The (Biological or Cultural) Essence of Essentialism: Implications for Policy Support among Dominant and Subordinated Groups

Abstract

Most research links (racial) essentialism to negative intergroup outcomes. We propose that this conclusion reflects both a narrow conceptual focus on biological/genetic essence and a narrow research focus from the perspective of racially dominant groups. We distinguished between beliefs in biological and cultural essences, and we investigated the implications of this distinction for support of social justice policies (e.g., affirmative action) among people with dominant (White) and subordinated (e.g., Black, Latino) racial identities in the United States. Whereas, endorsement of biological essentialism may have similarly negative implications for social justice policies across racial categories, we investigated the hypothesis that endorsement of cultural essentialism would have different implications across racial categories. In Studies 1a and 1b, we assessed the properties of a cultural essentialism measure we developed using two samples with different racial/ethnic compositions. In Study 2, we collected data from 170 participants using an online questionnaire to test the implications of essentialist beliefs for policy support. Consistent with previous research, we found that belief in biological essentialism was negatively related to policy support for participants from both dominant and subordinated categories. In contrast, the relationship between cultural essentialism and policy support varied across identity categories in the hypothesized way: negative for participants from the dominant category but positive for participants from subordinated categories. Results suggest that cultural essentialism may provide a way of identification that subordinated communities use to mobilize support for social justice.

Toward a more humane genetics education: Learning about the social and quantitative complexities of human genetic variation research could reduce racial bias in adolescent and adult populations

“…Ideas about human genetic variation have been and will continue to be important to policy debates about racial inequality (Byrd & Ray, 2015). Belief in genetic essentialism is still predictive of opposition to racially ameliorative policies in White (Byrd & Ray, 2015) and non-White adults in the United States (Soylu et al, 2017).…”

“…analogical transfer, genetic essentialism, genetics education, racial prejudice, social cognition 1 | INTRODUCTION Throughout history, the science of genetics has been used to justify policies that helped one race by harming another (Jackson & Depew, 2017). Even today the belief that races are genetically dissimilar is used to justify interethnic hostility (Kimel, Huesmann, Kunst, & Halperin, 2016), prejudice (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011), segregative behavior (Williams & Eberhardt, 2008), and discriminatory policies (Soylu, Estrada-Villalta, & Adams, 2017). Evidence suggests that the biology curriculum plays a role in the perpetuation of this problem (Donovan, 2015b).…”

The consumer representation of DNA ancestry testing on YouTube

“…The accuracy of the testing results has come into question (Park et al 2019;Nelson et al 2018;Krimsky and Johnston 2017;Saey 2018;Royal et al 2010;Agro and Denne 2019;Duster 2016) and numerous concerns have been raised around data collection, control, use and access (Park et al 2019;Zwart, 2009;Nelson et al 2018;Wagner 2010;Roche and Annas 2006;Fullwiley 2008;Phillips 2016;Duster 2016). Further, it has been suggested that in social contexts DNA ancestry testing could lead to a rise in the strengthening of scientifically inaccurate notions of racial difference (Caulfield 2018;Phelan et al 2014;TallBear 2014;Chou 2017), which research has shown can have detrimental social implications (Byrd and Ray 2015;Outram et al 2018;Tadmor et al 2013;Soylu Yalcinkaya, Estrada-Villalta, and Adams 2017;Duster 2016). Indeed, the idea of a biological or genetic categorization of race has been dismissed from a range of perspectives (Caulfield et al 2009;Nelson et al 2018;National Institute of Health 2007;Smedley and Smedley 2005;Kahn et al 2018;Duster 2016), and in turn, "race" is more commonly posited as a social construct (Nelson et al 2018;Kahn et al 2018;Machery and Faucher 2005;Onwuachi-Willig 2016).…”

Genomics literacy matters: Supporting the development of genomics literacy through genetics education could reduce the prevalence of genetic essentialism

“…Both of these beliefs make genetic essentialists prone to the naturalistic fallacy-that racial disparities need not be eliminated because they are an immutable result of human genetics (Lynch, Morandini, Dar-Nimrod, & Griffiths, 2018). Unsurprisingly, then, belief in genetic essentialism predicts opposition to racially ameliorative policies in White (Byrd & Ray, 2015) and non-White adults in the United States (Soylu Yalcinkaya, Estrada-Villalta, & Adams, 2017). This is troubling, given that estimates suggest that 20% of non-Black US citizens believe in genetic essentialism (Morning, Brückner, & Nelson, 2019).…”