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I just read the full research manuscript and, although the research tools are (apparently) valid, I'm not impressed that the conclusions are supported by the small number of patients. Propranolol is a beta-blocker, a medicine that blockes the effects of epinephrine/norepinephrine (think adrenaline). Low heart rate is one of the dose-limiting effects of propranolol as a blood pressure medication, hence the "significantly lowered heart rate" in the link in the OP.
The researchers gave patients either propranolol (the adrenaline blocking medicine) or a placebo (sugar pill) and asked them to report their "feelings" towards pictures of people from other races and/or religions and towards words associated with people of other ethnicity/religion. The findings rely on the hypothesis that subliminal cues from adrenaline affect your gut-reaction opinion of others.
I'm not familiar with the methods used, but they are apparently validated tools in their field of research. I also don't think they tested enough patients to make any clear conclusions.
I also think the work would be more validated if they included study participants from multiple ethnicities and religions and found the same results from minority participants when they see pictures and/or words related to those from outside their ethnicity/religion. It would also be an interesting finding if people from within the minority group had a similar reaction to people from their own minority.
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"The dignity of man is not shattered in a single blow, but slowly softened, bent, and eventually neutered. Men are seldom forced to act, but are constantly restrained from acting. Such power does not destroy outright, but prevents genuine existence. It does not tyrannize immediately, but it dampens, weakens, and ultimately suffocates, until the entire population is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid, uninspired animals, of which the government is shepherd." - Alexis de Tocqueville
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