Editing Essentialism (section)

==In psychology==
[[File:Toronto Maple Leafs bild.JPG|thumb|right|220px|[[Paul Bloom (psychologist)|Paul Bloom]] attempts to explain why people will pay more in an auction for the clothing of celebrities if the clothing is unwashed. He believes the answer to this and many other questions is that people cannot help but think of objects as containing a sort of "essence" that can be influenced.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_the_origins_of_pleasure.html| title = The Origins of Pleasure (TED talk)|first1=Paul|last1=Bloom|date=July 2011}}</ref>]]
There is a difference between metaphysical essentialism and psychological essentialism, the latter referring not to an actual claim about the world but a claim about a way of representing entities in cognition.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Medin|first=D. L.|title=Concepts and conceptual structure|journal=American Psychologist|year=1989|volume=44|issue=12|pages=1469–1481|doi=10.1037/0003-066X.44.12.1469|pmid=2690699|s2cid=20925945 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Neufeld|first=E.|title=Psychological Essentialism and the Structure of Concepts|journal=Philosophy Compass|year=2022|volume=17|issue=5|doi=10.1111/phc3.12823}}</ref> Influential in this area is [[Susan Gelman]], who has outlined many domains in which children and adults construe classes of entities, particularly biological entities, in essentialist terms—i.e., as if they had an immutable underlying essence which can be used to predict unobserved similarities between members of that class.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book | last=Gelman | first=Susan A. | title=The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought | location=New York | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2009| isbn=978-0-19-515406-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wuGxpfRrv9EC}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Toosi|first=N. R.|author2=Ambady, N.|title=Ratings of essentialism for eight religious identities|journal=International Journal for the Psychology of Religion|year=2011|volume=21|issue=1|pages=17–29|doi=10.1080/10508619.2011.532441|pmid=21572550|pmc=3093246}}</ref> This causal relationship is unidirectional; an observable feature of an entity does not define the underlying essence.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Dar-Nimrod|first=I.|author2=Heine, S. J.|title=Genetic essentialism: On the deceptive determinism of DNA|journal=Psychological Bulletin|year=2011|volume=137|issue=5|pages=800–818|doi=10.1037/a0021860|pmid=21142350|pmc=3394457}}</ref>

===In developmental psychology===
Essentialism has emerged as an important concept in psychology, particularly [[developmental psychology]].<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref>{{cite journal|last=Gelman|first=S. A.|author2=Kremer, K. E.|title=Understanding natural causes: Children's explanations of how objects and their properties originate|journal=Child Development|year=1991|volume=62|issue=2|pages=396–414|doi=10.2307/1131012|pmid=2055130|jstor=1131012}}</ref> In 1991, Kathryn Kremer and Susan Gelman studied the extent to which children from four–seven years old demonstrate essentialism. Children believed that underlying essences predicted observable behaviours. Children were able to describe living objects' behaviour as self-perpetuated and non-living objects' behavior as a result of an adult influencing the object. Understanding the underlying causal mechanism for behaviour suggests essentialist thinking.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rangel|first=U.|author2=Keller, J.|title=Essentialism goes social: Belief in social determinism as a component of psychological essentialism|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|year=2011|volume=100|issue=6|pages=1056–1078|doi=10.1037/a0022401|pmid=21319911}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Demoulin|first1=Stéphanie|last2=Leyens |first2=Jacques-Philippe |last3=Yzerbyt |first3=Vincent|title=Lay Theories of Essentialism |journal=Group Processes & Intergroup Relations|year=2006|volume=9|issue=1|pages=25–42|doi=10.1177/1368430206059856|s2cid=14374536}}</ref>

There are four key criteria that constitute essentialist thinking. The first facet is the aforementioned individual causal mechanisms.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=del Río |first1=María Francisca |last2=Strasser |first2=Katherine |date=November 2011 |title=Chilean children's essentialist reasoning about poverty |url=https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/2044-835X.002005 |journal=British Journal of Developmental Psychology |language=en |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=722–743 |doi=10.1348/2044-835X.002005 |pmid=21199501 |issn=0261-510X}}</ref> The second is innate potential: the assumption that an object will fulfill its predetermined course of development.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kanovsky|first=M.|title=Essentialism and folksociology: Ethnicity again|journal=Journal of Cognition and Culture|year=2007|volume=7|issue=3–4|pages=241–281|doi=10.1163/156853707X208503|citeseerx=10.1.1.411.7247}}</ref> According to this criterion, essences predict developments in entities that will occur throughout its lifespan. The third is immutability.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Holtz|first=P.|author2=Wagner, W.|title=Essentialism and attribution of monstrosity in racist discourse: Right-wing internet postings about Africans and jews|journal=Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology|year=2009|volume=19|issue=6|pages=411–425|doi=10.1002/casp.1005}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Birnbaum|first=D.|author2=Deeb, I. |author3=Segall, G. |author4=Ben-Eliyahu, A. |author5=Diesendruck, G. |title=The development of social essentialism: The case of Israeli children's inferences about Jews and Arabs |journal=Child Development |year=2010 |volume=81|issue=3|pages=757–777|doi=10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01432.x|pmid=20573103}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Morton|first=T. A.|author2=Hornsey, M. J. |author3=Postmes, T. |title=Shifting ground: The variable use of essentialism in contexts of inclusion and exclusion|journal=British Journal of Social Psychology|year=2009|volume=48|issue=1|pages=35–59|doi=10.1348/014466607X270287|pmid=18171502|doi-access=free}}</ref> For example, essentialism of nationality has been linked to anti-immigration attitudes.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rad |first1=M.S. |last2=Ginges |first2=J. |title=Folk theories of nationality and anti-immigrant attitudes|journal=Nature Human Behaviour |date=2018 |volume=2 |issue=5 |pages=343–347 |doi=10.1038/s41562-018-0334-3 |pmid=30962601 |s2cid=4898162 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0334-3}}</ref> In multiple studies in India and the United States, it was shown that in lay view a person's nationality is considerably fixed at birth, even if that person is adopted and raised by a family of another nationality at day one and never told about their origin.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Rad |first1=Mostafa Salari |last2=Martingano |first2=Alison Jane |last3=Ginges |first3=Jeremy |date=2018-11-06 |title=Toward a psychology of Homo sapiens : Making psychological science more representative of the human population |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |language=en |volume=115 |issue=45 |pages=11401–11405 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1721165115 |doi-access=free |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=6233089 |pmid=30397114|bibcode=2018PNAS..11511401R }}</ref> This may be due to an over-extension of an essential-biological mode of thinking stemming from cognitive development.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Medin | first1 = D.L. | last2 = Atran | first2 = S. | year = 2004 | title = The native mind: biological categorization and reasoning in development and across cultures | doi = 10.1037/0033-295x.111.4.960 | pmid = 15482069 | journal = Psychological Review | volume = 111 | issue = 4| pages = 960–983 | s2cid = 11085594 | url = https://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ijn_00000565/file/ijn_00000565_00.pdf }}</ref> [[Paul Bloom (psychologist)|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."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bloom|first=Paul|year=2010|title=Why we like what we like|journal=Observer|volume=23|number=8|url=http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2010/october-10/why-we-like-what-we-like.html|publisher=Association for Psychological Science}}</ref> Scholars suggest that the categorical nature of essentialist thinking predicts the use of stereotypes and can be targeted in the application of stereotype prevention.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bastian|first=B.|author2=Haslam, N.|title=Psychological essentialism and stereotype endorsement|journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology|year=2006|volume=42|issue=2|pages=228–235|doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2005.03.003}}</ref>