The Development of Social Essentialism

早在四岁时，孩子们就开始相信，属于同一种族或性别群体的人彼此之间是相似的，而与其他群体的成员在许多不明显的和基本的方面是不同的。例如，孩子们认为，如果一个女孩不喜欢数学，其他女孩（而不是男孩）也会不喜欢数学，或者如果一个种族群体的成员犯罪，该群体的其他成员可能也会这样做。这种思维方式被称为本质主义。关于社会群体的本质主义信念代表了刻板印象和偏见的核心。这个研究项目的目的是研究本质主义信念是如何在幼儿中形成的，以及我们如何能够防止它们的形成。特别是，这些研究考察了描述抽象类别（例如，女孩玩娃娃）的语言在本质主义信仰的文化传播中的作用。这些研究验证了这样一种假设，即父母在谈论他们持有本质主义信念的群体时会产生这种语言，而听到这种语言也会导致孩子对这些群体产生本质主义信念。这样，父母可能会在不知不觉中把本质论的信念传递给孩子。如果这些假设得到支持，这项研究将对如何通过减少儿童接触某些形式的语言来减少偏见产生具体的影响。例如，教育父母使用描述抽象类别的语言的后果，并鼓励他们减少使用这类句子，可能会减少下一代的偏见倾向。将这些变化根植于已经被经验证明会影响本质主义信念形成的机制中，可能会导致更有效的努力来减少社会偏见。

As early as four years of age, children begin to believe that people who share membership in an ethnic or gender group are similar to each other, and different from members of other groups, in many non-obvious and fundamental ways. For instance, children think that if one girl dislikes math, other girls (but not boys) will dislike it too, or that if one member of an ethic group commits a crime, other members of the group may do so as well. This type of thinking is known as essentialism. Essentialist beliefs about social groups represent the core of stereotyping and prejudice. The objective of this research project is to examine how essentialist beliefs develop in young children and how we might be able to prevent their formation. In particular, these studies examine the role of language that describes abstract categories (e.g., girls play with dolls)in the cultural transmission of essentialist beliefs. These studies test the hypotheses that parents produce this type of language when talking about groups for which they hold essentialist beliefs, and that hearing this type of language leads children to develop essentialist beliefs about those groups as well. In this way, parents may unknowingly transmit essentialist beliefs to their children.If these hypotheses are supported, this research will yield concrete implications for how to reduce prejudice by reducing children's exposure to certain forms of language. For example, educating parents on the consequences of using language that describes abstract categories, and encouraging them to reduce the use of such sentences, could lead to a reduction in the next generation's tendencies towards prejudice. Grounding these changes in mechanisms that have been empirically shown to influence the formation of essentialist beliefs could lead to more effective efforts to reduce societal prejudice.