What Makes Something Genetic vs Enironmental?

Actually - it is genetic - to an extent. Humans are tribal by instinct - the size of our societies are not natural, they are the result of over-breeding. You can stuff people into one area, you can't MAKE them get along. We subconsciously code empirical data into categories. So you are basically grouping or tagging people and things automatically before you even consciously think about them. That's the first step.

I hear people all the time getting bent out of shape "Don't label people." Um.......labeling is what makes communication possible at all. Where the bigotry is formed in the labeling process is when negative categorization happens. If for some reason someone sees a member of a categorical grouping as "unusual" - which in survival instinct, automatically makes them suspect, you have an automatic bigotry.

While some bigotry can be resolved by contact - that's why governments force integration, some of it never will be if the norms of the group "catagorized" just don't fit with the person or group doing the catagorizing. A lot of the bigotry in the US is claimed to be "racial" - that is skin color. It is not. Because people tend to gravitate to their own kind, cultural experience and many norms within a sub-group will remain distinct from the larger society - and it is those differences that make sub groups targets of bigotry by other sub groups. If enough people remain bigoted against a culture, some will adhere to that bigotry on the basis of differences they can immediately perceive.

That's one reason that countries (all of them) need to only allow immigration in small amounts and slowly. The immigrant should expect to have to understand and appreciate the culture they are moving into. If many immigrate all at once and in numbers enough to retain their own culture instead of melting into the one they are "invading" - you get major problems, and there's not a damned thing anyone will ever do about that as long as humans can communicate at all.

With identical twins, you would expect a higher value. NO CORRELATION!

AGAIN!!!!! With identical twins, you would expect a higher value. NO CORRELATION!

OK, that is IDIOTIC! To have identical twins with the SAME upbriinging marry identical twins with the SAME upbringing? How often does that happen AT ALL!? BESIDES, divorce is due to abuse or financial hardships or intent.

AGAIN!!!!! With identical twins, you would expect a higher value. NO CORRELATION!

OK, FIVE with NO correlation, so HOW do they figure there IS one?

Steve

Actually - it's not "genes" - it is biological hard-wiring of the brain. I misspoke when I said it was gentic, kinda. SO is the jerk that wrote the article. He's behind the times by at least 3 or 4 decades. Probably getting some good funding though for that nonsense.

By "article", I meant the study - what I was talking about actually was the conclusion that bigotry is genetic. It's not "genetic" it's instinct - brain hardwiring that has nothing to do with genes. That was the part of the study I picked up on because of my own background in cognitive sciences.

TB - Kurt.........

I don't mean dislike toward any particular group is hardwired. I mean in any group, there will be a group or two that will not be liked. The root of disliking someone because of their membership of another group is instinct.

Kurt - communication IS instinct. Communication systems are so hardwired that any time you isolate 2 humans, they will develop a language. Being hardwired is what makes it instinctual - all animals have communication instinct. It's so strong that if the human is feral, they will develop communication abilities with whatever animal(s) they run with. If this weren't so - survival of our species (any species) would be impossible.

Bigotry is "hate" toward a person based on the fact they belong to a group that you don't like. Why don't you like that group? Could be several reasons. But whatever. Where did your dislike come from? You probably learned it socially considering the complexity of our societies now. Where did your sub-culture's dislike come from? Some form of mistrust, sense of danger, etc. That gets the group coded into negative categorical associations in the language dept of your brain. That's why politicians wrongfully think if they don't allow a certain bigoted word, they can wipe out the bigotry. It's not really that simple because the negative connotations will just be transferred into whatever word they decide is the "official" right one for the group.

You don't have to be able to SEE what group the disliked group belongs to - in fact, if people can't SEE automatically that someone is a member of the group they are bigoted against, they will often like that person until they find out. Serious. The hatred isn't always race or religion. It can be ANY sub-culture...........and remember a sub-culture can be as simple as a hobby group (that's a bizarrely extreme example, but a sub-culture is any group with norms strong enough to develop a group ethos.

For example - Look at the way democrates, republicans, liberals, and conservatives in the US are going at each other. There is actually a bigotry developing that is so strong that some people hate the others as soon as they find out that someone belongs to one of those. You can't SEE political affiliation, per say, but there is a deep hatred between extreme liberals and extreme conservatives. Don't say that hate isn't there because I know people of both extremes that would be just glad to kill the other if they could do it without jail time. That's true bigotry, it's just based on ideology - same as religion.

Okay - now, bigotry can be reversed. TB - in your case I would say that your exposure was broad enough that you never developed any negative to those particular groups and it sounds like your family/community wasn't bigoted against any of them. If you look hard enough, you will find a group you don't like, though. What group is it that you might avoid a member of just because you know they are part of that group? If you say there is none, you don't understand the issue, or you are in denial because you've been exposed to groups that would think that it's not kewl or okay to be like that.

Bigotry first develops because a particular group represents a threat of some sort to another group, that's how it gets coded in the brain - the groups that represent the largest examples of bigotry, color, nationality, religion, are carried on generation after generation even long after any threat or difference that started it has gone away because it is perpetuated socially long after the threat is gone. You can, however, have personal bigotries that do not extend to the rest of your society or sub-culture.

This is a real hard issue to explain in the context of a forum. It takes a pretty solid knowledge of how the brain receives and pushes info through into different departments for coding, associates it with other departments of info, and how it is stored and retrieved.