This time, we're going to talk about a drug that reduces prejudice.
Do you have a prejudice about someone or something?
Are left-handed people smart? Are Chinese people lazy? and so on.
In my opinion, a person who is a messy driver is also a messy driver in other areas.
It is said that prejudice is a psychological emotion that is taken to protect the community, and if the prejudice becomes extreme, it can lead to the destruction of the opposing community.
I would like to introduce a study on drug treatment for prejudice.
Details of the study
Thirty-six healthy Caucasian volunteers were randomized to receive 40 mg of propranolol, a beta-blocker, or a placebo in a double-blind study.
One to two hours after the administration of the drug, the participants were asked to take a latent association test about race.
In this latent association test, they were shown pictures of blacks and whites on a PC monitor and asked to rate them favorably or negatively.
The results.
Propranolol tended to decrease heart rate and reduce racial prejudice.
The placebo group did not seem to show any of these signs.
However, the question remains, rather than the success or failure of the latent association test, did the drug really have an effect? It is difficult to say.
Also, it seems that no neurological examination was conducted, so the argument that the medication may have affected the amygdala is also a valid one. It is also a mystery whether the argument that the medication may have affected the amygdala is correct or not.
Terbeck S, et al.
Propranolol reduces implicit negative racial bias.
Psychopharmacolgy (Berl). Psychopharmacolgy (Berl). 2012;222:419-24
Conclusion
The study showed that the drug intervention did change feelings about race.
However, it seems that the effects of drugs are not completely proven.
In order to survive, people have to belong to a community, but in order to protect themselves, they try to exclude "outsiders" with thoughts and feelings of prejudice.
One example that comes to mind is the behavior of refusing to mix with a group of friends you are playing with.If such behavior becomes too much, it can lead to bullying, discrimination, and war. Rather, it is important to know that psychology has explained such mechanisms in human behavior.
