Value-based Essentialism: Essentialist Beliefs About Social Groups With Shared Values

Abstract

Psychological essentialism has played an important role in social psychology, informing influential theories of stereotyping and prejudice as well as questions about accountability for wrongdoing and the possibility for change. Existing research has shown that people often see a social group as having a deep, underlying essence when they understand that group in terms of an underlying biological cause. Here we ask whether people sometimes also essentialize groups that they do not think of as biological. More specifically, we investigate the possibility of “value-based essentialism” in which people think of certain social groups in terms of an underlying essence, but that essence is understood as a value. Study 1 explored beliefs about a wide range of social groups and found that both biological groups (e.g., women) and value-based groups (e.g., Christian) elicited similar general essentialist beliefs relative to mere social categories (e.g., English-speakers). In Studies 2-4, participants who read about a group either as being based in biology or in shared values reported higher essentialist beliefs compared to a control condition. Because biological essentialism about social groups has been connected to a number of downstream consequences, we also investigated two test cases concerning value-based essentialism. In Study 3, both the biological essence and value-based essence conditions increased inductive generalizations (related to stereotyping) compared to control, but in Study 4 only the biological condition reduced blame for wrongdoing. Together these findings support a broader theoretical framework for essentialism about social groups that incorporates values-based essence.

Value-based essentialism: Essentialist beliefs about social groups with shared values.

“…The materials for Study 1 are available in the Appendices. The materials for Studies 2–4, anonymized data files for Studies 1–4, and analysis scripts for Studies 1–4 are available online (https://osf.io/e26r7/?view_only=30d78f3bcedf47ee9190a80563562e2f; Bailey & Knobe, 2020). The institutional review board determined Studies 1–4 to be exempt from oversight.…”

Psychological essentialism and the structure of concepts

“…39 While more research is needed to put Newman and Knobe's 'general essentialism' to the test, recent results look promising:Bailey et al (2020) found that value-based forms of essentialism and 'causal essentialism' elicit similar beliefs and inductive inferences.Note that Newman and Knobe's 'general essentialism' seems to incorporate the theoretical change of the notion of 'essence' and essentialism we discussed in the context of artifact categories and the essence-as-function hypothesis…”