Social constructionist beliefs posit that sociocultural forces shape power-stratified social categories, whereas essentialist beliefs posit that social categories are defined by an immutable, natural essence shared by category members. Across three studies, we developed and validated the Social Constructionist and Essentialist Beliefs Scale (SCEBS) to assess the latent structure of ontological beliefs about two social categories: gender and race. In Study 1 (N = 598), we found a three-factor structure for SCEBS-Gender and SCEBS-Race, consisting of Social Constructionism, Essentialism, and Realism. In Study 2a (N = 300), we examined factor structure stability and criterion-related validity. We found incremental validity of SCEBS, and social constructionist beliefs particularly, for predicting modern sexism and symbolic racism beyond extant, essentialism-focused measures. In Study 2b (N = 218), we established 4-week test–retest reliability of SCEBS. Our research demonstrates the value of assessing both social constructionist and essentialist beliefs in the study of prejudice.

社会建构主义信仰假定社会文化力量塑造了权力分层的社会类别，而本质主义信仰假定社会类别是由类别成员共享的不变的自然本质定义的。在三项研究中，我们开发并验证了社会建构主义和本质主义信仰量表 (SCEBS)，以评估关于两个社会类别的本体论信仰的潜在结构：性别和种族。在研究 1 ( N = 598) 中，我们发现了 SCEBS-Gender 和 SCEBS-Race 的三因素结构，包括社会建构主义、本质主义和现实主义。在研究 2a ( N= 300），我们检查了因子结构稳定性和标准相关效度。我们发现 SCEBS 的增量有效性，特别是社会建构主义信念，可以预测现代性别歧视和象征性种族主义，超越现有的、以本质主义为重点的措施。在研究 2b ( N = 218) 中，我们建立了 SCEBS 的 4 周重测信度。我们的研究证明了在偏见研究中评估社会建构主义和本质主义信仰的价值。