It is widely believed that race divides the world into biologically distinct kinds of people-an essentialist belief inconsistent with reality. Essentialist views of race have been described as early emerging, but this study found that young children (n = 203, M  = 5.45) hold only the more limited belief that the physical feature of skin color is inherited and stable. Overall, children rejected the causal essentialist view that behavioral and psychological characteristics are constrained by an inherited racial essence. Although average levels of children's causal essentialist beliefs about race were low, variation in these beliefs was related to children's own group membership, exposure to diversity, as well as children's own social attitudes.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6056349PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13008DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

essentialist beliefs
8
beliefs race
8
causal essentialist
8
essentialist
5
nature consequences
4
consequences essentialist
4
race
4
race early
4
early childhood
4
childhood believed
4

Similar Publications

Relationship Between Ethnic Essentialism and Psychological Compatibility: Roles of Ethnic Identity and Self-Construal.

Behav Sci (Basel)

December 2024

Centre for Studies of Education and Psychology of Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.

We examined the impact of ethnic essentialism on psychological compatibility among minority and Han Chinese college students and investigated the roles of ethnic identity and self-construal. A moderated mediator analysis was used and a multigroup comparison of the moderated mediator model across ethnic groups was conducted. The results indicate that ethnic essentialism significantly and negatively predicts psychological compatibility.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Intensive parenting among mothers and fathers: Identifying profiles and examining differences in parental involvement.

J Fam Psychol

January 2025

Faculte des Sciences Psychologiques et de l'Education, Centre de recherche sur le Developpement, la Famille et les Systemes Humains, Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

The literature reveals particularly high standards of good parenting in Western societies, especially for mothers. However, parents as active agents of their parenting may react differently to societal prescriptions, and this variability may translate into different parental practices. The present article had two aims.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Prior qualitative studies show that individuals with psychoticlike experiences express difficulties concerning their identity. However, previous work has studied individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) and individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP) separately. Here, we compare the experiences of individuals at CHR, individuals with FEP, and healthy individuals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Views of aging have been linked with many important outcomes in older adults. Subjective cognition, or one's perception of their cognitive functioning, may be a valuable indicator of cognitive changes as individuals age, but is known to be impacted by a variety of factors. The aim of this systematic review was to synthesize the evidence on relationships between views of aging and subjective cognition, including whether and how these relationships may differ based on age.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Although there is a tendency to think all forms of essentialism-the belief that characteristics are inherent and unchangeable-are similar, some theories suggest different foundations and outcomes. We investigated if belief systems about the stability of political ideology (trait essentialism) and the fundamental nature of partisans (social essentialism) predict prejudice in opposite ways and if they do so via differential relations with blame. Across six studies ( = 2,231), we found that the more people believe the trait of political ideology is fixed (trait essentialism), the more they think that Republicans and Democrats are inherently different (social essentialism).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!