Essentialist beliefs about sexuality-related categories
- Delgado Acosta, Elena
- Betancor Rodríguez, Verónica
- Rodríguez Pérez, Armando
ISSN: 0213-4748, 1579-3680
Datum der Publikation: 2016
Ausgabe: 31
Nummer: 1
Seiten: 1-28
Art: Artikel
Andere Publikationen in: International Journal of Social Psychology, Revista de Psicología Social
Zusammenfassung
People form essentialist beliefs about social categories as a strategy to organize their world and to make sense of the similarities and differences between different categories. This research examines four dimensions of essentialist thinking (biological basis, immutability, clarity of discreteness and informativeness) across different sexuality-related categories. Specifically, the categories of gays, lesbians, transsexuals, paedophiles, rapists and prostitutes were studied. Results show that essentialist beliefs of the six categories vary across dimensions and that essentialist dimensions function independently. Therefore, we discuss the relative usefulness of taking a global measurement as opposed to analysing the dimensions of essentialism separately
Bibliographische Referenzen
- Ahn, W. K., Flanagan, E. H., Marsh, J. K., & Sanislow, C. A. (2006). Beliefs about essences and the reality of mental disorders. Psychological Science, 17, 759–766. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01779.x
- Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (2006). Psychological essentialism and stereotype endorsement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 228–235. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2005.03.003
- Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (2007). Psychological essentialism and attention allocation: Preferences for stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information. The Journal of Social Psychology, 147, 531–541. doi:10.3200/SOCP.147.5.531-542
- Bastian, B., & Haslam, N. (2008). Immigration from the perspective of hosts and immigrants: Roles of psychological essentialism and social identity. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 11, 127–140. doi:10.1111/j.1467-839X.2008.00250.x
- Bastian, B., Loughnan, S., & Koval, P. (2011). Essentialist beliefs predict automatic motor-responses to social categories. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 14, 559–567. doi:10.1177/1368430210385258
- Campbell, D. T. (1958). Common fate, similarity, and other indices of the status of aggregates of persons as social entities. Behavioural Sciences, 3, 14–25. doi:10.1002/bs.3830030103
- Demoulin, S., Leyens, J. P., & Yzerbyt, V. Y. (2006). Lay theories of essentialism. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 25–42. doi:10.1177/1368430206059856
- Estrada, C., Yzerbyt, V., & Seron, E. (2004). Efecto del esencialismo psicológico sobre las teorías ingenuas de las diferencias grupales. Psicothema, 16, 181–186.
- Gelman, S. A. (2003). The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Gil-White, F. (2001). Are ethnic groups biological species to the human brain? Essentialism in human cognition of some social groups. Current Anthropology, 42, 515–554. doi:10.1086/321802
- Gopnik, A. (2009). Rational constructivism: A new way to bridge rationalism and empiricism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, 208–209. doi:10.1017/S0140525X0900096X
- Haslam, N. (1998). Natural kinds, human kinds and essentialism. Social Research, 65, 291–314.
- Haslam, N., Bastian, B., & Bissett, M. (2004). Essentialist beliefs about personality and their implications. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1661–1673. doi:10.1177/0146167204271182
- Haslam, N., & Ernst, D. (2002). Essentialist beliefs about mental disorders. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 21, 628–644. doi:10.1521/jscp.21.6.628.22793
- Haslam, N., & Levy, S. R. (2006). Essentialist beliefs about homosexuality: Structure and implications for prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 471–485. doi:10.1177/0146167205276516
- Haslam, N., Rothschild, L., & Ernst, D. (2000). Essentialist beliefs about social categories. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 113–127. doi:10.1348/014466600164363
- Haslam, N., Rothschild, L., & Ernst, D. (2002). Are essentialist beliefs associated with prejudice? British Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 87–100. doi:10.1348/014466602165072
- Hegarty, P. (2002). “It’s not a choice, it’s the way we’re built”: Symbolic beliefs about sexual orientation in the US and Britain. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 12, 153–166. doi:10.1002/casp.669
- Herek, G., & Capitanio, J. (1995). Black heterosexuals’ attitudes toward lesbians and gay men in the United States. Journal of Sex Research, 32, 95–105. doi:10.1080/00224499509551780
- Hirschfeld, L. A. (1996). Race in the making: Cognition, culture, and the child’s construction of human kinds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Howell, A. J., Weikum, B. A., & Dyck, H. L. (2011). Psychological essentialism and its association with stigmatization. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 95–100. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.09.006
- Levy, S. R., Stroessner, S. J., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Stereotype formation and endorsement: The role of implicit theories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1421–1436. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1421
- Mahalingam, R. (2003a). Essentialism, culture, and beliefs about gender among the Aravains of Tamil Nadu, India. Sex Roles, 49, 489–496. doi:10.1023/A:1025828606094
- Mahalingam, R. (2003b). Essentialism, culture, and power: Representations of social class. Journal of Social Issues, 59, 733–749. doi:10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00087.x
- Medin, D. L., & Ortony, A. (1989). Psychological essentialism. In S. Vosnaidou & A. Ortony (Eds.), Somilarity and analogical reasoning (pp. 179–195). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Mervis, C. B., & Rosch, E. (1981). Categorization of natural objects. Annual Review Of. Psychology, 32, 89–115. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.32.020181.000513
- Miller, D. T., & Prentice, D. A. (1999). Some consequences of a belief in group essence: The category divide hypothesis. In D. A. Prentice & D. T. Miller (Eds.), Cultural divides: Understanding and overcoming group conflict (pp. 213–238). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
- Morton, T. A., Hornsey, M. J., & Postmes, T. (2009). Shifting ground: The variable use of essentialism in contexts of inclusion and exclusion. British Journal of Social Psychology, 48, 35–59. doi:10.1348/014466607X270287
- Petherson, G. (1990). The category “prostitute” in scientific inquiry. The Journal of Sex Research, 27, 397–407. doi:10.1080/00224499009551568
- Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (2006). Essentializing differences between women and men. Psychological Science, 17, 129–135. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01675.x
- Rothbart, M., & Taylor, M. (1992). Category labels and social reality: Do we view social categories as natural kinds. In G. R. Semin & K. Fiedler (Eds.), Language and social cognition (pp. 11–36). London: Sage.
- Vanwesenbeeck, I. (2001). Another decade of scientific work on sex work: A review of research 1990–2000. Annual Review of Sex Research, 12, 242–290. [Taylor & Francis Online],
- Verkuyten, M. (2003). Discourses about ethnic group (de-)essentialism: Oppressive and progressive aspects. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 371–391. doi:10.1348/014466603322438215
- Whitley, B. E. (1990). The relationship of heterosexuals’ attributions for the causes of homosexuality to attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 369–377. doi:10.1177/0146167290162016
- Williams, M. J., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2008). Biological conceptions of race and the motivation to cross-racial boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 1033–1047. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.94.6.1033
- Yzerbyt, V. Y., Corneille, O., & Estrada, C. (2001). The interplay of subjective essentialism and entitativity in the formation of stereotypes. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 141–155. doi:10.1207/pspr.2001.5.issue-2
- Yzerbyt, V. Y., Judd, C. M., & Corneille, O. (2004). The psychology of group perception. Perceived variability, entitativity, and essentialism. London: Psychology Press.