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Project studying how children make inferences about and between hierarchy and essentialism.

Preregistration of exploratory questions and analysis plan for this project.

In this study, we aim to understand the effect of race, gender, and sexual orientation intersections on moral judgments and acceptance of individuals.

There is some evidence that transphobia exists not only among conservative people but also among people who consider themselves progressive, for example lesbian feminists (Worthen, 2022). One of the possible explanations is displaced aggression - when the real source of our disadvantage is too strong and difficult to fight off, people tend to be hostile toward people who are easier to attack (e.g., Feshbach, 2001). That may be a good explanation of the anti-trans tendencies among feminists in countries where women’s rights are threatened to a great extent, like for example Poland. The main question included in our plan is whether the experimentally induced threat for women’s rights will result in an increase in transphobia among women and whether this link will be moderated by gender essentialism and collective narcissism.

Bilingualism tends to be studied and assessed in the context of surveying bilingual language background and other characteristics. Experimental manipulations of bilingual background are not feasible so there is a reliance on survey data. However, given studies that have primed other aspects of social backgrounds such as culture and race (Gaither et al., 2014; Tadmor et al., 2012), this study intends to carry out a similar idea with a focus on priming bilingual identity and background, instead. The focus will be on how such a priming method affects perceptions of bilingual identity, essentialist beliefs, as well as intergroup bias. Given the relationship that has been found between bilingualism, essentialist beliefs, bias (Chen & Ratliff, 2018; Singh et al., 2020), the focus is on whether there would be a difference between two bilingual groups, one of which has been primed to think about their bilingual identity, the other of which has not been.

Follow-up study exploring perceiver and target contributions to perceived racial prototypicality, and whether reading about an article priming essentialist vs. social constructivist beliefs about race impacts these ratings.

Follow-up study exploring perceiver and target contributions to perceived racial prototypicality, and whether reading about an article priming essentialist vs. social constructivist beliefs about race impacts these ratings.

Previous studies in developmental and social psychology have found an essentialist bias when people are thinking about animals (i.e. species, Gelman, 2003; Newman & Knobe, 2019; Shtulman & Schulz, 2008) and human categories (i.e. gender or race, Davoodi et al., 2020; Haslam & Whelan, 2008; Keller, 2005; Rhodes & Moty, 2020). In the context of animals, studies show that people often think that animals from the same species share a common essence and do not accept trait-variability (Emmons & Kelemen, 2015; Shtulman & Schulz, 2008). This misunderstanding of species structure is likely to be an obstacle to understanding how evolution by natural selection works (Ronfard & Kelemen, 2019). In the context of humans, studies have mainly focused on the impact of essentialism on stereotypes and prejudices and the structure of these beliefs. Notably, two studies using factor analyses found that social essentialism is not a unified concept but is instead composed of two factors: category as natural kind and category as entative (Haslam et al., 2000; Coley et al., under review). Against this background, our study aims to better understand the structure and consequences of essentialism when people think about human AND non-human animal categories. First, we will test if people struggle to accept intra-category trait-variability for social categories to the same extent as for animal categories. We hypothesize that because people are more often exposed to human differences, they will be more likely to accept variability in human essentialized categories than animal categories. Second, we will use factor analysis to test the structure of essentialist beliefs when reasoning about non-human animal categories as compared to human categories. It is still unknown whether essentialism about animal categories also has a two factor structure. Finally, we will explore links between variability judgements and essentialism about social categories and non-human animal categories with teleological beliefs about those categories since it is possible that teleological beliefs might also predict variability judgements potentially because of correlations with essentialist ideas or some dimensions of them (see Emmons & Kelemen, 2023). We will also explore relationships between essentialist beliefs about human and nonhuman animals categories and intelligence and personality mindset.

PSY4960 with Amanda Mae Woodward

The aim of the experiment is to assess whether people have a causal essentialist view of biological and chemical categories. Participants will be presented with a vignette describing some explorers who discover either a tiger-like species or a water-like substance on another planet. In each case, the creatures/substance will be described as having the same composition, appearance, and purposes as Earthly tigers/water. In one condition, the internal composition of the creatures/substance will be described as being causally responsible for the creatures'/substance's appearance and purposes. In the other condition, the internal composition of the creatures/substance will be described as not being causally responsible for the creatures'/substance's appearance and purposes. Participants will rate two statements: one saying that the target creatures/substance belongs to the same category as the Earthly counterpart; the other saying that it does not belong to the same category as the Earthly counterpart. Participants will also be asked to provide a brief explanation for each rating.

Gender essentialism, that is perception of gender differences as something inherent and immutable, is associated with various stereotypes, prejudices and other misconceptions related to gender, such as justification of violence against women (Mahalingam et al. 2007), rape myth acceptance (Łyś et al., 2021; 2022; 2023), and, importantly in the context of the current project, transphobia/transnegativity (Hatch et al., 2022; Jones et al., 2025; Tee & Hegarty, 2006; Wilton et al., 2019). However, there is a lack of data concerning the link between gender essentialism and internalized transphobia among transgender people. Taking into account the link between gender essentialism and transphobia in the general population, we can hypothesise that gender essentialism would be associated with internalized transphobia. On the other hand, Glazier et al. (2021) demonstrated that transgender essentialism (i.e., perception of transgender as a biologically determined phenomenon, existing regardless of societal factors, like religion and culture) is negatively associated with transphobia. According to Cull et al. (2025), one of the risk factors of internalized transphobia is the experience of microaggressions, which can take on a form of pity, disrespect, talking down, or verbal harassment (Cull, 2025). Therefore, we are going to verify whether gender essentialism and transgender essentialism moderate the link between microaggressions and internalized transphobia.

Gender essentialism, that is perception of gender differences as something inherent and immutable, is associated with various stereotypes, prejudices and other misconceptions related to gender, such as justification of violence against women (Mahalingam et al. 2007), rape myth acceptance (Łyś et al., 2021; 2022; 2023), and, importantly in the context of the current project, transphobia/transnegativity (Hatch et al., 2022; Jones et al., 2025; Tee & Hegarty, 2006; Wilton et al., 2019). However, there is a lack of data concerning the link between gender essentialism and internalized transphobia among transgender people. Taking into account the link between gender essentialism and transphobia in the general population, we can hypothesise that gender essentialism would be associated with internalized transphobia. On the other hand, Glazier et al. (2021) demonstrated that transgender essentialism (i.e., perception of transgender as a biologically determined phenomenon, existing regardless of societal factors, like religion and culture) is negatively associated with transphobia. According to Cull et al. (2025), one of the risk factors of internalized transphobia is the experience of microaggressions, which can take on a form of pity, disrespect, talking down, or verbal harassment (Cull, 2025). Therefore, we are going to verify whether gender essentialism and transgender essentialism moderate the link between microaggressions and internalized transphobia.

Gender essentialism, that is perception of gender differences as something inherent and immutable, is associated with various stereotypes, prejudices and other misconceptions related to gender, such as justification of violence against women (Mahalingam et al. 2007), rape myth acceptance (Łyś et al., 2021; 2022; 2023), and, importantly in the context of the current project, transphobia/transnegativity (Hatch et al., 2022; Jones et al., 2025; Tee & Hegarty, 2006; Wilton et al., 2019). However, there is a lack of data concerning the link between gender essentialism and internalized transphobia among transgender people. Taking into account the link between gender essentialism and transphobia in the general population, we can hypothesise that gender essentialism would be associated with internalized transphobia. On the other hand, Glazier et al. (2021) demonstrated that transgender essentialism (i.e., perception of transgender as a biologically determined phenomenon, existing regardless of societal factors, like religion and culture) is negatively associated with transphobia. According to Cull et al. (2025), one of the risk factors of internalized transphobia is the experience of microaggressions, which can take on a form of pity, disrespect, talking down, or verbal harassment (Cull, 2025). Therefore, we are going to verify whether gender essentialism and transgender essentialism moderate the link between microaggressions and internalized transphobia.

This project aims to organize the psycholgoical constructs of "essentialism." The structure of essentialist beliefs about social categories has not been known to be stable across targets and culture. Participants will judge in- versus out- group social categories in terms of thier perceived discreteness, uniformity, informativeness, naturalness, immutability, stability, inherence, necessity, exclusivity as well as status and stereotypes. Through the analyses, the present prjoect unreveales the structure of psychological essentialism.

Bilingualism has been found to be multidimensional in its nature but has tended to be studied in a categorical context, which fails to capture this multidimensional charactersitic (Luk & Bialystok 2013). Given the support for an association of bilingualism with less racial bias (Burns et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2020) and support for an association of bilingualism with reduced essentialist biases (Byers-Heinlein & Garcia 2015), as well as support for an association between greater essentialist biases with greater intergroup biases (Andreychik & Gill, 2015; Bastian & Haslam, 2006; Chen & Ratliff, 2018), there is value to understanding the relationship of these three factors with each other. This current study seeks to illuminate the nature of how bilingualism, essentialist beliefs, and intergroup biases relate to each other, particularly seeking to determine whether there is a mediation model which captures this relationship.

Bilingualism has been found to be multidimensional in its nature but has tended to be studied in a categorical context, which fails to capture this multidimensional charactersitic (Luk & Bialystok 2013). Given the support for an association of bilingualism with less racial bias (Burns et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2020) and support for an association of bilingualism with reduced essentialist biases (Byers-Heinlein & Garcia 2015), as well as support for an association between greater essentialist biases with greater intergroup biases (Andreychik & Gill, 2015; Bastian & Haslam, 2006; Chen & Ratliff, 2018), there is value to understanding the relationship of these three factors with each other. This current study seeks to illuminate the nature of how bilingualism, essentialist beliefs, and intergroup biases relate to each other, particularly seeking to determine whether there is a mediation model which captures this relationship.

We aim to examine the attitudes participants infer of a speaker who holds essentialist (pro-“Born This Way”) versus anti-essentialist (post-“Born This Way”) beliefs about sexual orientation. We will additionally explore how these beliefs change when the speaker refers to epistemic versus moral reasoning as evidence for their pro-“Born This Way” or post-“Born This Way” beliefs.

Study preregistrations, materials, data, and analysis code for Studies 1-3 in the manuscript, "Gender Essentialism Leads to Biased Learning Opportunities that Shape Women’s Career Interests." (Note that these were Studies 4-6 of the PI's Dissertation; Dissertation Studies 1-3 are included in a separate paper on a related but distinct theme).

Study preregistrations, materials, data, and analysis code for Studies 1-3 in the manuscript, "Gender Essentialism Leads to Biased Learning Opportunities that Shape Women’s Career Interests." (Note that these were Studies 4-6 of the PI's Dissertation; Dissertation Studies 1-3 are included in a separate paper on a related but distinct theme).

There is some evidence for a link between gender essentialism and misconceptions related to gender-based violence, like justification of domestic violence (Mahalingam et al., 2007) and rape myth acceptance (Łyś et al., 2021, 2022, 2023). Łyś et al. (2021, 2022) demonstrated also that this link is mediated by hostile sexism. However, the previous studies concerning this phenomenon are based on declarations, not behaviors. We intend to fill in this gap by checking the link between gender essentialism, ambivalent sexism and cyberharassment measured with a behavioral measure called computer harassment paradigm, where the participant interacts with a bogus female partner and has a possibility to send her either neutral or harassing content (Diehl et al., 2012; Galdi et al., 2014).

This study explores the essentialism of personality characteristics (e.g., wisdom, bravery, and humility) and whether Hindus from different castes in India associate them with the heart or the brain when presented with transplant stories where a person's brain/heart is placed into the body of another.

Studies examining whether the tendency to essentialize social categories and/or emotion categories is related to biased perception or recalled perception of faces.

On this episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with YouTube Superstar Ali Abdaal during part 2 of 2 interview on how stoicism influences analytics, concrete vs. ineffable, the importance of sticking to the system, and his new book: Feel Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You.Ali Abdaal is a doctor, entrepreneur, and the world's most followed productivity expert. He became intrigued by the science of productivity while juggling the demands of medical training at Cambridge University with building his business. Ali's evidence-based videos, podcasts, and articles about the human mind have reached hundreds of millions of people around the world. YouTube | IG | Twitter/X: @AliAbdaalListen to his podcast (where this episode will also be released) Deep Dive with Ali Abdall.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail?? Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.?? Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

STUDY NAME: AGE OF TRANS SELF-IDENTIFICATION. This study will test whether age has an effect on transprejudice, and whether this is moderated by transgender essentialism.

One recent objection against the view that we essentialize categories in terms of teleology, or purposes, is that the effect of teleological considerations on categorization judgments in radical transformation tasks can be explained as the result of diagnostic inference (Neufield, 2021). The basic idea is that changes in observable features lead to diagnostic inferences about changes in the underlying causes of those features. And the underlying causes, on this particular proposal, are supposed to be viewed in scientific terms. For instance, changes in appearance properties of a creature might lead someone to infer that some underlying cause, such as DNA, is responsible for the changes. If that is right then evidence that a thing's true purpose has changed leads one to infer that some kind of underlying deeper cause, which is construed in scientific terms, is responsible for the changes. So any effect of teleology on category judgments is instead due to reasoning about changes in underlying, scientifically construed causes. Here we directly pit changes in DNA against changes in a thing's true purpose to determine which factor has more weight in categorization judgments, even though both are equally diagnostic of category membership.

In Study 1, we demonstrated that gender essentialism among cisgender men predicts cyberharassment. To check whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between those variables, we decided to conduct Study 2 - an experimental study.

In Study 1, we demonstrated that gender essentialism among cisgender men predicts cyberharassment. To check whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between those variables, we decided to conduct Study 2 - an experimental study.

Existing research on the relationship between multiracialism and race essentialism by Levy et al. (2022) has demonstrated that categorizing multiracial faces, as opposed to monoracial faces, reduces race essentialism. Our research seeks to replicate this effect and examines whether or it persists across a 10-minute intervening task.

Existing research on the relationship between multiracialism and race essentialism by Levy et al. (2022) has demonstrated that categorizing multiracial faces, as opposed to monoracial faces, reduces race essentialism. Our research seeks to replicate this effect and examines whether or it persists across a 10-minute intervening task.

By simplifying and organizing your life to include what is essential and eliminating what is not, you can create a life that is built around meaning and purpose.  Join the Backseat Drivers, Niki and Mark, for a discussion with Anna McKeown and learn more about Essentialism and how you can apply it to improve your life and relationships.   Get started by taking the Essentialism Quiz at https://gregmckeown.com/quiz/ Anna McKeown is an accomplished actress, mother, wife, homeschool headmistress and an early influencer of the 'Essentialism' movement.  Anna is married to Greg McKeown author of the New York Times bestselling book 'Essentialism - The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.  Find out more about Essentialism at https://essentialism.com/ or buy Greg McKeown's book at https://amzn.to/3bZDPXv.  Greg just released a 21 Day Essentialism Challenge for $49. You can get this for free if you buy the recently released paperback of Essentialism at https://amzn.to/3bZDPXv.  You can connect with Niki Bennett at https://www.ascentcoachingandtherapy.com/ P.S. If you like this podcast, please share it with a friend! P.P.S. Please please (pretty) please leave us a review on iTunes!  Your reviews help others find out about our show. Contact us at [email protected] with show ideas or questions. Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/backseatdriver/message

We are examining why our interventions to decrease essentialism worked with "born in the wrong body" narratives, but not "born this way" narratives. In turn, we are asking participants how relevant they think trans, cis, lesbian, bisexual, gay, and straight populations to the phrases "born in the wrong body" and "born this way." This study uses a within-subjects design in which all participants are presented with four narratives: two target narratives ("born this way" and "born in the wrong body") and two control narratives ("love is love" and "my body, my choice.") For each phrase, participants will rate how strongly they believe it applies to six target social groups (straight people, cis people, trans people, lesbian women, gay men, and bisexual people) and five control groups (men, women, Black people, White people, and Americans). Ratings will be made on a continuous sliding scale from 0 (not at all relevant) to 100 (completely relevant), allowing for direct comparisons within participants of how each phrase is associated with each social group. The order of phrase presentation (e.g., whether participants see "born this way" or "born in the wrong body" first) will be counterbalanced across participants to control for order effects. The order of the group rating options for each phrase will also be randomized. We hypothesize the following: H1 (main effect of group attribution): Across both phrases, participants will rate trans people as more strongly associated with the phrase than cis people (mean trans ratings > mean cis ratings) H2 (main effect of phrase): The phrase "born in the wrong body" will be rated as more applicable to trans people than the phrase "born this way" (trans-BITWB rating > trans-BTW rating) H3 (possible interaction): The difference in ratings between trans and cis people will be larger for "born in the wrong body" than for "born this way" (trans–cis difference score will be greater for BITWB than BTW) H4 (exploratory): We will explore differences in how the phrases are rated as applicable to LGB and straight people.

Real Essentialism defends the metaphysical position that everything in the world has an essence or nature that fixes its identity. Although a traditional view in philosophy, defended most famously by Aristotle, scepticism about and hostility to the notion of essence in modern and contemporary philosophy are a commonplace. Recent work in logic and philosophy of language has given essentialism a new life, but Real Essentialism argues that it has still not been given the contemporary defence it requires. It sets out a full theory of essence and applies it to such questions as the nature of species, the nature of life and the essence of the person.

On this episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with YouTube Superstar Ali Abdaal on how stoicism influences analytics, concrete vs. ineffable, the importance of sticking to the system, and his new book:Feel Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You.Ali Abdaal is a doctor, entrepreneur, and the world's most followed productivity expert. He became intrigued by the science of productivity while juggling the demands of medical training at Cambridge University with building his business. Ali's evidence-based videos, podcasts, and articles about the human mind have reached hundreds of millions of people around the world. YouTube | IG | Twitter/X: @AliAbdaalListen to his podcast (where this episode will also be released) Deep Dive with Ali Abdall. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail?? Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.?? Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This study asks whether prototypicality or essentialism better explains permissibility judgments of gender affirming medical care for trans and nonbinary people using a between-subjects design.

A project that investigates effects of quantifier force and retention interval on the generic recall bias and essentialism.

A project that investigates effects of quantifier force and retention interval on the generic recall bias and essentialism.

We aim to examine the extent to which sexual orientation essentialism is a motivated process. We will test this question by providing participants with a passage about sexual orientation that is either essentialist (pro-“Born This Way”) or anti-essentialist (post-“Born This Way”), and will be justified by either epistemic or moral reasoning.

People intuitively view social groups as having biological underpinnings and discrete boundaries (Prentice & Miller, 2007; Roberts et al., 2017). Such essentialist beliefs are considered to revolve around the idea that some deep, immutable “essence” ultimately determines social group membership, and gives rise to uniform group features (Medin & Ortony, 1989). Essentialist views of social groups are early emerging and culturally prevalent, reflecting a possibly domain-general conceptual framework that people endorse to make sense of the world (Gelman 2003; Haslam, 2017). However, given the high frequency of social encounters in daily life, social and cultural inputs are likely to play a more critical role in shaping specific components of essentialist beliefs about social groups than for other domains in which people hold essentialist beliefs, such as for biological species (Mandalaywala & Rhodes, 2017). Consistent with this possibility: 1) preschool children readily essentialized novel animal categories with minimal introduction, but require more input to do so for social categories (Brandone & Gelman, 2009; Rhodes, 2012); and 2) children attending kindergartens with different structures (integrated vs. segregated with respect to religion and ethnicity; Deeb et al., 2011) or living in societies with different levels of racial diversity (Hawaii vs. Massachusetts; Pauker et al., 2016) or different levels of social and political conservatism (liberal vs. conservative; Rhodes & Gelman, 2009), showed different developmental patterns of essentialist thinking about race/ethnicity and gender categories. These findings shed light on the role of social contexts on essentialist beliefs in the social domain. However, the existing literature on social essentialism bears two major gaps: First, the majority of past studies were conducted within the traditional WEIRD populations (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich & Democratic; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010) with few exceptions. The lack of empirical evidence drawn from non-WEIRD samples, including traditional eastern asian societies, poses questions on the generalization of current findings. Second, few studies, if any, have explored the cognitive mechanisms that might underlie variations in social essentialism, either at group or individual level. These limitations constrain a more refined understanding of the cultural origin of social essentialism. Thus, the current study aims to investigate the relationship between cultural characteristics and social essentialism, by using a battery of cultural measurements to quantitatively test their predictive power to both cross-cultural and within-cultural variances in social essentialist thinking. Specifically, the current study will test the extent to which specific components of social essentialism are predicted by cultural variables that were previously theorized and evidenced to describe systematic cognitive differences across societies, such as individualistic versus collectivistic social orientation and holistic versus analytic reasoning styles (Triandis et al., 1988; Morris & Peng, 1994; Nisbett et al., 2001). We will use a list of cultural measurements established in previous literature, including: 1) a ten-statement task that invites participants to identify themselves in ten short statements (TST; Kuhn & McPartland, 1954); 2) a self-construal scale that measures participants’ independent versus interdependent self-concept (SCS; Singelis, 1994); 3) an inclusion of others in self scale that measures participants’ self-concept in regard with others (IOS; Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992); 4) a neglect of external demand scale that measures the extent to which participants attributes outcomes of social events to internal personal traits (NED; Scopelliti et al., 2017); and 5) a triad categorization task that measures participants’ categorization preferences based on taxonomic versus relational cues (Chiu, 1972). Participants’ essentialist thinking about race (Black, White, Asian), gender (men, women), nationality (American, Chinese), social class (rich, poor) and religion (Christian, Buddhist) will be measured by a social essentialism scale that has been widely used and validated in cross-cultural samples (Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000; Coley et al., 2019). In addition, we will also measure participants’ self-reported religiosity as well as social diversity and mobility as potential demographic predictors.

The current study will examine the effect of language and explanation on the development of children and adults’ essentialist beliefs about novel social categories. In particular, we will investigate the joint effects of generic vs. specific language about a category, and biological vs. social explanations of category properties on various indices of social cognition. This project intends to follow up on recent research by Noyes & Keil (2019) that corroborates the effect of generic language on essentialist beliefs (whereby generic language increases essentialism; see Rhodes, Leslie, & Tworek, 2012 and Leshin, Leslie, & Rhodes, under review), but found that it does so only for biological properties. Here, we aim to clarify the relationship between generic language and essentialist beliefs by explicitly manipulating both the language (generic vs. specific) as well as the causal explanations (biological vs. social) provided for different properties. Additionally, since Noyes & Keil (2019)’s project only included adults, we hope to illuminate the developmental trajectory of this phenomenon by including children in our study as well. In these ways, our research aims to elucidate the boundary conditions of the effects of generic language on social essentialism.

Study 4

Study 4

One recent objection against the view that we essentialize categories in terms of teleology, or purposes, is that the effect of teleological considerations on categorization judgments in radical transformation tasks can be explained as the result of diagnostic inference (Neufield, 2021). The basic idea is that changes in observable features lead to diagnostic inferences about changes in the underlying causes of those features. And the underlying causes, on this particular proposal, are supposed to be viewed in scientific terms. For instance, changes in appearance properties of a creature might lead someone to infer that some underlying cause, such as DNA, is responsible for the changes. If that is right then evidence that a thing's true purpose has changed leads one to infer that some kind of underlying deeper cause, which is construed in scientific terms, is responsible for the changes. So any effect of teleology on category judgments is instead due to reasoning about changes in underlying, scientifically construed causes. Here we show people creatures that have different DNA, spots, antennae, and true purposes. We also show them the causal relationships between these variables, which is that DNA is a common cause of spots, antennae, and true purpose. Then participants view interventions on this causal structure that result in either changes to spots, antennae, true purpose, or DNA. We expect that interventions that change a thing's true purpose will have a greater impact on categorization judgments than interventions that change a thing's spots or antennae. If participants were making a diagnostic inference from a changed feature to its (normal) cause -- the DNA -- then there should be no difference between interventions on the true purpose versus interventions on the spots or antennae.

One recent objection against the view that we essentialize categories in terms of teleology, or purposes, is that the effect of teleological considerations on categorization judgments in radical transformation tasks can be explained as the result of diagnostic inference (Neufield, 2021). The basic idea is that changes in observable features lead to diagnostic inferences about changes in the underlying causes of those features. And the underlying causes, on this particular proposal, are supposed to be viewed in scientific terms. For instance, changes in appearance properties of a creature might lead someone to infer that some underlying cause, such as DNA, is responsible for the changes. If that is right then evidence that a thing's true purpose has changed leads one to infer that some kind of underlying deeper cause, which is construed in scientific terms, is responsible for the changes. So any effect of teleology on category judgments is instead due to reasoning about changes in underlying, scientifically construed causes. Here we show people creatures that have different DNA, spots, antennae, and true purposes. We also show them the causal relationships between these variables, which is that DNA is a common cause of spots, antennae, and true purpose. Then participants view interventions on this causal structure that result in either changes to spots, antennae, true purpose, or DNA. We expect that interventions that change a thing's true purpose will have a greater impact on categorization judgments than interventions that change a thing's spots or antennae. If participants were making a diagnostic inference from a changed feature to its (normal) cause -- the DNA -- then there should be no difference between interventions on the true purpose versus interventions on the spots or antennae.

This week we're talking about Truth, as in capital T truth, and what happened to it.  It's a deep question.  We examine truth from the lens of continental philosophy, taking into account the ancient philosophers that French intellectuals were problematizing and answering to.  It's a short episode, but the content is dense.  Hit us up with questions at [email protected]   Transcript:  https://medium.com/no-easy-answers/anti-foundationalism-non-essentialism-and-deconstruction-a-crisis-of-language-truth-41919521b51e Music by:  Samuel Thomas (Self Taut) - https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2 --- Follow us on Social Media: Twitter Facebook Medium Patreon --- Join the discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/noeasyanswerspodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/noeasyanswers/message --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/noeasyanswers/support --- Become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/noeasyanswers --- One-off Contribution: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/julestaylormusic --- Comments, concerns, criticisms, and vitriol: [email protected] --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/noeasyanswers/support

At the core of our humanity is thought to be a defining essence that gives rise to all of our uniquely human qualities (Haslam et al., 2005; Smith, 2011; Leyens et al., 2001). To dehumanize another is to perceive them as lacking a common human essence (Smith, 2011). Indeed, our past research found psychological essentialism, the tendency to see members of a particular category as having an inhering essence (Medin & Ortony, 1989), to be a robust predictor of dehumanization. That is, people who tend to think in an essentialist manner also dehumanized a variety of national and ethnic outgroups. We now seek to manipulate essentialist thinking to determine if it has downstream effects on dehumanization. In light of the blatant dehumanization documented between American partisans (e.g., Cassese, 2019, Moore-berg et al., 2020), we aim to determine whether manipulating essentialist beliefs affects Democrats' dehumanization of Republicans. Moreover, given dehumanization's robust association with anti-democratic spite (Moore-berg et al., 2020), we also seek to determine whether our manipulation of essentialist thinking has an effect on spite, mediated by its effect on dehumanization.

see attached file

This study attempts to recreate Salomon and Cimpani's 2014 finding that an anti-inherence heuristic manipulation can decrease essentialism. The present study extends on this by specifically examining the relationship between inherence and gender essentialism, and prejudice against non-binary people.

Update to procedures outlined in https://osf.io/3gbvp

Perma.cc archive of https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1115249?ln=en created on 2021-11-01 18:41:09+00:00.

Red and Black Leeds on the limitations of both gender essentialism and sex essentialism as a way to understand gender expression and identity.