Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T09:12:36.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inherence is an aspect of psychological essentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2014

Tara C. Dennehy
Tara C. Dennehy*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01002. tdennehy@psych.umass.eduhttp://people.umass.edu/tdennehy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Inherence is not a distinct construct from psychological essentialism; it is one of several underlying beliefs. I propose that inherence is only one entry point to the perception of an essence and posit that context may influence which aspects of essentialist reasoning precede inferring an essence. I also discuss how psychological essentialism can uniquely account for violations of category-based expectancies.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 5 , October 2014 , pp. 486 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahn, W., Kalish, C., Gelman, S. A., Medin, D., Luhmann, C., Atran, S., Coley, J. D. & Shafto, P. (2001) Why essences are essential in the psychology of concepts. Cognition 82:59–69. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(01)00145-7.Google Scholar
Bastian, B. & Haslam, N. (2006) Psychological essentialism and stereotype endorsement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42:228–35. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2005.03.003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bastian, B. & Haslam, N. (2007) Psychological essentialism and attention allocation: Preferences for stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information. Journal of Social Psychology 147:531–41. doi:10.3200/SOCP.147.5.531-542.Google Scholar
Bastian, B. & Haslam, N. (2008) Immigration from the perspective of hosts and immigrants: Roles of psychological essentialism and social identity. Asian Journal of Social Psychology 11:127–40. doi:10.1111/j.1467-839X.2008.00250.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Zeev, A. & Dennehy, T. C. (2014) When boys wear pink: Gendered color cues evoke risk taking. Psychology of Men and Masculinity. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/a0034683.Google Scholar
Diesendruck, G. & Haber, L. (2009) God's categories: The effect of religiosity on children's teleological and essentialist beliefs about categories. Cognition 110:100–14. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.11.001.Google Scholar
Gelman, S. A. & Diesendruck, G. (1999) A reconsideration of concepts: On the compatibility of psychological essentialism and context sensitivity. In: Conceptual development: Piaget's legacy, ed. Scholnick, E. K., Nelson, K., Gelman, S. A. & Miller, P. H., pp. 79–102. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Haslam, N. & Ernst, D. (2002) Essentialist beliefs about mental disorders. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 21:628–44. doi:10.1521/jscp.21.6.628.22793.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslam, N. & Levy, S. R. (2006) Essentialist beliefs about homosexuality: Structure and implications for prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32:471–85. doi:10.1177/0146167205276516.Google Scholar
Haslam, N., Rothschild, L. & Ernst, D. (2000) Essentialist beliefs about social categories. British Journal of Social Psychology 39:113–27. doi:10.1348/014466600164363.Google Scholar
Keller, J. (2005) In genes we trust: The biological component of psychological essentialism and its relationship to mechanisms of motivated social cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88:686–702. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.88.4.686.Google Scholar
Medin, D. L. & Ortony, A. (1989) Psychological essentialism. In: Similarity and analogical reasoning, ed. Vosniadou, S. & Ortony, A., p. 179–95. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rehder, B. & Burnett, R. C. (2005) Feature inference and the causal structure of categories. Cognitive Psychology 50:264–314. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2004.09.002.Google Scholar