This research uses experimental methods to gauge how different facets of essentialist thinking toward (1) types of offending and (2) biosocial risk factors for criminality predict lay punishment support. A randomized between‐subjects experiment using contrastive vignettes was conducted with members of the general public (N = 897). Overall, as hypothesized, aspects of essentialist thinking, particularly informativeness, continuity, immutability, and discreteness, toward both biosocial risk factors and types of offending behavior generally predicted more severe punishments surrounding retribution, incapacitation, and deterrence. Yet, surprisingly, several of the same beliefs, specifically toward discreteness and informativeness, also predicted non‐punitive sentiments toward restoration and decreased prison time in some contexts. This work demonstrates that essentialist thinking not only may affect how the public cognitively categorizes biosocial risk factors for criminality and types of offending, but also may have consequences for public support for the punishment of offenders with particular offense records or characteristics.

中文翻译：

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本质论思想对犯罪的生物社会风险因素和非常规惩罚支持类型的影响。

这项研究使用实验方法来衡量本质主义思维对（1）犯罪类型和（2）犯罪的生物社会风险因素的不同方面如何预测非专业刑罚支持。与普通民众进行了使用对比小插图的随机受试者间实验（N= 897）。总体而言，如所假设的那样，本质主义思想的各个方面，尤其是对生物社会风险因素和犯罪行为类型的信息性，连续性，不变性和离散性，通常预示着对报应，丧失能力和威慑力的更严厉惩罚。然而，令人惊讶的是，一些相同的信念，尤其是对离散性和信息性的信念，也预示着在某些情况下恢复和减少监狱时间的非惩罚性情绪。这项工作表明，本质主义思维不仅会影响公众对犯罪和犯罪类型的生物社会风险因素的认知分类方式，而且可能会影响公众对具有特定犯罪记录或特征的犯罪者的惩罚。