Essentialist beliefs about social categories

Haslam, Nick; Rothschild, Louis; Ernst, Donald

doi:10.1348/014466600164363

Cited by 807 publications

(1,072 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Of course, not all essentializing is good, as in the well-documented tendencies to think of the essence of an out-group as a category, e.g. 'the essence of Arab immigrants' (Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000. In contrast, our studies show that asking people to think about the essence of an individual person, e.g.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 61%

“…Yet at first glance it would appear that the good true self bias has no chance of holding for out-group members, since aside from the strength of intergroup bias, it is well documented that people tend to think of the essence of an out-group as a negative category, e.g., 'the essence of Arab immigrants' (Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000. Here we emphasize that the good true self bias is one that falls out of reasoning about the essence of an individual person.…”

Section: The Good True Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Deep Down My Enemy is Good: Thinking About the True Self Reduces Intergroup Bias

Freitas¹,

Cikara²

2017

Preprint

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TRUE SELF & INTERGROUP BIAS 2Intergroup bias -preference for one's in-group relative to out-groups -is one of the most robust phenomena in all of psychology. Here we investigate whether a positive bias that operates at the individual-level, belief in a good true self, may be leveraged to reduce intergroup bias. We find that even stereotypically threatening out-group agents are believed to have a good true self (Experiment 1). More importantly, consideration of in-group and outgroup members' true self reduces intergroup bias, both in the form of explicit evaluative judgments (Experiment 2) and actual donation behavior (Experiment 3). Across studies, the palliative effects of thinking of an individual's true self generalize to that individual's entire group. In sum, a simple intervention -thinking about another's true self -reduces the gap in how people evaluate and treat out-group relative to in-group members. We discuss implications of these findings for conflict reduction strategies.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 61%

Section: The Good True Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep Down My Enemy is Good: Thinking About the True Self Reduces Intergroup Bias

Freitas¹,

Cikara²

2017

Preprint

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“…As described above, Haslam et al (2000) have demonstrated that adults' essentialist beliefs embody the components of naturalness and cohesiveness. However, most studies of the development of essentialist thinking utilize a single measure of such thinking.…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Diesendruck, 2013;Leslie, Cimpian, Meyer & Freeland, 2015). In this paper we examine the development of essentialist thinking about socially important religion categoriesCatholic and Protestant-in Northern Ireland, with particular attention toward how school and national context may contribute to differences in the use of social categories to guide inferences.Essentialist thinking about social categories in particular has been widely investigated (e.g., Haslam, Rothschild & Ernst, 2000;Hirschfeld, 1996;Rothbart & Taylor, 1992; Yzerbyt, Corneille & Estrada, 2001), and there have been a variety of suggestions about its causes. One possibility is that it may represent an application of the same fundamental conceptual machinery that we use for thinking about natural kinds to the critical task of navigating our complex social environment (Gil-White, 2001).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States).

Smyth¹,

Feeney²,

Eidson³

et al. 2017

Developmental Psychology

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Social essentialism, the belief that members of certain social categories share unobservable properties, licenses expectations that those categories are natural and a good basis for inference.A challenge for cognitive developmental theory is to give an account of how children come to develop essentialist beliefs about socially important categories. Previous evidence from Israel suggests that kindergarteners selectively engage in essentialist reasoning about culturally salient (ethnicity) categories, and that this is attenuated among children in integrated schools. In five studies (N=718) we used forced-choice (Study 1) and unconstrained (Studies 2-4) categorybased inference tasks, and a questionnaire (Study 5) to study the development of essentialist reasoning about religion categories in Northern Ireland (Studies 1-3 & 5) and the US (Study 4).Results show that, as in Israel, Northern Irish children selectively engage in essentialist reasoning about culturally salient (religion) categories, and that such reasoning is attenuated among children in integrated schools. However, the development trajectory of essentialist thinking and the patterns of attenuation among children attending integrated schools in Northern Ireland differ from the Israeli case. Meta-analysis confirmed this claim and ruled out an alternative explanation of the results based on community diversity. Although the Northern Irish and Israeli case studies illustrate that children develop selective essentialist beliefs about socially important categories, and that these beliefs are impacted by educational context, the differences between them emphasize the importance of historical, cultural, and political context in understanding conceptual development, and suggest that there may be more than one developmental route to social essentialism. Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States)Psychological essentialism is the belief that natural categories contain an underlying essence that conveys category membership and causes category members to share both observable and hidden properties (Gelman, 2003;Medin & Ortony, 1989). In some cases, essentialist thinking can be useful. For example, using "essentialized" categories for inference provides us with an important tool to reduce the complexity of incoming information to manageable levels, and allows us to organize what we know and make inferences about what we don't know. However, essentialist thinking can also be harmful and lead to overgeneralization or unwarranted assumptions of homogeneity, especially when essentialist thinking is applied to social categories (e.g. Diesendruck, 2013;Leslie, Cimpian, Meyer & Freeland, 2015). In this paper we examine the development of essentialist thinking about socially important religion categoriesCatholic and Protestant-in Northern Ireland, with particular attention toward how school and national context may contribute to differences in the use of social categories to guide inferences.Essentialist...

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“…No que concerne às crenças essencialistas relativas exclusivamente aos homossexuais, Hegarty e Pratto (2001) identificaram duas dimensões organizadoras destas crenças sobre a homossexualidade (ver também Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000): imutabilidade -a crença de que a homossexualidade é biologicamente determinada, fixada no início da vida e difícil de mudança; e fundamentalismo -a crença na distintividade dos homossexuais relativamente aos heterossexuais. Posteriormente, Haslam e Levy (2006) identificaram uma terceira dimensão: universalismo -definida pela crença de que a homossexualidade é historicamente e culturalmente determinada.…”

Section: Representações Sobre a Natureza Da Homossexualidade E Preconunclassified

Preconceito contra homossexuais no contexto do futebol

Pereira

Alfaia²,

Souza

et al. 2014

Psicol. Soc.

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RESUMOEste estudo analisa a relação entre as crenças sobre a natureza da homossexualidade e a homofobia no futebol. Participaram 184 jogadores de futebol, a maioria do sexo masculino (74%), com idade média de 24,5 anos. Os participantes responderam as escalas de crenças sobre a homossexualidade, preconceito e expressão emocional. Os resultados demonstram que os participantes do sexo feminino apresentam-se com menos atitudes preconceituosas do que os do sexo masculino e os mais novos exprimem maior homofobia do que os participantes mais velhos. Relativamente às crenças, os esportistas com maior adesão às crenças de natureza ético-moral da homossexualidade exprimem mais atitudes homofóbicas. Já os esportistas com maior adesão à crença sobre a natureza da homossexualidade baseada em justificativas culturais são aqueles com atitudes menos homofóbicas. Os resultados são discutidos à luz do papel desempenhado pelas crenças sobre a natureza da homossexualidade enquanto princípios organizadores do preconceito homofóbico.Palavras-chave: preconceito; homofobia; crenças essencialistas; futebol. RESUMENEste estudio examina la relación entre las creencias sobre la naturaleza de la homosexualidad y la homofobia en el fútbol. Participaron 184 jugadores de fútbol, la mayoría hombres (74%) con una edad media de 24,5 años, que completaron escalas de creencias sobre la homosexualidad, el prejuicio y la expresión emocional. Los resultados muestran que las mujeres presentan menos actitudes prejuiciosas que los hombres y los más jovenes presentan más homofobia que los de mayor edad. Los atletas con mayor adherencia a las creencias éticas y morales de la naturaleza de la homosexualidad expresaron actitudes más homofóbicas. Ya los atletas con mayor adhesión a la creencia sobre la naturaleza de la homosexualidad basada en justificaciones culturales son los que tienen menos actitudes homofóbicas. Los resultados se discuten a la luz del papel de las creencias acerca de la naturaleza de la homosexualidad como principios organizativos de los prejuicios homofóbicos.Palabras clave: prejuicio; homofobia; creencias esencialistas; fútbol. ABSTRACTThis study examines the relationship between beliefs about the nature of homosexuality and homophobia in the soccer context. Participated 184 Portuguese soccer players, most of them were male (74%) with a mean age of 24.5 years. Participants responded to scales of beliefs about homosexuality, prejudice and emotional expression. The results show that female participants expressed less prejudiced attitudes than male ones, and that younger expressed greater homophobia than older participants. Regarding beliefs, participants who more adhered to ethical-moral beliefs about the nature of homosexuality expressed more homophobic attitudes, while participants who more strongly endorsed belief on the cultural nature of homosexuality expressed less homophobic attitudes. The results are discussed in light of the role played by the beliefs about the nature of homosexuality as organising principles of homophobic prej...

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Essentialist beliefs about social categories

Cited by 807 publications

References 17 publications

Deep Down My Enemy is Good: Thinking About the True Self Reduces Intergroup Bias

Deep Down My Enemy is Good: Thinking About the True Self Reduces Intergroup Bias

Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States).

Preconceito contra homossexuais no contexto do futebol

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