Summary: Olsson et al. (2005)

Animals can learn to associate negative events with environmental stimuli (classical fear conditioning). Race bias and fear condition potentially rely on overlapping neural systems. Therefore, Olsson et al. (2005) aimed to further understanding of basic learning theory and social group interaction by investigating how the mechanisms of fear conditioning apply when humans learn by classical fear conditioning in a sociocultural context. They also assessed whether a bias in fear conditioning extends to social groups defined by race. Prepared fear learning is generally demonstrated as persistence to fear-relevant conditioned stimuli in the learned fear response. They conducted two experiments to test whether fear responses acquired to outgroup and ingroup faces persists during extinction (relative to each other). Their results show that individuals from a racial outgroup are more readily associated with an aversive stimulus. However, Olsson et al. (2005) indicate that this response might be reduced by close, positive interracial contact. They postulate that humans might have evolved a more general preparedness to fear others who are dissimilar to themselves or their social group because such individuals were, historically, more likely to pose a threat.