Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life

by Rory Sutherland

Some evolutionary psychologists, most notably Robert Kurzban, believe that racial prejudice is a relatively weak force in human psychology since for most of evolutionary history we wouldn’t have encountered people of a different ethnicity. We might, rather, be heavily predisposed to attaching ‘outsider status’ to people who speak with a different accent to us, since such distinctions would have been experienced more frequently. Coming from a country that historically was obsessed with accents,* this does seem worth investigating. Would a privately educated Nigerian be at a disadvantage in seeking a job in London in competition with a white Liverpudlian with a strong Scouse accent? I rather doubt it. Kurzban’s work suggests that prejudice depends on context; we may be more prone to ascribe ‘outsider status’ to someone of a different ethnic background, but this does not mean that we cannot easily adopt anyone of any ethnic background into an ‘in group’ in a different setting.