Translator: Gözde Zülal Solak Reviewer: Alessandra Tadiotto
Now, I would like to address the question:
Prejudice: Can we cure it?
First, what is prejudice?
How is prejudice defined in social psychology?
Prejudice is an attitude towards a group of people.
It's basically an evaluation that we make of the members of a group of people.
For example based on their race, or based on their ethnicity,
religion, age, etc.
And when I say it is an evaluation,
might it not be that emotions play a role in this evaluation.
That could be positive emotions, but it could also be negative emotions;
such as fear or aggression.
And what if there was a medication to reduce emotional arousal?
Propranolol is a beta blocker
and interferes with a human neurotransmitter
called noradrenaline.
Noradrenaline works centrally, so in the brain,
as well as peripherally regulating emotional arousal.
Therefore, Propranonol reduces emotional arousal
including fear.
And in one particular experiment,
we gave participants either a placebo,
so a sugar tablet, or a single dose of Propranonol
before they underwent a number of psychological assessments
to assess their racial biases.
And we found,
we found that those participants
on the drug showed reduced implicit racial biases.
This is an fMRI scan or functional magnetic resonance imaging
and it allows us to measure the brain activation
whilst participants perform psychological tasks.
This area here, small area highlighted in red,
is the fusiform gyrus.
And the fusiform gyrus s involved in face perception.
But not only does it distinguish between
"This is a face, this is an object."
Already at the very early stage of face processing,
a social categorization happens.
So we automatically categorize a face
according to age, race, and gender.
And what we normally find in our experiments
is that participants show differences in the fusiform gyrus activation
when they view a face of their own race,
compared to when they view a face of a different race.
And in another experiment, what we did was either give
participants a placebo, or again Propranonol
before they underwent a brain scan viewing black and white faces.
And we found,
we found that Propranonol reduced activation differences
towards black and white faces in the fusiform gyrus,
suggesting that the medication interfered with already a very early stage
of face processing in the brain.
Now, these are just a few studies to illustrate, thus indeed,
a biological intervention, a drug, might change our attitudes,
who we are.
So coming back to the question,
Prejudice: Can we cure it?
The answer is, "No."
Why no?
First, it is very difficult to transfer
neuroscience experimental research into the field.
So therefore, in my current research, I'm using immersive virtual reality
to create a more realistic assessment of human behaviour.
And secondly, this is a whole list of side effects of Propranonol.
And inevitably, any drug comes with a large number of side effects.
Because, actually, it's not that simple.
The brain doesn't operate in a very simple manner.
So for instance, there's not really one area for prejudice
or one area for language.
But the brain operates in complex networks.
So therefore, interfering with one particular function
will necessarily produce a number of side effects.
So therefore, currently taking a medication
for other than treatment purposes, is potentially unsafe.
However: Moral Bio-enhancement.
This is a term which Professor Julian Savulescu,
a philosopher and ethicist introduced.
And it basically means this:
In the future, research advances,
and imagine that we'll be then able to more particularly determine
the network in the brain
which was associated with a prejudice.
And then imagine we're able to inject a medication
into this particular area.
And then imagine we were even better able to test the effects
of this medication in, for example,
a virtual environment.
So, imagine if, in the future, it were indeed possible
that we could cure prejudice.
Should we?
This is Professor Zimbardo,
one of the most eminent psychologists,
whose work has always inspired me.
And he has developed the 'Heroic Imagination Project'
which teaches us how we can all now, with compassion
and moral courage, be heroes, and make changes
and maybe cure prejudice even without drugs.
Thank you.
(Applause)