Why does social essentialism sometimes promote, and other times mitigate, prejudice development? A causal discounting perspective

Abstract

Children often hold "essentialist" intuitions about social categories, viewing them as reflecting people's intrinsic essences or biological natures. This intuition promotes prejudice development (e.g., race-and gender-based prejudices). However, emerging research reveals that essentialism also mitigates prejudice development (e.g., weight-and sexuality-based prejudices). Why do children's essentialist views sometimes promote prejudice, and other times mitigate it? I propose that causal discounting may account for these distinct effects: Essentialism may promote prejudice by leading children to discount structural explanations (i.e., to reason that a group is low-status because of its personal deficiencies rather than its structural disadvantages), but it may mitigate prejudice by leading children to discount agentic explanations (i.e., to reason that a group was "born that way" rather than choosing to be that way). Thus, the consequences of essentialism may reflect both the explanations children endorse as well as those they discount.Cognitive, developmental, and social implications are discussed.

I am what I am: The role of essentialist beliefs and neurodivergent identification on individuals’ self-efficacy.

“…For example, “neurotypical” or non-neurodivergent individuals who endorse biogenetic explanations for disabilities and disorders tend to be more rejecting toward, fearful of, and desiring of greater distance from people with them (see Dietrich et al, 2004; Haslam & Kvaale, 2015; Kvaale et al, 2013). Indeed, when majority group members already have negative attitudes toward individuals with such conditions, explaining that they were “born that way” does not seem to change how they feel toward them (see Peretz-Lange, 2021). A more accepting form of essentialist beliefs may instead involve the idea that such identities are natural (Peretz-Lange, 2021).…”

Thinking Structurally: A Cognitive Framework for Understanding How People Attribute Inequality to Structural Causes

“…M. Leslie et al, 2014). Thus, much like essentialist explanations (see Peretz-Lange, 2021), inferring structural causes can both reduce and increase negative attitudes toward disadvantaged groups, depending on the phenomenon being evaluated.…”

Perceptions of racial essentialism and social identity threat

“…Future research should continue to explore outcomes of encounters with natural kind essentialist beliefs directed at varied stigmatized groups and recruit additional perceiver samples. For example, may groups that similarly benefit from NKE beliefs about their social group (e.g., people with congenital disability or people who are obese; Bogart et al, 2019; Lebowitz et al, 2016; Peretz-Lange, 2021) also perceive RNKE as less threatening that REE beliefs? Such future research should explore the extent to which lay individuals are aware of the positive and negative outcomes of essentialist beliefs depending on the group to which they are targeted; this research may find that low REE endorsement promotes feelings of safety to individuals from social groups that share similar stereotypes (see Chaney et al, 2018).…”