A problematic way to think about social categories is to essentialize them—to treat particular differences between people as marking fundamentally distinct social kinds. From where do these beliefs arise? Language that expresses generic claims about categories elicits some aspects of essentialism, but the scope of these effects remains unclear. This study (N = 204, ages 4.5–8 years, 73% White; recruited predominantly from the United States and the United Kingdom to participate online in 2019) found that generic language increases two critical aspects of essentialist thought: Beliefs that (a) category-related properties arise from intrinsic causal mechanisms and (b) category boundaries are inflexible. These findings have implications for understanding the spread of essentialist beliefs across communities and the development of intergroup behavior.

中文翻译：

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我们如何谈论社交类型重要吗？一项关于语言如何塑造本质主义信念发展的大型、预先注册的在线实验研究

思考社会类别的一个有问题的方法是将它们本质化——将人与人之间的特定差异视为标记根本不同的社会种类。这些信念从何而来？表达关于范畴的一般性主张的语言引发了本质主义的某些方面，但这些影响的范围仍不清楚。本研究（N = 204，年龄 4.5-8 岁，73% 白人；主要从美国和英国招募并于 2019 年在线参与）发现通用语言增加了本质主义思想的两个关键方面：相信（a）与类别相关的属性来自内在的因果机制和（b）类别边界是不灵活的. 这些发现对于理解本质主义信仰在社区中的传播和群体间行为的发展具有重要意义。