<p>Let me be clear that my intentions here are peaceful in light of recent race relation issues in the United States; I want to bring this issue to the forefront, because fear of dark skinned people is an emotional response and NOT a logical one.</p>

<p>I'm wondering how much of this maladaptation is brought about by a deep subconscious childhood fear of the dark.  </p>

<p>Now of course there are cultural aspects to this as well; too much emphasis on "Good" being light, and "Dark" being bad; I am already aware of these and already know that they have no correlation at all with a persons skin color; the color of a persons skin has absolutely nothing to do with the moral compass of a person.</p>

<p>It seems to me if a maladaptation like this could be proven; it would help people with such a fear to go "oh no, that's non-sense, that's just my emotions acting up".</p>

<p>Is there any evidence or studies that have proven this?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-11T01:51:44.910Z
I doubt there's any empirical evidence specifically for this question, but the link seems highly unlikely given how many strange assumptions that would need to be met (e.g., adult racists vs. non-racists are more likely to be afraid of the dark as children, humans lack the intelligence to symbolically distinguish a dark room vs. dark skin, etc.). To be fair though, [there is a relevant study](http://psp.sagepub.com/content/29/5/637.short), but it doesn't quite answer your question.
mrt
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-11T01:51:48.763Z
Also, just FYI, logic and emotion are not opposing constructs. Literally all cognition/behavior is imbued with some sort of affective undercurrent. It's a fundamental feature of consciousness
mrt
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-11T02:31:06.487Z
@mrt Right; emotion is more like statistics that cause you to pick a a solution from too much logic.
leeand00
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-11T02:55:18.340Z
Affect is just a mental representation of sensory input from the body, which provides information about homeostasis (allostasis).  And emotions are categorizations of our affective experience (e.g., happy, sad, angry).  Affect/emotion is not about decision-making per se.
mrt
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-11T03:10:45.867Z
@mrt Isn't it?  I heard on Radiolab about a guy who lost his emotion in a cancer brain survey and couldn't any longer make a quick decision.
leeand00
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-11T03:32:58.360Z
Affect/emotion is certainly integral to decision-making, but to define it in terms of decision-making would have limited explanatory power (see [teleology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology#Teleology_and_science)).  Although if we want to define affect/emotion in terms of its purpose, the most unifying answer would involve maintenance of bodily homeostasis/allostasis.
mrt
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-13T20:20:15.363Z
Emotion processing is not well separated from other cognitive processing, so it's unlikely that loss of emotion caused decision-making problems.  The more likely explanation for the Radiolab case is that brain damage caused both the difficulty in processing emotion and difficulty with decision-making.  Re the question: There is evidence of racism having both genetic and cultural components, and 15-month old babies already show evidence of racism: http://www.dailystormer.com/study-shows-racism-is-part-of-a-toddlers-natural-behavior/ - deep-rooted early childhood traumas are not needed.
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-13T23:30:12.600Z
There are many studies which can **possibly** shed some light on this subject and all the studies I have seen and heard of, such as the "shoot, don't shoot" studies (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32740523) highlight that it is not just whites who seem to have this fear, but there are people of other races who have these fears too. The one strong theory that has been put across is that it is due to propaganda and social conditioning brought about through biased news media reports and images in movies and TV shows. Look at how fear of the Muslim faith has increased recently.
Chris Rogers
<emotion><color><anxiety><fear><phobia>
Is fear of darker skinned people a shared psychological maladaptation brought on by subconscious childhood Achluophobia?
leeand00
# Is fear of darker skinned people a shared psychological maladaptation brought on by subconscious childhood Achluophobia?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-12-10)

Let me be clear that my intentions here are peaceful in light of recent race relation issues in the United States; I want to bring this issue to the forefront, because fear of dark skinned people is an emotional response and NOT a logical one.

I'm wondering how much of this maladaptation is brought about by a deep subconscious childhood fear of the dark.

Now of course there are cultural aspects to this as well; too much emphasis on "Good" being light, and "Dark" being bad; I am already aware of these and already know that they have no correlation at all with a persons skin color; the color of a persons skin has absolutely nothing to do with the moral compass of a person.

It seems to me if a maladaptation like this could be proven; it would help people with such a fear to go "oh no, that's non-sense, that's just my emotions acting up".

Is there any evidence or studies that have proven this?

**Tags:** emotion, color, anxiety, fear, phobia

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I doubt there's any empirical evidence specifically for this question, but the link seems highly unlikely given how many strange assumptions that would need to be met (e.g., adult racists vs. non-racists are more likely to be afraid of the dark as children, humans lack the intelligence to symbolically distinguish a dark room vs. dark skin, etc.). To be fair though, [there is a relevant study](http://psp.sagepub.com/content/29/5/637.short), but it doesn't quite answer your question.  
> **username_1**: Also, just FYI, logic and emotion are not opposing constructs. Literally all cognition/behavior is imbued with some sort of affective undercurrent. It's a fundamental feature of consciousness  
> **username_0**: @username_1 Right; emotion is more like statistics that cause you to pick a a solution from too much logic.  
> **username_1**: Affect is just a mental representation of sensory input from the body, which provides information about homeostasis (allostasis).  And emotions are categorizations of our affective experience (e.g., happy, sad, angry).  Affect/emotion is not about decision-making per se.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 Isn't it?  I heard on Radiolab about a guy who lost his emotion in a cancer brain survey and couldn't any longer make a quick decision.  
> **username_1**: Affect/emotion is certainly integral to decision-making, but to define it in terms of decision-making would have limited explanatory power (see [teleology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology#Teleology_and_science)).  Although if we want to define affect/emotion in terms of its purpose, the most unifying answer would involve maintenance of bodily homeostasis/allostasis.  
> **username_2**: Emotion processing is not well separated from other cognitive processing, so it's unlikely that loss of emotion caused decision-making problems.  The more likely explanation for the Radiolab case is that brain damage caused both the difficulty in processing emotion and difficulty with decision-making.  Re the question: There is evidence of racism having both genetic and cultural components, and 15-month old babies already show evidence of racism: http://www.dailystormer.com/study-shows-racism-is-part-of-a-toddlers-natural-behavior/ - deep-rooted early childhood traumas are not needed.  
> **username_3**: There are many studies which can **possibly** shed some light on this subject and all the studies I have seen and heard of, such as the "shoot, don't shoot" studies (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32740523) highlight that it is not just whites who seem to have this fear, but there are people of other races who have these fears too. The one strong theory that has been put across is that it is due to propaganda and social conditioning brought about through biased news media reports and images in movies and TV shows. Look at how fear of the Muslim faith has increased recently.  

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## 0 answers

