.

Keller, J. (2005). In genes we trust: The biological component of psychological essentialism and its relationship to mechanisms of motivated social cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88 (4), 686-702.

Ossorio, P. N. (2006). About face: Forensic genetic testing for race and visible traits. Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, 34 (2), 277-292.

Pääbo, S. (2001). Genomics and society: The human genome and our view of ourselves. Science, 291, 1219-1220.

Proctor, R. (1988). Racial hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Relethford, J.H. (2008). Genetic evidence and the modern human origins debate. Heredity, 100 (6), 555-563.

Ross, B. M., & Millson, C. (1970). Repeated memory of oral prose in Ghana and New York. International Journal of Psychology, 5, 173-181.

Segal, M. H., Campbell, D. T., & Hersokovits, J. (1963). Cultural differences in the perception of geometric illusions. Science, 193, 769-771.

Segal, M. H., Campbell, D. T., & Hersokovits, J. (1966). The influence of culture on visual perception. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Smedley, A., & Smedley, B. D. (2005). Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real. American Psychologist, 60 (1), 16-25.

Sternberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L., & Kidd, K. K. (2005). Intelligence, race, and genetics. American Psychologist, 60, 46-59.

Williams, M. J., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2008). Biological conceptions of race and the motivation to cross racial boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94 (6), 1033-1047.