The Interplay of Subjective Essentialism and Entitativity in the Formation of Stereotypes

In line with our subjective essentialist view of stereotypes (Yzerbyt, Rocher, & Schadron, 1997), we propose that two classes of factors that mutually reinforce each other influence the perception of groups. The perception of a strong level of similarity and organization among group members (i.e., group entitativity) suggests the existence of a deep essence that would account for the detected regularities. Conversely, the existence of naïve theories regarding the presence of an underlying core encourages the search for resemblances and connections within the group. After a short presentation of the recent literature dealing with the concepts of entitativity and essentialism, we review a series of studies from our laboratory showing the impact of entitativity on essentialism as well as the influence of essentialism on entitativity. We also provide empirical evidence for this bidirectional process from both the outsider and the insider perspective. Finally, we examine the potential role of cultural differences both in the ascription of a fundamental nature to an entitative assembly of people and in the use of a priori naïve theories to create surface similarity among group members. As a set, these efforts point to the importance of taking into account the constant dialogue between perceiver's theory-based explanations and group member's perceptual characteristics if one wishes to understand group stereotypes.