Positive essentialization reduces prejudice: Reminding participants of a positive human nature alleviates the stigma of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) descent

Putra, Idhamsyah Eka; Holtz, Peter; Pitaloka, Ardiningtiyas; Kronberger, Nicole; Arbiyah, Nurul

doi:10.5964/jspp.v6i2.794

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Despite scientific studies showing that humanizing outgroup members is essential in building intergroup harmony (see Batson & Ahmad, 2009; Gubler, Halperin, & Hirschberger, 2015) and reducing prejudice (Putra, Holtz, Pitaloka, Kronberger, & Arbiyah, 2018), not everyone holds beliefs that lend themselves to such humanization. Thus, how can we guide people to humanizing beliefs, such as seeing others as good and kind?…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beliefs about human nature as good versus evil influence intergroup attitudes and values.

Putra¹,

Campbell-Obaid²,

Suwartono³

2021

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology

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In 4 studies (Ns ϭ 392, 199, 138, and 308), we address whether priming people with the idea that human nature is good (vs. evil or neither good nor evil) can lead them to see outgroups more positively. The first 3 experiments showed that priming a positive spin on human nature influenced people to see others more positively and to endorse more prosocial values. Across all 4 studies, results demonstrated that the more participants believed that human nature is good, the more they viewed a specific outgroup's nature as good, and the more they saw all people as sharing a common human identity. These studies support the idea that a positive view of human nature can aid in rehumanizing outgroup members as well as supporting general altruism (i.e. prosocial values) and cultural diversity. Public Significance StatementThis study suggests that framing human nature as good leads to more positive views of human nature, which then predicts more positive intergroup attitudes. Across four studies conducted in Indonesia and the U.S., the results demonstrated that believing human nature is good can aid in rehumanizing outgroup members, as well as supporting general altruism (i.e. prosocial values) and support for cultural diversity.

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confidence: 99%

Beliefs about human nature as good versus evil influence intergroup attitudes and values.

Putra¹,

Campbell-Obaid²,

Suwartono³

2021

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology

Self Cite

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“…It is conceivable that a completely distinct variable-or variables-may explain the relationship between essentialism and prejudice. Mandalaywala (2020) argues that essentialism may be indirectly rather than directly related to prejudice, such as through social information like stereotypes (e.g., Lepore & Brown, 1997;Putra et al, 2018). Perhaps the universality manipulation in Studies 2a and 2b, though successful at manipulating essentialism, was not successful at targeting the stereotypes about transgender people that were then subsequently linked to or even causing transprejudice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Association Between Prejudice Toward and Essentialist Beliefs About Transgender People

Glazier

Gomez

Olson

2021

Collabra: Psychology

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Previous research often suggests that people who endorse more essentialist beliefs about social groups are also likely to show increased prejudice towards members of these social groups, and there is even some evidence to suggest that essentialism may lead to prejudice and stereotyping. However, there are several notable exceptions to this pattern in that, for certain social groups (e.g., gay men and lesbians), higher essentialism is actually related to lower prejudice. The current studies further explored the relationship between essentialism and prejudice by examining a novel type of essentialism—transgender essentialism (i.e., essentializing transgender identity), and its relationship to prejudice towards transgender people. Study 1 (N = 248) tested the viability of transgender essentialism as a construct and examined the association between transgender essentialism and transprejudice, while Studies 2a (N = 315), 2b (N = 343), 3a (N = 310), and 3b (N = 204) tested two casual pathways to explain this relationship. The results consistently showed that the more that people endorse transgender essentialist beliefs, the warmer their feelings towards trans people (relative to cis people) were, echoing past research showing a similar relationship between essentialism and prejudice towards sexual minorities. However, the manipulations of both essentialism (Studies 2a and 2b) and prejudice (Studies 3a and 3b) were largely unsuccessful at changing the desired construct, meaning we were unable to provide direct causal tests. The one exception was a successful manipulation of the universality of trans experiences, but even here this resulted in no change in prejudice. The primary contribution of this work is in robustly demonstrating that greater transgender essentialism is associated with transprejudice.

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“…These questions were modeled off of earlier studies on imagined social contact (see Turner, Crisp, and Lambert 2007, 435; Abrams et al 2008, 937). Subsequent studies tend to prime the treatment group to think about the positive nature of the (imagined) interaction (see Gu et al 2016, 2019; Putra et al 2018). We wanted to make the conditions for a contact effect as minimal as possible and therefore elected not to include this kind of specifically positive prime.…”

Section: Experiments Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 6. See work on essentialization and social contact by Putra et al (2018; see also Stathi and Crisp 2008, 495). …”

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confidence: 99%

The Effect of Imagined Social Contact on Chinese Students’ Perceptions of Japanese People

Wang

Johnston

Wang

2020

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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Social identity theory (SIT) suggests that perceived identity difference between groups predicts to intergroup conflict, including interstate conflict. Contact theory suggests that social contact between groups can help reduce intergroup conflict. Contact theory, however, has not traditionally focused on perceived identity difference, and it has not been tested much on real-world interstate conflicts. Employing an experimental design, our study tests for the effects of imagined social contact on Chinese students’ generally malign perceptions of identity difference with Japanese people. We find that imagined contact reduces key perceptions of difference by reducing both perceived Japanese malignity and perceived Chinese benignity. This suggests that social contact helps produce new hybrid in-group. By employing SIT, our findings provide a new microfoundation for contact theory, suggest an important process in the creation of security communities, and provide a proof of concept for public policies aimed at large-scale cultural exchanges.

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Positive essentialization reduces prejudice: Reminding participants of a positive human nature alleviates the stigma of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) descent

Cited by 11 publications

References 42 publications

Beliefs about human nature as good versus evil influence intergroup attitudes and values.

Beliefs about human nature as good versus evil influence intergroup attitudes and values.

The Association Between Prejudice Toward and Essentialist Beliefs About Transgender People

The Effect of Imagined Social Contact on Chinese Students’ Perceptions of Japanese People

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