Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. 2017 Jul;8(4). doi: 10.1002/wcs.1437. Epub 2017 Mar 8.
People often view certain ways of classifying people (e.g., by gender, race, or ethnicity) as reflecting real distinctions found in nature. Such categories are viewed as marking meaningful, fundamental, and informative differences between distinct kinds of people. This article examines the development of these essentialist intuitive theories of how the social world is structured, along with the developmental consequences of these beliefs. We first examine the processes that give rise to social essentialism, arguing that essentialism emerges as children actively attempt to make sense of their environment by relying on several basic representational and explanatory biases. These developmental processes give rise to the widespread emergence of social essentialist views in early childhood, but allow for vast variability across development and cultural contexts in the precise nature of these beliefs. We then examine what is known and still to be discovered about the implications of essentialism for stereotyping, inter-group interaction, and the development of social prejudice. We conclude with directions for future research, particularly on the theoretical payoff that could be gained by including more diverse samples of children in future developmental investigations. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1437. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1437 This article is categorized under: Psychology > Development and Aging Philosophy > Knowledge and Belief.
人们通常认为某些分类方式（例如，按性别、种族或民族）反映了自然界中存在的真实区别。这些类别被视为标记着不同人群之间具有重要意义、基本且富有信息的差异。本文探讨了这些关于社会世界结构的本质主义直觉理论是如何发展的，以及这些信念的发展后果。我们首先考察了导致社会本质主义产生的过程，认为本质主义是儿童通过依赖几种基本的代表性和解释性偏见来积极尝试理解环境的结果。这些发展过程导致了社会本质主义观点在幼儿期的广泛出现，但在这些信念的精确性质上，允许在发展和文化背景方面存在巨大的可变性。然后，我们考察了本质主义对刻板印象、群体间互动和社会偏见发展的影响。最后，我们为未来的研究指明了方向，特别是关于通过在未来的发展研究中纳入更多样化的儿童样本，可以获得什么样的理论收益。
