Essentialist beliefs about sexuality-related categories

• Autores: Elena Delgado Acosta, Verónica Betancor Rodríguez, Armando Rodríguez Pérez
• Localización: International Journal of Social Psychology, Revista de Psicología Social, ISSN-e 1579-3680, ISSN 0213-4748, Vol. 31, Nº 1, 2016, págs. 1-28
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1080/02134748.2015.1101311
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• Resumen
  • español

    Las creencias esencialistas acerca de las categorías sociales sirven a las personas como una estrategia para ordenar el mundo y dotarlo de explicaciones sobre las diferencias y semejanzas entre dichas categorías. En esta investigación se estudian cuatro dimensiones de las creencias esencialistas (su base biológica, su inmutabilidad, claridad de límites categoriales y su potencial informativo) en relación con seis categorías relacionadas con el ámbito de la sexualidad, desde diferentes vertientes. Concretamente, se estudiaron las categorías de gays, lesbianas, transexuales, pederastas, violadores y prostitutas. Los resultados muestran que el perfil esencialista de las seis categorías varía de acuerdo con las dimensiones exploradas, y que las dimensiones esencialistas se utilizan de manera independiente entre sí, por lo que se discute la utilidad de tomar una medida global de esencialismo en lugar de analizar sus dimensiones separadamente

  • English

    People form essentialist beliefs about social categories as a strategy to organize their world and to make sense of the similarities and differences between different categories. This research examines four dimensions of essentialist thinking (biological basis, immutability, clarity of discreteness and informativeness) across different sexuality-related categories. Specifically, the categories of gays, lesbians, transsexuals, paedophiles, rapists and prostitutes were studied. Results show that essentialist beliefs of the six categories vary across dimensions and that essentialist dimensions function independently. Therefore, we discuss the relative usefulness of taking a global measurement as opposed to analysing the dimensions of essentialism separately

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