Cypherpunks executive function.

[Professor Rat.]

HealthScoutNews) -- People who are racist may suffer a temporary lapse in 
mental capacity after interacting with people who are members of a racial 
minority.

Researchers from Princeton University and Dartmouth College found that 
white people with a high degree of racial basis experienced a decrease in 
"executive function" after spending time talking with black people. Their 
research appears in the May issue of Psychological Science.

Executive function is a key element of thought that involves the ability to 
fix attention on certain, high-level mental tasks.

The study included 59 white college students. They were given a test to 
assess the degree of racial bias in their thinking. The students then spent 
time talking with either a black or a white person and afterwards were 
given a test that measured their ability to concentrate on a challenging 
mental task.

The more racially biased the students were, the worse they did on the 
mental task after speaking with a black person. But racially biased 
students who spoke with a white person, even if they discussed racially 
sensitive issues, had no decline in mental function.

"When you have to control your behavior, it takes a lot of energy. And if 
you expend energy in a social interaction, then you don't have so much left 
over to do something else," researcher Nicole Shelton says in a news release..

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