Högskolan i Skövde

The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether the amygdala plays a significant role in implicit racial bias and to explore the possible explanations that may underlie race-related amygdala neural activity specifically in White and Black Americans. In order to answer these questions, a literature review of several studies is presented. Most of these studies have shown that amygdala plays a crucial role in implicit racial bias since greater amygdala activation was positively correlated with greater implicit racial bias. Hence, subjects that showed greater amygdala activation measured by fMRI also showed greater pro-White or anti-Black bias measured by the implicit association test. However, a few lesion studies on a patient (SP) with a bilateral amygdala damage concluded that the amygdala is not critical for implicit racial bias. Further research is needed to determine the actual role the amygdala plays in implicit racial bias specifically when observing Black American faces. Subsequently, alternative explanations that might explain race-related amygdala activation will be discussed briefly. In essence, the familiarity explanation and the culturally learned negative racial bias.