I guess it does lead to preference in the end - but it definitely starts with past exposure/inexposure. I grew up a minority myself and probably have less fear, but I know people who can’t help but actually look nervous because they admittedly haven’t been around enough minority races. That’s a rare case though, as most of Canada’s quite multicultural….

Well, then we can get into the way people are divided even within a ‘multicultural’ city - probably for another post. Melting-pot vs. Assimilation vs. ?subdivisions?…

You make an excellent point. I wonder if this means that subconsciously, everyone prefers one race over the other. Do people naturally want to stick with people of their own race? It naturally seems that way in society.

But why the preference for Euro-Americans over African-Americans? Again, this has to do with the society that we grow up in.

I read about similar tests which actually followed brain activity patterns. This is all from memory from a Popular Science (I think) article: When people who more or less admitted to being racist took the test there was blatantly activity in the part of the brain associated with fear as a first reaction. People who considered themselves to not be racist showed activity in the decision making and judgment part of the brain first which showed that they went through a series of reactions to calm the fear.

So yea, shows in part that even those non-racist ones are working to suppress certain reactions. Either way, at least people try!