Heyman Gail D, Giles Jessica W
University of California, San Diego.
Enfance. 2006 Jul;58(3):293-310. doi: 10.3917/enf.583.0293.
When individuals reason in an essentialist way about social categories, they assume that group differences reflect inherently different natures (Gelman, 2003; Rothbart & Taylor, 1992). This paper describes the psychological and social implications of essentialist beliefs, and examines the extent to which children exhibit psychological essentialism when reasoning about gender. The authors discuss reasons young children as well as older children show essentialist reasoning in some contexts, but not in others. Finally, the authors suggest directions for future research, and discuss a primary challenge to many working in this field: reduction of rigid gender beliefs.
当个体以本质主义的方式对社会类别进行推理时,他们假定群体差异反映了内在的不同本质(盖尔曼,2003年;罗斯巴特和泰勒,1992年)。本文描述了本质主义信念的心理和社会影响,并考察了儿童在对性别进行推理时表现出心理本质主义的程度。作者们讨论了幼儿以及年龄较大的儿童在某些情境中表现出本质主义推理而在其他情境中却没有的原因。最后,作者们提出了未来研究的方向,并讨论了该领域许多研究者面临的一个主要挑战:减少僵化的性别观念。