The Development of Social Essentialism: The Case of Israeli Children’s Inferences About Jews and Arabs

Birnbaum, Dana W.; Deeb, Inas; Segall, Gili; Ben-Eliyahu, Adar; Diesendruck, Gil

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01432.x

Cited by 113 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

131

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These Ns are comparable to those in previous developmental studies of social inference (e.g. Birnbaum et al, 2010). …”

supporting

confidence: 88%

“…Diesendruck & HaLevi (2006) showed that secular Jewish kindergarteners preferred to make Essentialist Thinking About Religion Categories 7 social inferences based on membership of ethnicity (Arab, Jew) and social class categories rather than based on shared personality characteristics. In a somewhat different task, Birnbaum et al (2010) examined Israeli children's willingness to base inferences about novel behaviour on competing cues related to membership in ethnicity categories, gender, religiosity, and social status. Religious Jewish children preferentially used ethnicity to guide inferences, and showed little change in this tendency between kindergarten and 6 th grade.…”

Section: Ethnicity Categories In Israelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Birnbaum et al, 2010), and show that when forced to choose, children in Northern Ireland prefer to draw inferences on the basis of religion over gender or control categories. They also suggest that in Northern Ireland the emergence of religion as a privileged category for social inference may be especially pronounced among children attending segregated schools.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…As a result, religious affiliation-i.e., membership in the category Catholic or Protestant-remains a critically important social dimension in Northern Ireland today (see Gillespie, 2010) and Northern Irish society is subject to high levels In the following five studies (along with a meta-analysis), we examine the development of essentialist thinking about social categories in Northern Ireland. In our first study, we use a forced-choice inference task based on that used by Birnbaum et al (2010) to examine the relative potency of a culturally salient social dimension (religion) in guiding inferences about unfamiliar properties. In the inference task participants learn that an individual, distinguished by its membership of two social categories, possesses a property, and are presented with two further individuals each sharing with the base membership of just one social category.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Northern Ireland than do essentialist beliefs about ethnicity categories amongst Israeli children (see Birnbaum et al, 2010;Diesendruck & HaLevi, 2006).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States).

Smyth¹,

Feeney²,

Eidson³

et al. 2017

Developmental Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social essentialism, the belief that members of certain social categories share unobservable properties, licenses expectations that those categories are natural and a good basis for inference.A challenge for cognitive developmental theory is to give an account of how children come to develop essentialist beliefs about socially important categories. Previous evidence from Israel suggests that kindergarteners selectively engage in essentialist reasoning about culturally salient (ethnicity) categories, and that this is attenuated among children in integrated schools. In five studies (N=718) we used forced-choice (Study 1) and unconstrained (Studies 2-4) categorybased inference tasks, and a questionnaire (Study 5) to study the development of essentialist reasoning about religion categories in Northern Ireland (Studies 1-3 & 5) and the US (Study 4).Results show that, as in Israel, Northern Irish children selectively engage in essentialist reasoning about culturally salient (religion) categories, and that such reasoning is attenuated among children in integrated schools. However, the development trajectory of essentialist thinking and the patterns of attenuation among children attending integrated schools in Northern Ireland differ from the Israeli case. Meta-analysis confirmed this claim and ruled out an alternative explanation of the results based on community diversity. Although the Northern Irish and Israeli case studies illustrate that children develop selective essentialist beliefs about socially important categories, and that these beliefs are impacted by educational context, the differences between them emphasize the importance of historical, cultural, and political context in understanding conceptual development, and suggest that there may be more than one developmental route to social essentialism. Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States)Psychological essentialism is the belief that natural categories contain an underlying essence that conveys category membership and causes category members to share both observable and hidden properties (Gelman, 2003;Medin & Ortony, 1989). In some cases, essentialist thinking can be useful. For example, using "essentialized" categories for inference provides us with an important tool to reduce the complexity of incoming information to manageable levels, and allows us to organize what we know and make inferences about what we don't know. However, essentialist thinking can also be harmful and lead to overgeneralization or unwarranted assumptions of homogeneity, especially when essentialist thinking is applied to social categories (e.g. Diesendruck, 2013;Leslie, Cimpian, Meyer & Freeland, 2015). In this paper we examine the development of essentialist thinking about socially important religion categoriesCatholic and Protestant-in Northern Ireland, with particular attention toward how school and national context may contribute to differences in the use of social categories to guide inferences.Essentialist...

show abstract

“…These Ns are comparable to those in previous developmental studies of social inference (e.g. Birnbaum et al, 2010). …”

supporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Ethnicity Categories In Israelmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Northern Ireland than do essentialist beliefs about ethnicity categories amongst Israeli children (see Birnbaum et al, 2010;Diesendruck & HaLevi, 2006).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States).

Smyth¹,

Feeney²,

Eidson³

et al. 2017

Developmental Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The Development of Racial Categorization in Childhood

Pauker

Williams

Steele

2017

The Wiley Handbook of Group Processes in Children and Adolescents

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Whereas considerable research has focused on children's dyadic relationships (Bradford Brown & Dietz, 2011), comparatively little attention has been given to the intraand intergroup processes involved in children's experiences in groups, as well as issues relating to the structure and organization of children's groups (Cairns, Xie, & Leung, 1998). This lack of attention is surprising given the extent of children's involvement in groups, which commences prior to formal schooling and increases throughout the middle childhood years, reflecting the considerable importance of group membership to them (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). Indeed, the evidence suggests that if there is a possibility of being accepted by, and belonging to, a social group, children will seek to be included (Nesdale, 2007). Moreover, their social interactions occur increasingly within their social groups during the elementary school years (Rubin et al., 2006). Given the limited, albeit rapidly increasing, research attention given to children's social groups, it is perhaps unsurprising that theory development in this area has also been limited. However, the aim of the present chapter is to provide an outline of one theory, social identity development theory (SIDT; Nesdale, 2004, 2007),

show abstract

An examination of the moderating role of growth mindset in the relation between social stress and externalizing behaviors among adolescents

Walker

Jiang

2022

Journal of Adolescence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionExperiencing elevated stress increases the risk of further difficulties in mental health, including externalizing behaviors in adolescents. There is a need for understanding the factors that help adolescents mitigate social stress to prevent problematic externalizing behaviors. Growth mindset has been found to be a promising protective factor in adolescent development including mental health. This study aimed to examine the potential buffering role of growth mindset of thoughts‐emotion‐and‐behaviors in the context of two types of social stress (i.e., family and peer) to reduce externalizing behaviors among adolescents.MethodsThe sample is composed of 399 adolescents (age range 14–18 years, M = 16.22, SD = 1.21; 56.4% female, 42.3% male, 1.3% gender‐nonconforming or variant) from a large, urban, diverse high school in the United States. Adolescent self‐reports were administered at one time.ResultsModeration analyses revealed that growth mindset of thoughts, emotion, and behaviors moderate the association between family stress and externalizing behaviors. The magnitude of this association weakened as the level of growth mindset increased, supporting the buffering effect of the moderator. Neither the moderation effect of growth mindset nor the main effects of peer stress and growth mindset were significant in predicting externalizing behaviors.ConclusionTaken together, the findings suggested that growth mindset has protective effects in reducing externalizing behaviors when adolescents experience family stress. Future directions and implications are discussed.

show abstract

The Development of Social Essentialism: The Case of Israeli Children’s Inferences About Jews and Arabs

Cited by 113 publications

References 34 publications

Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States).

Development of essentialist thinking about religion categories in Northern Ireland (and the United States).

The Development of Racial Categorization in Childhood

An examination of the moderating role of growth mindset in the relation between social stress and externalizing behaviors among adolescents

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About