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Racism

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Race prejudice

Definition

Discrimination process based on race or ethnicity

Introduction

Evolutionary psychology proposes the evolution of psychological mechanisms as part of the evolution of an organism, pointing out which contexts activate these mechanisms and the behaviors resulting from them; thus, the result of an evolved psychological mechanism is related to the solution of a specific adaptive problem (Buss 2015). In this sense, many of these problems were solved by the natural selection of mechanisms that made social behavior possible (Neuberg and Schaller 2016). For example, living in communities facilitated protection against predators, nurturing of offspring, and maintenance of resources. Nevertheless, the proximity with others also had downsides. The possibility of nonreciprocal collaboration and mating competition, which in some cases would lead to violent and, sometimes lethal, encounters rank as relevant problematic issues in these contexts. Because of that, for...

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References

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Correspondence to Leonardo C. Holanda .

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Holanda, L.C., Meneses, G.O. (2018). Racism. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2811-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2811-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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