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"This is the first study to report the absence of racial stereotypes in any human population,"
Children with the genetic condition known as Williams syndrome have unusually friendly natures because they lack the sense of fear that the rest of us feel in many social situations.
Now, a study reported in the April 13th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, suggests that children with Williams Syndrome are missing something else the rest of us have from a very tender age: the proclivity to stereotype others based on their race.
The children with Williams syndrome did make stereotypical sex role assignments just like normal children. That finding suggests that different forms of stereotyping arise from different brain mechanisms, the researchers say, and that those mechanisms are selectively affected in some way by the genetic alteration that causes Williams syndrome (the loss of about 26 genes on chromosome 7).
The most common symptoms of Williams syndrome are mental retardation, heart defects, and unusual facial features. Other symptoms include: failure to gain weight appropriately and low muscle tone.
Individuals with Williams syndrome are highly verbal and overly sociable (having what had previously been described as a "cocktail party" type personality), but lack common sense and typically have inhibited intelligence. Individuals with WS hyperfocus on the eyes of others in social engagements.
Individuals with Williams syndrome also experience many cardiac problems, commonly heart murmurs and the narrowing of major blood vessels as well as supravalvular aortic stenosis (SVAS). Other symptoms may include many gastrointestinal problems, such as abdominal pain and diverticulitis, as well as hormone problems, the most common being hypercalcemia (elevated calcium levels in the blood). Hypothyroidism has been reported to occur in children, yet there is no proof of it occurring in adults, whereas diabetes has been reported to occur in adults with WS as young as 21 years old.
Originally posted by GENERAL EYES
So, if I understand what you are saying correctly - you are hoping there might be some way to isolate the positive effects of this syndrome in the future?
What about the countless number of people with no known genetic variance that predisposes them to regard their fellow humans as equals, dispite visual differences?
Is racism purely a genetic issue, or a psycho-social/environmental one?