We conclude by presenting research on strategies for reducing essentialist belief systems and identifying key areas for future research.Įxpected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 49 is July 2023. ESSENTIALISM by Greg McKeown Animated CORE Message Productivity Game 546K subscribers Subscribe 5.8K 250K views 6 years ago 1-Page Summary: Book Link. We focus primarily on essentialism and constructivism, although we describe the greater variety of beliefs beyond this dichotomy, as well as fluidity in how people use these concepts.

Our review of this interdisciplinary scholarship describes the range of views people hold, the attitudes and behaviors associated with them, and what factors contribute to these views. Being neither culturally nor historically specific it is a key element of human nature that is particularly prominent in childhood. These conceptualizations have crucial consequences for intergroup attitudes, support for social policies, and structures of inequality, all of which are key sociological concerns yet much of the research in this area has emerged outside of sociology. Part of me feels like this should be a five-star review, and once I go back through my book (I listened on audio) and begin marking it up and taking notes, I. Together Cain and Boulter’s research suggests that essentialism is a prominent element of our distinctively human perspective on reality. Here, I give an accessible definition of genetic determinism, essentialism and reductionism, review psychological research on why the idea might be politically or socially consequential, provide. 4 Other proposals, in contrast, suggest that essentialism is an effect of multiple other basic, early-emerging cognitive tendenciese.g., the ability to track objects over time and causal-deterministic biaseswhich conspire during. Demonstrating how race is socially constructed has been a core sociological objective, yet many individuals continue to hold essentialist and other concepts of what races are and how to account for group differences. Many theorists have seen this as evidence that psychological essentialism as such is an innate tendency.

Essentialism review