Williams Syndrome, is a genetic condition that causes a lack of social fear - people with Williams Syndrome are really friendly even with people they don't know. Fascinatingly, they also have no or nearly no racial bias, from a recent Discover Magazine article:
Typically, children start overtly gravitating towards their own ethnic groups from the tender age of three. Groups of people from all over the globe and all sorts of cultures show these biases. Even autistic children, who can have severe difficulties with social relationships, show signs of racial stereotypes. But Santos says that the Williams syndrome kids are the first group of humans devoid of such racial bias...
It's very interesting to think about the fact that we are born with a predilection to racial bias. It makes more sense when I think about what I read in Guns, Germs and Steel that said when two tribal people who don't know each other meet each other in Papua New Guinea, they will first start naming off people who are related to each other to see if the other person knows them. If they find a match, they are OK, if they don't find a match, they fight. I guess those conversations could last a very long time.
Serendipitously, I've never heard of Williams Syndrome until this morning. Then Dylan and I visited UMass for an Open House. I talked to Dylan about the story on the drive to UMass (hmmm, is this the kind of conversation that inspired Dylan to want to teach science?). Then not one, but two different speakers mentioned Williams Syndrome in passing during their speeches. Weird. One was talking about the opportunities at UMass and mentioned how he worked with local kids with Williams Syndrome. I forget the context the other speaker mentioned it in. Our tour guide came close to the concept as she was doing her thesis on social contact.
