Fear might be driving bias against pretty horses in Connemara breed inspections

In November 2012, I examined the motives behind Connemara breed inspections against the backdrop of research conducted by Yale’s Baby Lab. The research suggested that infants are born with a built-in bias to connect with others they perceive as being like them.

I wasn’t sure what to conclude about the latest trend in Connemara breed societies for the top officials, basically the “in” crowd, to approve of and celebrate coarse-looking horses while rejecting refined horses, unless one wanted to draw the conclusion that these officials saw themselves in the coarser horses.

There was no basis for a bias toward coarser horses as far as the Connemara’s history was concerned. The breed historically was a mutt, a blend of many coarse and refined breeds, and any folklore that suggested the breed was one thing or another was simply folklore. The science didn’t bear that out. In fact, research published in the UK in 2010 indicated that Thoroughbreds descended in large part from Connemaras and Irish Drafts, which would lend even more weight to the idea that refined genes lived in Connemaras going back generations.

Since I posted the Baby Lab analysis, I have felt the need to continue down this evolutionary path to find an answer.

I have been stymied by why a group of seemingly pleasant horse owners in the Connemara breed society in America would suddenly be so determined to exclude horses that didn’t have the coarse physical features that they preferred.

This is bizarre behavior in the 21st century, a time when bullying has become especially unacceptable and the diversity of the nation has changed along with its definition of beauty. If appearance and beauty preferences are constantly evolving, why would this group be so insistent that a horse breed not be allowed to change, as well?

I had my theories as to why one inspector was so dead set on excluding refined Connemaras: Her coarser horses had been badly beaten in the show ring in the late 1970s by the more refined lines, and she was now targeting those lines in inspections. She might reach the flawed conclusion that, if she eliminated the refined horses in inspections, her horses would win again.

But this inspector wasn’t alone. She had quite a following of people willing to go along, even willing to be inspectors and fail refined horses.

It mirrored the exact type of discriminatory and bullying behavior that one would find in a school playground, but these were adults who ought to know better.

So what could be driving this group?

“Fear of a threat” seems to be the answer, according to Arizona State University, which has launched the Origins Project to study xenophobia.

Xenophobia is a fancy word for why people behave one way toward their “in” group and another way toward the “out” group.

I can definitely attest to the fact that refined Connemaras are the “out” group right now, and I would say dark-colored Connemaras are also unwelcome, even though they have fewer skin cancer problems than white horses.

The Origins Project videotaped a debate among experts on July 2, 2012, at ASU’s Gammage Auditorium in Tempe, Ariz. The debate is posted online, and it was well worth two-plus hours of my time to hear the experts theorize on why people behave in a discriminatory manner toward certain groups that have done nothing to deserve this behavior.

What was interesting is that all these experts felt bias was something to overcome. Even if the bias is there for an evolutionary reason, these experts suggested there were ways to combat it in today’s modern world. No one seemed to think discrimination was a good thing.

Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, a foremost economic expert on global poverty, Skyped his lecture and perhaps offered some of the most pertinent commentary that I can relate to the behavior of Connemara inspectors.

He said studies show that the happiest countries in the world are ethnically homogenous societies, such as Denmark and Finland. The more the diverse the country, the lower the levels of social trust, cohesion and peace.

Thus, we face huge challenges, as the planet is becoming more crowded, and we’re in each other’s faces more.

He said we have the capacity to cooperate. Creating civic networks across ethic groups diminishes mistrust and volence. The more contact there is of individuals, the more individuals learn to build social trust and the more we can diminish xenophobic tendencies.

He said moral instruction can play a role. The more we are aware of our human nature, the more we can do to diminish this xenophobia.

Experimental social psychologist Steven Neuberg from ASU said that, to understand intergoup conflict, you must go beyond fear and look at prejudices, which requires looking at what the brain’s job is and how it performs that job. Some of his points:

The brain IDs and manages threats and opportunities.

When we perceive threats, we have an evolved self-protection system that energizes fear.

We may “overperceive” threats in someone who looks like he is from a foreign land.

We rely on imperfect cues to perceive threats. These cues can be language, accents, a different appearance, different rituals, or different eating and cooking habits.

This is the way the system works as opposed to the way it ought to work.

Are prejudices good?

For the assessor, it depends on how diagnostic the cues are of the actual threats.

For targets, almost always no, he said.

He said we make mistakes, and he used Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh as an example of someone who looked harmless but was not.

What kind of errors are we willing to make? Our sense of physical security may come at the expense of someone else’s freedom, he said.

Indeed, it can.

Neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe of MIT noted that, when there’s stress, limited resources and a need to retract, the crystal ball of society breaks along the boundaries of groups. She asked: How do you create a society that doesn’t break along group lines?

I’m not sure what stress destabilized the Connemara society in the 1990s, but the society clearly broke along the lines of appearance with owners of refined horses in one camp and owners of coarse horses in the other.

I’m also not sure what threat a refined Connemara could pose to a Connemara inspector other than the one already stated: that a horse built to compete might beat a horse that is not built that way in the show ring. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what horse shows are for: athletic horses to compete. Shows are not a good place for lawn ornaments to show off their laid-back nature, though I’ve stated in the past that I’m all for having lawn ornaments in this world, too.

Similarly, you don’t enter a beauty pageant unless you are beautiful. You don’t enter a triathlon unless you are trained and built for a grueling competition. Why would you enter a horse in a horse show if the horse was not designed for that job? And why would you blame other horses for beating it?

I personally think the greater threat to a small Connemara breed would be that intentionally discriminating against some of its members would deplete its reserves further, and one day it could wind up with no Connemaras at all.

As several debate speakers pointed out, the way to counteract bias is to recognize it, make a moral decision to address it and then cross lines into less comfortable territory to work together and become more comfortable. So far, I don’t see that happening in the Connemara world at all.

Columbia’s Jeffrey Sachs finished his lecture by invoking his favorite John Kennedy quote from a Kennedy speech on June 10, 1963, appealing for peace with the Soviet Union:

“So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”