As a journalist and a cognitive scientist, I often write about the psychology underlying the seemingly-nonsensical and unwavering support for President Donald Trump, and a very common response in the comments section goes something like, “It’s not that complicated. They are racists, plain and simple.”

While that may be true for a portion of Trump supporters (and perhaps Trump himself), is it really simple? What do we mean exactly when we say someone is racist? An even better question—what are the neural and psychological characteristics of a racist mind? By analyzing the pathways in the brain that underlie racist thought and behavior, we can better understand how this nasty bias is created, and potentially, how to mitigate

The Neuroscience of Racial Bias

First of all, how do we know that racial biases actually exist? While some may claim that they have no biases, a clever psychological experiment provides objective evidence supporting the notion that the vast majority of us do. In theimplicit bias task, participants are shown words on a computer screen like “happy” and “fear,” which they must categorize as positive or negative. What results have consistently shown is that if a black face is quickly flashed […]