Miscegenation

“Miscegenation.” The word itself is so taboo and so old-fashioned that it feels strange to even write it in 2024. But that’s the problem if you’re genuinely interested in science; you have to rise above “feelings” and “fashion” and dispassionately look at the truth. An intriguing new evolutionary psychology study, “No Signals of Outbreeding Depression on General Factors of Self-Efficacy, Phobia, and Infant Growth: Debunking “Disharmonious Combination” Theory,” has done precisely that. If they are correct, then any problems caused by “miscegenation” are not due to the process itself, but, rather, due to the kind of people who tend to practice it.

The word “miscegenation” first became widely known as part of an elaborate hoax. The pamphlet Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of Races, Applied to the White Man and Negro appeared in 1863, as part of an anti-Lincoln campaign in the run up to the following year’s presidential election. The pamphlet espoused miscegenation in glowing terms and the anti-War Democrat authors even attempted to trick Lincoln into endorsing it. By 1924, there were anti-Miscegenation laws in 29 states and mixed-race marriage only became legal in California in 1948.

In 1958, a Black-White couple were arrested in Virginia for the crime of being married while in 1963, when former president Harry Truman was asked about his thoughts of the possibility of inter-racial marriage becoming widespread, he replied: “I hope not; I don’t believe in it. Would you want your daughter to marry a Negro? She won’t love someone who isn’t her color.” These ideas were backed up by various scientists. Charles Davenport, of the Eugenics Records Office, averred that there was a hierarchy of races and race-mixing would inevitably lead to degeneration of the higher races. He further averred that it would lead to “outbreeding depression.” We’ve all heard of “inbreeding depression:” when closely related organisms breed, the offspring are more likely to inherit double doses of harmful genes, leading to problems. “Outbreeding depression” occurs because some traits, especially psychological ones, are very complex and involve thousands of genes working together, all adapted to a very specific ecology. If you introduce some gene that’s not expected to be there, you interfere with the delicate gene complexes, disrupting “harmonious” gene complexes.

There is certainly some evidence of negative psychological outcomes among mixed-race offspring but this does not prove Davenport’s theory about genetic harmony to be correct. I have summarised all the various studies — such as from Brazil, the US and Canada — in my book The Naked Classroom: The Evolutionary Psychology of Your Time at School. In essence, the products of mixed-race unions are high in mental illness (especially depression and anxiety) and violent behaviour. Indeed, a study from Canada found that though Black-White children were intermediate between Blacks and Whites on physical health, they had far worse mental health than either parent race.

There are two possible reasons for this, and they are not mutually exclusive. The first is Davenport’s model of disharmony, which has been tested in the new study in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science.  The researchers looked at the effect of ancestral genetic diversity (in other words racial mixing) on the levels of three variables: self-efficacy and phobias (both of which capture mental health) and general growth. Drawing on a large sample, they found no evidence — when controlling for age, income, parental education, and sex — of outbreeding depression among mixed-race people. That said, caution is required in putting the “disharmony” hypothesis to rest because, as the authors admit, their results don’t take into account the genetic distances between the races involved. Davenport’s whole point was that a large genetic distance — such as between Black and White — would cause pronounced disharmony in a way that a smaller one, such as between White and Native American, might not.

However, if the authors are correct, then the solution to differences in mixed-race psychology appears to found an alternative model, comprehensively set out last year in “Predictors of Engaging in Interracial Dating” in the journal Mankind Quarterly. In summary, as I discussed in The Naked Classroom, we all sit on a spectrum from a fast to a slow Life History. Fast Life History Strategists are evolved to an easy yet unstable ecology. They could be wiped out at any minute and need to be fit and aggressive. Accordingly, they must invest their energy in copulation and, to the extent that they are selective, they must select for those who are physically fit. Cooperation does not pay off in such an ecology — a favour may never be repaid because the person could die — so such people are, relatively, mentally unstable and psychopathic. A person who is genetically very different could carry some useful adaptation and it would make sense to trade genetic similarity for fitness, because you’re calibrated to not invest much in each child, of which you’ll have many. Risk — something unusual — will also be attractive to you.

As the ecology becomes harsh yet stable, and the species members compete with each other, you must look after the offspring and be strongly adapted to a specific ecology. Thus, you invest less energy in copulation and more in nurture, you have fewer offspring and invest more in them, and you maximise your genetic legacy by selecting for genetic similarity. This also means that your offspring are strongly adapted to the specific ecology, something heightened by a longer childhood in which they can learn how to navigate that ecology. You can only survive as part of groups, so you become pro-social, mentally stable and risk-averse, as you are only just surviving.

All of this implies that pro-social, mentally stable people would be less likely to pursue mixed-race relationships, as the Mankind Quarterly study finds. That study found that assortative mating occurs between races: when people date people of a different race, they tend to date people who are psychologically similar to themselves. And when it comes to miscegenation, the people doing it are not very psychologically healthy. Their relationships are more conflictful and they are more prone to risk-taking. Their mixed-race adolescent children are more likely than monoracial adolescents to use drugs or engage in violent behavior.

So, it appears that Davenport’s theory was wrong. Miscegenation results, according to these studies, in offspring with worse mental health because it is people with worse mental health who are more likely to be attracted to potential partners of a different race.