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.
Highlights
Essentialism refers to a lay belief in the existence of underlying natures that constitute and differentiate social categories (e.g., Haslam et al, 2000, 2002; Bastian and Haslam, 2006)
Participants who identified with racial categories other than White scored slightly higher on the cultural essentialism measure (M = 4.57, SD = 0.62) than participants who identified as White (M = 4.41, SD = 0.86)
We conducted an online survey study to test our hypotheses on the relationship between cultural essentialism and policy support
Summary
Essentialism refers to a lay belief in the existence of underlying natures that constitute and differentiate social categories (e.g., Haslam et al, 2000, 2002; Bastian and Haslam, 2006). Investigations of racial essentialism typically understand the defining characteristics of an identity category (i.e., race) in terms of a biological essence. People may understand racial categories in terms of cultural characteristics, rather than purely biological or genetic characteristics. The implications of such beliefs in a cultural essence may be more open to various identity-relevant interpretations. We set out to expand research on racial essentialism by (1) providing a more nuanced conceptualization of essentialism as based on beliefs in different kinds of essences (biological versus cultural), and (2) investigating the implications of biological and cultural forms of essentialism for policy support among dominant and subordinated racial groups
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