Читать книгу Companion to Feminist Studies - Группа авторов - Страница 31

Essentialist thinking is a common and understandable human pattern of thought. Studies have shown that lay people frequently use essentialist modes of thought in relation to both objects and people (Medin and Ortony 1989). The developmental psychologist, Gelman, has researched the development of essentialist thinking in children and adults and concludes that “Essentialism is a reasoning heuristic that is readily available to both children and adults” (2004). To Phillips it is “a psychologically inevitable feature of the way humans think” (2010). In order to make sense of the complex and diverse world around us we seek to group things and people into categories on the basis of some – actual or presumed – underlying common qualities or essences. If one accepts this viewpoint it is clear that essentialist thinking will always be with us and the tendency to ascribe essences to the categories man and women, male and female, will continue. Research by Bastain and Haslam showed that essentialist thinking was related to the endorsement of stereotypes, including those related to gender (2006). This implies a need to redouble efforts to encourage evidence‐based critique of essentialist thinking whenever it moves beyond being a handy shorthand to fostering restrictive stereotyping and prejudice. Given this proclivity for humans to look for essentialist explanations, vigilance is required to identify and counter examples of unfounded or oppressive essentialist thinking, wherever it raises its Hydra‐like head.