How essentialist beliefs about national groups differ by cultural origin and study abroad experience among Chinese and American college students

Abstract

Nationality constitutes a salient part of social categorization. However, little research has examined how people form nationality concepts and how it may be shaped by culture and experience. The current study aims to investigate essentialist beliefs about nationality in participants from two cultural origins: the United States and China. In both samples, we compared college students studying domestically and internationally (N = 290) by using direct and indirect measures of essentialism. Ratings from direct measures of essentialism revealed that American participants were more likely than Chinese participants to perceive national groups as natural, whereas Chinese participants were more likely than American participants to perceive national groups as cohesive. Interestingly, the observed differences between domestic and international students on the indirect measure showed opposite directions among participants of different cultures of origin. As hypothesized, American international students showed lower essentialist thinking than American domestic students. Surprisingly, Chinese international students showed stronger essentialist thinking than Chinese domestic students. Further analyses revealed a positive relationship between the length of arrival time and essentialist thinking by Chinese international students. The current research demonstrates the cognitive malleability of social essentialism, addressing the importance of examining the effect of intergroup processes under diverse and dynamic cultural contexts.

Is Identity Essentialism a Fundamental Feature of Human Cognition?

“…Participants were asked whether replacing the brain of the member of one social category (e.g., a woman or a white person) with the brain of a member of another category (a man or a black person) would result in a change in behavior—a scenario inspired by Mahalingam (2003b). British students were substantially more likely to answer that the brain transplant would alter behavior (see also Xu, Li, & Coley, 2021).…”

Higher education in the social sciences impacts essentialist conceptions of racial disparities

“…Some research finds that informal experiences can shape the degree to which people hold essentialist conceptions. For example, subtle linguistic differences in how groups are described (Rhodes, Leslie, & Tworek, 2012;Rhodes et al, 2018), cultural differences in the salience of different social groups (Diesendruck et al, 2013;Mahalingam, 2007), and local exposure to diversity (Deeb et al, 2011;Pauker, Xu, Williams, & Biddle, 2016;Smyth et al, 2017;Xu, Li, & Coley, 2021) can all play a role in either exacerbating or ameliorating essentialist beliefs. However, surprisingly little research has examined whether formal educational experiences -directly teaching people about the nature and origins of social disparities -can reduce essentialist conceptions.…”