Essentialist Belief

A Essentialist Belief is a belief which assumes that underlying essences predict observable behaviours.

• Example(s):
  • a real Vermeer painting is significantly more precious than an indistinguishable copy.
  • “Life” has intrinsic value.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • an Controlled Experiment-Supported Belief (belief supported by a controlled experiment).
• See: Tacit Knowledge, Rational Belief, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Development, Opponent Process Theory, Value Judgement.

---

---

References

As such, he argues that our pleasurable sensations are colored by their essence

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism#In_developmental_psychology Retrieved:2015-10-2.
  • Essentialism has emerged as an important concept in psychology, particularly developmental psychology. Gelman and Kremer (1991) studied the extent to which children from 4–7 years old demonstrate essentialism. Children were able to identify the cause of behaviour in living and non-living objects. Children understood that underlying essences predicted observable behaviours. Participants could correctly describe living objects’ behaviour as self-perpetuated and non-living objects as a result of an adult influencing the object’s actions. This is a biological way of representing essential features in cognitions. Understanding the underlying causal mechanism for behaviour suggests essentialist thinking (Rangel and Keller, 2011). Younger children were unable to identify causal mechanisms of behaviour whereas older children were able to. This suggests that essentialism is rooted in cognitive development. It can be argued that there is a shift in the way that children represent entities, from not understanding the causal mechanism of the underlying essence to showing sufficient understanding (Demoulin, Leyens & Yzerbyt, 2006). There are four key criteria which constitute essentialist thinking. The first facet is the aforementioned individual causal mechanisms (del Rio & Strasser, 2011). The second is innate potential: the assumption that an object will fulfill its predetermined course of development (Kanovsky, 2007). According to this criterion, essences predict developments in entities that will occur throughout its lifespan. The third is immutability (Holtz & Wagner, 2009). Despite altering the superficial appearance of an object it does not remove its essence. Observable changes in features of an entity are not salient enough to alter its essential characteristics. The fourth is inductive potential (Birnbaum, Deeb, Segall, Ben-Aliyahu & Diesendruck, 2010). This suggests that entities may share common features but are essentially different. However similar two beings may be, their characteristics will be at most analogous, differing most importantly in essences. The implications of psychological essentialism are numerous. Prejudiced individuals have been found to endorse exceptionally essential ways of thinking, suggesting that essentialism may perpetuate exclusion among social groups (Morton, Hornsey & Postmes, 2009). This may be due to an over-extension of an essential-biological mode of thinking stemming from cognitive development. Paul Bloom of Yale University has stated that "one of the most exciting ideas in cognitive science is the theory that people have a default assumption that things, people and events have invisible essences that make them what they are. Experimental psychologists have argued that essentialism underlies our understanding of the physical and social worlds, and developmental and cross-cultural psychologists have proposed that it is instinctive and universal. We are natural-born essentialists." Scholars suggest that the categorical nature of essentialist thinking predicts the use of stereotypes and can be targeted in the application of stereotype prevention (Bastian & Haslam, 2006).

2010

• (Bloom, 2010) ⇒ Paul Bloom. (2010). “How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like." W. W. Norton. ISBN:9780393066326

2001

• (Hogg, 2001) ⇒ Michael A. Hogg. (2001). “A Social Identity Theory of Leadership." Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(3).
  • QUOTE: A social identity theory of leadership is described that views leadership as a group process generated by social categorization and prototype-based depersonalization processes associated with social identity. Group identification, as self-categorization, constructs an intragroup prototypicality gradient that invests the most prototypical member with the appearance of having influence; the appearance arises because members cognitively and behaviorally conform to the prototype. The appearance of influence becomes a reality through depersonalized social attraction processes that make followers agree and comply with the leader's ideas and suggestions. Consensual social attraction also imbues the leader with apparent status and creates a status-based structural differentiation within the group into leader (s) and followers, which has characteristics of unequal status intergroup relations. In addition, a fundamental attribution process constructs a charismatic leadership personality for the leader, which further empowers the leader and sharpens the leader-follower status differential. Empirical support for the theory is reviewed and a range of implications discussed, including intergroup dimensions, uncertainty reduction and extremism, power, and pitfalls of prototype-based leadership.

2000

• (Haslam et al., 2000) ⇒ Nick Haslam, Louis Rothschild, and Donald Ernst. (2000). “Essentialist Beliefs About Social Categories." British Journal of Social Psychology 39, no. 1
  • QUOTE: … The dimensions of essentialist belief were differentially associated with the judged evaluative status of the social categories. Status was significantly correlated]] … Factor scores and mean status ratings of the social categories, by domain ...

1991

• (Gelman & Kremer, 1991) ⇒ Susan A. Gelman, and Kathleen E. Kremer. (1991). “Understanding Natural Cause: Children's Explanations of how Objects and their Properties Originate." Child Development 62, no. 2

---