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People start stereotyping¹ early. Even toddlers react positively² to members of their own race, but often distrust those from different groups. The seeds of racism³ are planted in most everyone. Everyone, that is, except people with a rare genetic⁴ condition called Williams syndrome⁵.

Williams syndrome is marked by heart defects, mental retardation⁶, and a lack of social anxiety that produces exceedingly friendly human beings. And a new study published in the journal Current Biology finds that children with Williams syndrome don’t make racial stereotypes⁷.

Researchers re-did previous social-bias experiments on 20 children with Williams syndrome and 20 control kids. The children viewed pictures of people of assorted⁸ races and genders¹⁰ and assigned negative or positive storylines to each picture. True to form, the control group preferred their own race and gender⁹. The children with Williams syndrome, however, had no racial preference—although they still discriminated¹¹ by gender.

The results imply a nuanced neural¹² mechanism¹³ to stereotyping, the further study of which “may suggest ways of reducing biased¹⁴ behavior towards vulnerable or marginalized groups.”

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Adam Hinterthuer.