U.S. researchers found just 7 percent of respondents do not have the usual human tendency to favor one’s own group and not form racial prejudices.
Their study, published in the journal Psychological Science, found the 7 percent of people that showed no racial bias differed from biased individuals in a fundamental way — they also were less likely to form negative emotional associations in general.
Robert Livingston of Northwestern University and Brian Drwecki of the University of Wisconsin asked white college students to do tasks that repeatedly paired unfamiliar Chinese characters with positive or negative images such as puppies or snakes. The results showed non-biased individuals were less likely than biased individuals to acquire negative emotions toward the character paired with negative pictures.