Construing the Essence: The Effects of Construal Level on Genetic Attributions for Individual and Social Group Differences

Abstract

The present research links a nonsocial, contextual influence (construal level) to the tendency to endorse genetic attributions for individual and social group differences. Studies 1 to 3 show that people thinking in an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set score higher on a measure of genetic attributions for individual and racial group differences. Study 4 showed that abstract (vs. concrete) construal also increased genetic attributions for novel groups. Study 5 explored the potential downstream consequences of construal on intergroup attitudes, and found that abstract (vs. concrete) construal led people to endorse genetic attributions in general and this was associated with increased anti-Black prejudice.

Keywords

construal-level theory essentialism genetic attributions prejudice

Despite scientific consensus that genetic variation is a highly implausible explanation for the perceived differences (in talent, behavior, or motivation) between social groups, the notion that biogenetic factors underlie, and are causally related to, dissimilarities between race and gender groups remains a pervasive lay theory (Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000; Prentice & Miller, 2007). This is concerning because genetic (or otherwise “essentialist”) attributions for group differences often promote unjustified hierarchical relations and ingroup bias (Haslam & Whelan, 2008; Keller, 2005). While the link between genetic attributions and intergroup attitudes has been the focus of much research, few studies have explored the conditions under which people are more (or less) likely to make genetic attributions for social categories (Prentice & Miller, 2007). In the present research, we investigated how one situational factor—whether people are thinking abstractly (vs. concretely; Trope & Liberman, 2010)—influences the extent to which people will endorse these beliefs.

Specifically, we propose and test the hypothesis that people will make more genetic attributions when they are thinking more abstractly. Across the five studies (including reanalyses of previously published data), we investigate whether participants thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) report stronger endorsement of genetic attributions for individual differences (Studies 1b, 2, and 5), and for differences between social groups, including gender and racial groups (Studies 1-3 and 5) and even novel groups (Study 4). Study 5 further examined how this process might lead to racial prejudice.

Psychological Essentialism

“Psychological essentialism” is a common reasoning heuristic, developed in childhood, that people rely on to explain observed patterns in the world (Cimpian & Salomon, 2014; Gelman, 2003). Essentialization is an attributional process whereby people explain the characteristics of other people and groups with reference to an underlying “essence”—an unobservable, intangible, and internal placeholder (Haslam et al., 2000; Newman & Keil, 2008). Although essence placeholders can take myriad forms (e.g., a soul or spirit) or remain undefined, biology (especially genes) seems to serve as a particularly intuitive essence for “natural categories,” such as social groups (Jost & Hamilton, 2005), at least for people in contemporary Western societies (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011; Keller, 2005). This is likely because genes, like all essences, are unobservable and internal, but they are also known, real, physical entities (Newman & Keil, 2008). At the same time, people tend to have an oversimplified understanding of genetics (Conley & Fletcher, 2017; Lanie et al., 2004), and thus tend to be overzealous in their willingness to attribute health and social outcomes to genetic causes (Shostak, Freese, Link, & Phelan, 2009).

Genetic attributions for differences between groups that hold different societal status (e.g., Whites vs. Blacks) are generally linked to negative perceptions of the lower status group (Bastian & Haslam, 2006; Haslam & Whelan, 2008). Experimental work has demonstrated that when people are led to believe in biological theories of race or gender, they exhibit more ingroup bias (Keller, 2005), social distancing from the outgroup (No et al., 2008; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008), and increased stereotype endorsement (Brescoll & LaFrance, 2004; Yzerbyt, Corneille, & Estrada, 2001).

Biological attributions for racial and gender groups are associated with more politically conservative beliefs (Brescoll & LaFrance, 2004; Keller, 2005) and greater acceptance of group-based hierarchies (Martin & Parker, 1995; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008). Evidence suggests that this is motivated, at least in part. For instance, people are more likely to make genetic attributions for gender differences when their motivation to justify the system is experimentally activated (Brescoll, Uhlmann, & Newman, 2013), because these attributions make the hierarchy seem immutable (Brescoll et al., 2013; Hegarty & Golden, 2008; Jost & Hamilton, 2005).

Although genetic attributions are indeed one way for people to justify preexisting inequalities and prejudice (Hegarty & Golden, 2008; Morton, Postmes, Haslam, & Hornsey, 2009), it is unlikely that they are born solely from system-justifying motivations (Cimpian & Salomon, 2014). Evidence for essentialist thinking has been found in children and adults across myriad cultures, leading researchers to speculate that it is a universal human tendency (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011). Thus, in an attempt to address the question of what situational factors might systematically affect essentialist reasoning in general (and genetic attributions in particular), we hone in on one concept that also appears to be part of basic human processing (Harari, 2015) and is also consistently associated with essentialist thinking: mental abstraction.

Abstract Thinking

The extent to which a thing is described in abstract terms is systematically related to how that thing is interpreted. Abstract descriptions of people (“X is violent”) convey that the description is revealing of an enduring and stable trait, whereas concrete descriptions (“X hurt someone”) imply the behavior is an isolated event and is not necessarily descriptive of the actor’s general character (Maas, 1999). Thus, genetic attributions are prototypical abstract descriptions (Burgoon, Henderson, & Markman, 2013), insofar as they link outcomes to some primary, defining feature, which is invariant across time and situations (“genes”), and gloss over secondary features which may change from one context to another (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Developmental psychologists have long been interested in the development of essentialist beliefs in children, which occurs at a very young age, because this mode of representation is an indication of the cognitive ability to go beyond perceptual cues and think abstractly (Gelman, 2003; Newman & Keil, 2008).

Although abstraction may be a notable feat for very young children, adults can switch from concrete to abstract thinking (or vice versa) quickly and effortlessly. An extensive program of research on construal-level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010) has demonstrated that people are easily induced into thinking at an abstract (or “high level”) construal—for example, by thinking about things far away, in time or space; by thinking of superordinate categories; and by asking “why?”—or at a concrete (or “low level”) construal—for example, by thinking about things that are temporal or spatially close, by thinking of subordinate categories, and by asking “how?” (Freitas, Gollwitzer, & Trope, 2004; Fujita, Trope, Liberman, & Levin-Sagi, 2006).

One focal area of research on construal-level theory is to understand the ways in which people’s degree of abstraction systematically affects their thoughts and behaviors. Several studies from this body of work suggest that construal level should affect people’s tendency to make genetic attributions. For instance, people thinking abstractly tend to focus on the core aspects of an object (e.g., the sound quality of a radio) that transcend time and situations, whereas those thinking concretely focus more on peripheral and secondary features (e.g., whether the radio has a clock; Trope & Liberman, 2010). Furthermore, construal influences causal explanations: high (vs. low) level construals lead people to focus more on the causes (vs. consequences) of an event (Rim, Hansen, & Trope, 2013) and to be more confident making theory-based predictions (Nussbaum, Liberman, & Trope, 2006). Thus, insofar as genetic attributions are a way of causally explaining outcomes (e.g., individual and group traits) as stemming from some core, unobservable source that is invariant across time and situations, this prior work suggests that they should be most accessible when people are prompted to think abstractly, as compared to concretely.

In addition, some studies have shown that construal level affects perceptions of social groups in ways that are consistent with the consequences of group essentialization.¹ For example, abstract (vs. concrete) thinking leads people to assume that outgroup members share common goals (Henderson, 2009), and to rely more on stereotypes (McCrea, Wieber, & Myers, 2012). A field study found that temporal distance (vs. closeness)—which presumably induces a more abstract mind-set—promoted biased email responding against women and minorities (Milkman, Akinola, & Chugh, 2012).

Current Research

Understanding what factors might systematically influence essentialist thinking, and its downstream effects on intergroup attitudes, is valuable both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, addressing this issue can expand the scope of research on construal-level theory and illuminate a novel role of social-cognitive processes on intergroup perceptions and relations. Practically, examining this question offers new insights into how adopting a different mind-set may have significant social impact on intergroup attitudes and relations (Jost & Hamilton, 2005). We propose that construal level will impact people’s willingness to endorse essentialist attributions for individual and group differences. We test this proposition across five studies, focusing especially on people’s genetic attributions for group differences (e.g., race and gender).

In the first three studies, we tested our basic hypothesis that holding an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set—either at baseline (Study 1a) or following an experimental manipulation (Studies 1b, 2, and 3)—would be associated with higher endorsement of genetic attributions in general, and for race and gender groups in particular. In Study 4, we investigated whether inducing participants to think abstractly (vs. concretely) would lead them to make more genetic attributions for differences between novel groups (Niffians and Laapians). In the final study, we examined one potential downstream consequence of abstract thinking on intergroup attitudes, testing whether abstract (vs. concrete) construal increases anti-Black prejudice, presumably because of the increased endorsement of genetic attributions.

Studies 1a and 1b

As an initial test of our hypothesis that an abstract (vs. concrete) construal will be related to stronger personal beliefs in genetic essentialism, we reanalyzed data from previously published studies (Luguri, Napier, & Dovidio, 2012; Studies 1 and 2), examining whether genetic attributions for differences between race and gender groups are correlated with individual differences in abstract (vs. concrete) thinking (Study 1a), and are heightened when participants are experimentally manipulated to think in an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set (Study 1b).

Study 1a

We first reanalyze data from a study (Luguri et al., 2012, Study 1) in which participants’ degree of abstract thinking was assessed with the “Behavioral Identification Form” (Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). This questionnaire asks participants to make dichotomous choices between abstract and concrete descriptions for a series of behaviors. For instance, the action “ringing a doorbell” could be described in concrete (“moving a finger”) or abstract (“seeing if someone is home”) terms. Participants’ degree of abstract thinking is operationalized as the proportion of abstract (vs. concrete) descriptors given for 10 different behaviors.

Method

Sixty-three participants (N = 63; M age = 35.73 years, SD = 13.58; 55.6% female) from an online subject pool completed a series of questionnaires. First, they rated various groups on feeling thermometers (from very cold to very warm). Following this (but not analyzed or reported in the article), participants responded to a series of “filler” questions, and then completed the measure of abstract thinking (Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). Among these questions, two items measured genetic attributions for social group differences, on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), including one item referencing race (“Genetic differences between different ethnic and race groups are an important cause for the differences in abilities between individuals from these groups”; M = 3.29, SD = 1.74) and one item referencing gender (“The differences between men and women in behavior and personality are largely determined by genetic predisposition”; M = 4.25, SD = 1.36).

Results

One participant failed to answer the item assessing race group differences (yielding n = 62 for that item). Results showed that participants degree of abstract (vs. concrete) thinking was positively correlated with genetic attributions for differences between racial groups, r(61) = .35, p = .006, and gender groups, r(62) = .26, p = .042, although to a slightly lesser extent.

Study 1b

In a second study (Luguri et al., 2012, Study 2), construal was manipulated using a how/why questionnaire (described below). Here, we reanalyze the data from this study to test the hypothesis that participants put in an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set will be higher on genetic attributions for individual and social group differences.

Method

Sixty-four participants from an online subject pool (N = 64; M age = 34.72, SD = 13.32; 34 women) engaged in a why/how ladder questionnaire task (Freitas et al., 2004) designed to induce abstract versus concrete thinking. In this task, participants were told to think about “how” (concrete condition) or “why” (abstract condition) they maintain good physical health. Those in the concrete condition were instructed to start at the top of the ladder and move down, generating increasingly specific answers to “how” they maintain good health. Those in the abstract condition were told to start at the bottom of the ladder and move up, generating increasing general answers to “why” they maintain good health.

Participants then rated various groups on feeling thermometers (from very cold to very warm). Following this, we assessed participants’ endorsement of genetic essentialism, but this was not analyzed or reported previously. Participants responded to six items that were adapted from a measure of genetic essentialism (Keller, 2005; α = .88). Two items assessed genetic attributions for individual differences, namely, “Many talents that individuals possess can be attributed to genetic causes” and “I believe that an analysis of my genetic predispositions will allow a trained scientist to predict many of my abilities and traits without having any personal knowledge of me.” Three items assessed genetic attributions for racial group differences, including the item used in Study 1a and two additional items (e.g., “Differences in behavior and personality between people of different races are mostly due to genetic differences” and “Many differences between humans of different skin color can be attributed to differences in genetic predispositions”). Genetic attributions for gender differences were assessed with the same single item used in Study 1a. Participants rated agreement with each item on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Results

An ANOVA with construal level (abstract vs. concrete) as the between-subjects factor predicting genetic essentialism confirmed that participants induced to think abstractly reported higher levels of genetic essentialism (M = 3.90, SD = 1.25) compared with those induced to think concretely (M = 3.15, SD = 1.13), F(1, 62) = 6.30, p = .015, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .092.

Because we are primarily interested in attributions for group differences, we also examined whether construal level influenced essentialism about race and gender groups specifically. We conducted a multivariate ANOVA with construal condition predicting (a) the subset of three items regarding race (α = .89) and (b) the single item regarding gender. Participants in the abstract condition reported higher racial essentialism (M = 3.61, SD = 1.52) than those in the concrete condition (M = 2.56, SD = 1.23), F(1, 62) = 9.12, p = .004, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .128. Construal did not reliably affect essentialization of gender, F(1, 62) = 2.79, p = .100, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .043, although the mean in the abstract condition (M = 4.33, SD = 1.51) was somewhat (albeit not significantly) higher than in the concrete condition (M = 3.65, SD = 1.78).

The results were not moderated by political orientation and including participants’ own race or gender as an additional between-subjects factor had no impact on the results here or in any of the subsequent studies (see Supplementary Materials).

Discussion

In line with our hypothesis, these reanalyses found that people are more likely to endorse genetic essentialism, in general, and for racial groups, in particular, when construing the world on an abstract (vs. concrete) level, both at baseline (Study 1a) and when experimentally induced (Study 1b). There was a small but significant correlation between abstract thinking and gender essentialism in Study 1a, but the abstract (vs. concrete) construal manipulation (Study 1b) did not significantly impact genetic attributions for gender differences.

It is worth noting that genetic attributions for gender differences appear to be higher than those for individual and racial group differences (consistent with previous research; for example, Prentice & Miller, 2006), and thus it is conceivable that they are less susceptible to variations in construal level. However, this study was conducted on a rather small sample. Moreover, it was designed for a different purpose, and participants responded to other measures before answering questions relating to essentialism. We next report the results from four additional studies that were designed specifically to investigate the effects of construal on genetic essentialism of group differences.

Study 2

The aim of Study 2 was to test for the robustness and specificity of the effect of construal level on genetic attributions. In this study, we used a different manipulation of construal level (taken from Fujita et al., 2006), in which participants categorized objects by generating a superordinate category (abstract condition) or a subordinate exemplar (concrete condition). We also included a more comprehensive set of dependent measures than Study 1. Specifically, we examined whether construal level influences belief in genetic essentialism as well as another type of deterministic thinking, namely, “social determinism” (Rangel & Keller, 2011)—the belief that people’s character is determined by their upbringing and social background. Although genetic and social determinism could both serve as causal explanations for differences between groups (Rangel & Keller, 2011), we predicted that abstract thinking would lead to an increase in genetic (but not necessarily social) determinism because the notion that members of social groups share some internal genetic maker (or essence) that make them part of that group is an explanation for group differences that transcends time and situations. Social upbringing, by contrast, is a varied construct—no two individuals would have identical background experiences—and the notion that group differences are a function of systematic differences in upbringing suggests that these differences might not arise in a different environment.

Because we are interested in the essentialism of social groups, in particular, we also analyzed subsets of items from the Genetic Essentialism scale that assessed the degree to which respondents made biological attributions for (a) racial group and (b) gender differences.

Method

Participants

Two hundred ninety participants (M age = 34.07, SD = 11.77; 52.2% women) were recruited on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in exchange for a small payment. Power analysis conducted with G*Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007) indicated that this sample size is sufficient to capture a moderate effect size of r = .30, comparable with the effect size for essentialism in Study 1b, with power of 99.95%.

Participants predominantly identified as White (78.6%), with 9.7% identifying as Black, 2.4% as Latino/a, 5.9% as Asian, and 2.1% as “other.” Four participants (1.4%) did not specify their race/ethnicity. The survey took an average of 11.90 min (SD = 15.45) to complete; filtering out those who took an unusually long time (i.e., longer than 40 min; n = 8) did not affect the pattern or significance level of the results, thus all participants are included in our analysis.

Procedure

Participants were first asked to complete a 20-item categorization task designed to induce an abstract or concrete mind-set (Fujita et al., 2006). This task involved showing participants common objects, such as “dog,” and asking them to categorize that object into a superordinate category (abstract condition) or give a subordinate exemplar (concrete condition). For example, in the abstract condition, participants were asked what a dog is an example of (e.g., pet, animal); in the concrete condition, they were asked what an example of a dog is (e.g., poodle, Lassie).

After the construal-level induction, participants completed Keller’s (2005) 18-item Genetic Determinism scale (e.g., “The fate of each person lies in his or her genes”; α = .91) on a scale from 1 (not at all true) to 7 (completely true). This scale included two items that assessed genetic attributions for racial group differences, that we also analyzed separately, namely, “I believe that many differences between humans of different skin color can be attributed to differences in genetic predispositions,” and “I think the genetic differences between Asians and Europeans are an important cause for the differences in abilities between individuals from these groups” (α = .75). In addition, the scale included one item that assessed a genetic attribution for gender differences, namely, “I think that differences between men and women in behavior and personality are largely determined by genetic predisposition.”

Participants also completed a 12-item belief in Social Determinism scale (Rangel & Keller, 2011), which assessed participants’ beliefs about what role social factors (e.g., upbringing) play in shaping people (e.g., “The social environment often has much stronger impact on a person’s behavior than the individual’s personal attributes”; α = .92). The order of these two scales was counterbalanced.

Results and Discussion

We conducted a multivariate ANOVA to test whether the construal-level induction influenced participants’ levels of genetic and social determinism. Participants who were induced to think abstractly reported greater endorsement of genetic essentialism (M = 4.16, SD = 0.94) than those who were induced to think concretely (M = 3.93, SD = 1.0), F(1, 288) = 4.32, p = .039, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .015. For social determinism, however, there was no significant difference between participants induced to think abstractly (M = 4.55, SD = 0.95) and concretely (M = 4.46, SD = 1.06), F(1, 288) = 0.53, p = .466, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .002.

To test whether construal affected essentialization of racial group and gender differences in particular, we conducted a multivariate ANOVA predicting biological attributions for (a) racial and (b) gender group differences. As expected, participants in the abstract condition reported higher levels of genetic attributions for racial group differences (M = 3.98, SD = 1.50) than those in the concrete condition (M = 3.57, SD = 1.58), F(1, 288) = 5.13, p = .024, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .017. A similar (albeit not reliable) pattern was observed for attributions for gender differences, such that those primed to think abstractly (M = 4.35, SD = 1.32) scored slightly (but not significantly) higher than those primed to think concretely (M = 4.15, SD = 1.62), F(1, 288) = 1.37, p = .243, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .005.

Thus, results show that participants thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) are more likely to believe in the inductive potential of genes, consistent with results from Studies 1a and 1b, but not the inductive potential of upbringing. In addition, these first two studies support the idea that people essentialize racial differences more when thinking abstractly, but we did not find evidence that abstraction leads to higher genetic attributions for gender differences. Again, we find that genetic attributions are higher for gender versus racial differences. In both studies, however, genetic attributions for gender differences were measured with just a single item, which could potentially be less reliable than a multiple-item measure. This limitation was addressed in Study 3.

Study 3

The aim of Study 3 was to replicate the findings from the first two studies using more extensive measures of group-based essentialism. We employed the same categorization task as in Study 2 (Fujita et al., 2006), and then assessed genetic attributions for differences between racial and gender groups. Again, we predicted that those thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) would be higher on biological attributions for racial and gender group differences.

Method

Participants

One hundred seventy-two participants (M age = 35.62, SD = 11.94; 45.3% women) were recruited using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in exchange for a small payment. A power analysis indicated that this sample size is sufficient to detect a moderate effect size with a power of 98.09%. The majority (79.7%) of respondents identified as White, with 5.2% identifying as Black, 4.7% identifying as Latino/a, 8.1% identifying as Asian, and 1.7% as “other.” One participant did not specify a race category. Participants on average took 9.70 min (SD = 9.03) to complete the survey. One person took 106.15 min, more than three standard deviations higher than average, but the pattern of results and significance levels remained the same whether or not this participant was included or excluded; thus, the reported results are based on the entire sample.

Procedure

Participants first completed the same categorization task construal-level induction as in Study 2 (Fujita et al., 2006) and then were asked a series of questions assessing the extent to which they endorsed essentialist beliefs. Four items (two taken from Keller, 2005, and two items from the Lay Theory of Race scale; No et al., 2008) measured biological determinism of racial groups (e.g., “To a large extent, a person’s race biologically determines his or her abilities and traits,” α = .83). An additional eight items (α = .89) measured the biological attributions for gender differences (taken from Brescoll et al., 2013), for example, “I think that differences between men and women in personality are largely determined by genetic factors.” Responses were recorded on a 1 to 7 scale.

Results and Discussion

We conducted a multivariate ANOVA with construal level predicting genetic attributions for race and gender differences. Our focal hypothesis—that people thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) would be higher on genetic attributions—was supported for racial groups, but not for gender groups. Specifically, those induced to think abstractly (M = 3.39, SD = 1.42) were higher on biological attributions for race compared with those who were induced to think concretely (M = 2.94, SD = 1.30), F(1, 170) = 4.75, p = .031, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .027. Biological attributions for gender were not affected by construal, with those thinking abstractly (M = 4.04, SD = 1.30) scoring slightly (but not significantly) higher than those thinking concretely (M = 3.81, SD = 1.23), F(1, 170) = 1.35, p = .247, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .008. Thus, Studies 1 through 3 offer converging evidence that construal level affects genetic attributions for differences between racial groups. Abstraction was correlated with gender essentialism in Study 1a, but construal level did not impact essentialization of gender differences in our experiments. However, the pattern of means in each study was in the predicted direction.

Meta-Analyses of Studies 1b to 3

We conducted two internal meta-analyses of the three studies that manipulated construal (Studies 1b, 2, and 3), examining the overall effect of construal on genetic attributions for differences between (a) racial and (b) gender groups, using fixed effects and weighting the mean effect size by the sample size (following the procedures of Goh, Hall, & Rosenthal, 2016).

Results revealed a small to medium overall effect size of construal on genetic attributions for race differences, Cohen’s d = –.34, SE = .09, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [–.516, –.171]; Z = −3.90, p < .001. The overall effect of construal on genetic attributions for gender differences was small, but also significant, Cohen’s d = –.18, SE = .09, 95% CI = [–.36, –.01]; Z = −2.10, p = .036. Thus, the cumulative evidence supports the prediction that abstract (vs. concrete) construal would lead to higher essentialism of both racial and gender groups. For gender groups, the cumulative effect, while small, is not negligible (Goh et al., 2016).

Study 4

The first three studies support the hypothesis that thinking at a high (vs. low) level construal increases people’s endorsement of biological determinism in general, and especially as explanations for racial group differences. In this next study, we examine whether construal level will impact genetic attributions even for novel groups—that is, groups that people have no prior knowledge of or experience with, and thus no preconceived notions of, stereotypical group traits or status differences. If abstract (vs. concrete) construal increases genetic attributions for group differences because it increases people’s focus on core, causal features that are situationally and temporally invariable, as we posit, then construal level should lead people to genetically essentialize groups even in the absence of any prior awareness about the groups.

In this study, we employed a task from previous research (Ratliff & Nosek, 2010), in which participants were introduced to two novel groups—the “Niffians” and the “Laapians.” After being manipulated to think abstractly versus concretely (using the how/why ladder task employed in Study 1b; Freitas et al., 2004), participants were asked to form an impression of these two groups based on learning about the traits of various group members. Then, we measured participants’ endorsement of genetic attributions for differences between Niffians and Laapians, predicting that this would be higher when participants were induced to think abstractly as compared with concretely.

Method

Participants

One hundred one participants (M age = 34.94, SD = 11.77; 47.5% women) were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in exchange for a small payment. A power analysis indicated that this size sample was sufficient to detect a moderate effect size with a power of 86.86%. The majority (76.2%) identified as White, 5.9% as Black, 5.9% as Latino/a, 9.9% Asian, and 2.0% “other.” Participants spend an average of 17.16 min (SD = 4.71) in the study, and there were no extreme outliers (i.e., time spent ranged from 8.47 to 36.18 min).

Procedure

Participants completed an impression formation task (adapted from Ratliff & Nosek, 2010). They were told that the task was about how people process and retain visual information, and that they would read a series of traits describing two groups that exist in society. Participants were told that the groups are called “Niffians” and “Laapians,” and that there were more Niffians than Laapians in society, so they would be reading more traits about that group. They were told to try to form an impression of both groups based on the traits given.

Before reading the traits, participants were induced to think abstractly or concretely using the same why/how ladder questionnaire used in Study 1b (Freitas et al., 2004). After the construal-level induction, 84 traits were shown to the participants, for 4 s each. Group membership was indicated by the last part of each name. Participants were told that Niffian’s names all end with “nif” (e.g., Paggonif), whereas Laapian’s names all end with “lap” (e.g., Vaanolap). Participants read the same ratio of positive to negative traits for each group. Overall, they read 40 positive traits (e.g., Eskannif is clever) and 16 negative traits (e.g., Glabbunif is insincere) for Niffians. For Laapians, they read 20 positive traits (e.g., Eloolap is benevolent) and eight negative traits (e.g., Caalap is rude). All traits were completely randomized.

After the impression formation task, participants were asked three questions assessing their degree of genetic essentialism (α = .90). Specifically, they responded to the following, rated on a scale from 1 (not at all true) to 7 (completely true): “I think the genetic differences between Niffians and Laapians are an important cause for the differences in abilities between individuals from these groups”; “I believe that many differences between Niffians and Laapians can be attributed to differences in genetic predispositions”; and “To a large extent, whether a person is Niffian or Laapian biologically determines his or her abilities.” Participants were also asked to rate each group on six different personality traits (e.g., pleasant, likable). These were combined to create an overall impression for both the Niffians (α = .83) and Laapians (α = .86).

Results and Discussion

As a preliminary analysis, a repeated-measures ANOVA (with the two group ratings as a within-subjects variable and construal condition as a between-subjects variable) showed that there were no differences in the personality trait ratings of Niffians (M = 4.32, SD = 0.91) and Laapians (M = 4.17, SD = 0.96), F(1, 99) = 0.842, p = .361, and construal condition did not affect the trait ratings of either Niffians, F(1, 99) = 0.094, p = .760, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .001, or Laapians, F(1, 99) = 0.32, p = .574, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .003. There was no interaction between group type and construal, F(1, 99) = 0.03, p = .870, $η_{p}^{2}$ < .001.²

For our focal analysis, we ran an ANOVA examining whether the construal-level induction influenced participants’ degree of biological attributions for group differences between Niffians and Laapians. As predicted, participants induced to think abstractly reported higher levels of genetic attributions for group differences (M = 3.64, SD = 1.65) as compared with those induced to think concretely (M = 2.96, SD = 1.52), F(1, 99) = 4.60, p = .034, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .044. Thus, the results from this study support the hypothesis that participants thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) are more likely to turn to genetics to explain the differences between the two groups.

We did not find that construal level influenced attitudes toward these novel groups, suggesting that genetic attributions are not necessarily always associated with negativity. Indeed, people are just as likely to describe a good deed done by an ingroup member in an essentializing way as they are a bad deed done by an outgroup member (Maas, 1999). Furthermore, when group information is unavailable, people’s default seems to be to assume that individuals have an inherent “true self” that is basically good (Newman, De Freitas, & Knobe, 2015).

Although genetic attributions for group differences need not always lead to prejudice in theory, research suggests that they usually do in practice, at least when applied to known groups (Keller, 2005; Roets & van Hiel, 2011; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008). This is likely because most real groups in society—like Blacks and Whites (and unlike the novel groups)—are associated with status differences. Consequently, essentializing the differences between these groups are, in effect, essentializing (and thus legitimating) the social hierarchy as well (e.g., Jost & Hamilton, 2005). Thus, in our final study, we examined the downstream consequences on intergroup attitudes of the effects of construal level on genetic attributions—specifically, whether abstract (vs. concrete) thinking leads to increased racial prejudice because it increases belief in genetic essentialism.

Study 5

Experimental work has illustrated that exposure to biological attributions for group differences negatively impacts intergroup attitudes. For instance, people exposed to a biological (vs. social) theory of race show stronger ingroup bias (Keller, 2005; No et al., 2008), are less upset by racial disparities, and less interested in seeking cross-racial friendships (Williams & Eberhardt, 2008). People exposed to a genetic (vs. social) account of gender differences more strongly endorsed gender stereotypes (Brescoll & LaFrance, 2004). One study demonstrated that simply mentioning race in a discussion of genes and cardiac disease led to increased racism (Condit, Parrott, Harris, Lynch, & Dubriwny, 2004). Other work has demonstrated a strong link between general (i.e., non-group-based) essentialism and racial prejudice (Bastian & Haslam, 2006; Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2002; Roets & van Hiel, 2011).

In our last study, we sought to examine how construal impacts essentialist thinking more generally, as well as to examine the downstream consequences—specifically, whether or not these increased essentialist attributions are associated with greater racial prejudice. We predicted that thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) would lead to increased endorsement of “biological essentialism” (Bastian & Haslam, 2006), which, in turn, would be associated with greater levels of prejudice toward Black Americans.

Participants’ construal level was manipulated using the word categorization task employed in Studies 2 and 3. Following this, we assessed essentialism with a different (and broader) measure than the ones used in the previous studies (Bastian & Haslam, 2006). This allows us to test whether an abstract (vs. concrete) construal influences biological attributions, as well as three additional components of essentialist thinking: immutability (whether or not traits can change), discreteness (categorizing people into bounded types), and the informativeness of human traits. Although all four components of essentialism are related to prejudice (Bastian & Haslam, 2006), only biological attributions provide a causal explanation for why targets have particular features. Insofar as abstract (vs. concrete) thinking leads people to focus more on causality (Rim et al., 2013)—that is, the “why” versus the “how”—it follows that construal level would affect people’s endorsement of biological attributions but not necessarily related essentialist beliefs, at least directly.

Method

Participants

Three hundred fifty-six participants were recruited online via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Assuming an effect comparable in size from Studies 2 to 4 combined, this sample size yielded 96.81% power. The average age was 33.94 (SD = 11.55); 53.4% were women; 77.5% identified as White, 8.4% as Black, 5.1% as Latino/a, 6.5% as Asian, and 2.5% as “other.” The average time of completion was 11.04 min (SD = 9.10). Nine participants took more than three standard deviations of time than average, and removing these participants affected the significance level of one of our analyses—specifically, the model predicting prejudice. The results reported below were conducted using the entire sample, and the difference that emerges in the prejudice model is explained in Note 3.

Procedure

Participants were induced to think either abstractly or concretely using the same categorization task used in Studies 2 and 3 (Fujita et al., 2006), in which they were asked to either generate superordinate categories (abstract condition) or subordinate exemplars (concrete condition) for 20 common objects. Participants were then asked to complete Bastian and Haslam’s (2006) Essentialism scale, which consists of four subscales that aim to assess people’s belief in four different components of essentialist thinking: (a) Biological Attributions (seven items; α = .86; for example, “The kind of person someone is can be largely attributed to their genetic inheritance.”); (b) Immutability (eight items; α = .92; “People can do things differently, but the important parts of who they are can’t really be changed.”); (c) Discreteness (eight items; α = .78; “A person either has a certain attribute or they do not.”); and (d) Informativeness (seven items; α = .75; “When getting to know a person it is possible to get a picture of the kind of person they are very quickly.”). Responses were recorded on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The reliability for the entire scale (30 items) was .91.

Finally, participants were asked to complete an abbreviated version of Brigham’s (1993) Attitudes Toward Blacks Scale (six items; α = .86; for example, “Discrimination against Blacks is no longer a problem in the United States”). Responses were recorded on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Results

We conducted a multivariate ANOVA, with construal level as the independent variable, and the four essentialism components (biological, immutability, discreteness, and informativeness) as dependent variables. Results showed that those in the abstract condition endorsed genetic essentialism more (M = 3.65, SD = 0.81) than those in the concrete condition (M = 3.41, SD = 0.90), F(1, 354) = 7.48, p = .007, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .021. Although the same general pattern was observed for the other three essentialism components, none of these results reached significance—specifically, for immutability: M_abstract = 3.20, SD_abstract = .97 versus M_concrete = 3.05, SD_concrete = 0.97, F(1, 354) = 2.13, p = .145; for discreteness: M_abstract = 3.24, SD_abstract = .70 versus M_concrete = 3.14, SD_concrete = 0.72, F(1, 354) = 1.90, p = .169; and for informativeness: M_abstract = 3.51, SD_abstract = .64 versus M_concrete = 3.47, SD_concrete = 0.78, F(1, 354) = 0.414, p = .520.

Next, we tested our focal mediation hypothesis, that an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set would indirectly increase prejudice through increased genetic attributions. An ANOVA with construal level predicting prejudice toward Blacks revealed that those in the abstract condition reported greater prejudice (M = 2.20, SD = 0.88) than those in the concrete condition (M = 2.04, SD = 0.79), albeit this difference was marginally significant, F(1, 356) = 3.36, p = .068, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .009.³ Results from a bootstrapping procedure (using 1,000 bootstraps) indicated that genetic attributions significantly mediated the effect of construal on anti-Black prejudice, b = .05, SE = .02, 95% bias-corrected CI = [.012, .109]. Participants’ own race had no effect on these results (see Supplementary Materials).

General Discussion

The five studies reported here offer converging evidence demonstrating that changes in mind-set—thinking concretely versus abstractly—can affect people’s willingness to endorse the belief that observed differences between social groups (such as race) are inherent and inborn. Specifically, we found that holding an abstract (vs. concrete) construal, either at baseline (Study 1a) or experimentally induced (Studies 1b-4), was associated with a greater proclivity to make genetic attributions for individual differences (Studies 1b, 2), racial group differences (Studies 1-3), and differences between novel groups (Study 4). Furthermore, we found that abstract (vs. concrete) construal elicited greater endorsement of beliefs in the biological component of essentialism (Bastian & Haslam, 2006), and this was associated with increased anti-Black prejudice (Study 5). While the results from our individual studies did not find that manipulating construal significantly impacted genetic attributions for gender differences (Studies 1b-3), we did find that a measure of abstract (vs. concrete) thinking correlated with gender essentialism and an internal meta-analysis of our experiments revealed a small but reliable cumulative effect.

We acknowledge that our studies did not include a control condition in which there was no construal-level manipulation. Although participants were divided into two groups—abstract and concrete—in our experiments, we think of construal level as a continuous, rather than categorical, dimension. People have to be thinking at some level of abstraction, which could range from very little to very abstract. For instance, in Study 1a, we found that a continuous measure of abstract (vs. concrete) thinking positively correlated with genetic attributions. Consequently, we are not making the claim that abstract thinking exacerbates genetic attributions or that concrete thinking inhibits them. What our studies do show is that the same individual will be slightly higher or lower on the willingness to endorse genetic attributions depending on his or her mind-set level at that point in time.

We can only speculate as to why the effects of construal were much weaker on essentialism of gender groups compared with racial or novel groups. Gender tends to be perceived to be a “special” social category (Fiske & Stevens, 1993), and gender differences are more essentialized than differences between other groups (e.g., Prentice & Miller, 2006)—pattern that consistently emerged in our studies as well. It is possible that people’s existing perception that men and women differ biologically limited the impact of our manipulation. The means for the gender essentialism, however, were far from ceiling effects (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Summary of findings across the first four studies, which measured genetic attributions (measured on a scale that ranged from 1 to 7, and adapted from the “Belief in Genetic Determinism” scale; Keller, 2005) for differences between individual, racial groups, and genders.

There are at least two possibilities, which could be investigated further, for why construal only weakly impacted gender essentialism. First, it could be that implicit theories about gender differences, perhaps more so than differences between other groups, are based on beliefs about both biology and socialization. If abstraction leads people to focus on the underlying causes for group differences, but gender differences are perceived to stem from multiple causes, or from different causes for different people, this could explain why attributions to only a single cause for gender differences (i.e., genetics) were more difficult to detect in our studies. Second, it is possible that because of the typical interpersonal interdependence of men and women, the impact of construal on the way gender groups are perceived is limited. However, in contexts that emphasize intergroup aspects of gender relations (see, for instance, Morton et al., 2009), which is likely activated for race and other social groups, the effect of mind-set might also occur for gender groups.

This leads to a broader point that has emerged in recent research on construal-level theory—namely, that the effect of construal on attitudes is (at least sometimes) affected by the context (Luguri & Napier, 2013; McCrea et al., 2012; Napier & Luguri, 2016). For instance, in one line of work, we found that the effect of construal on political polarization was dependent on what identity was salient. When participants were primed to think of their national identity (e.g., “American”), those thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) reported more moderate political attitudes, and thus polarization was reduced; when participants were primed to think of their partisan identity (e.g., “Republican”), by contrast, abstract (vs. concrete) construal led to more extreme (and thus more polarized) attitudes.

Theoretical Connections and Contributions

This work contributes a novel theoretical framework for understanding people’s tendency to readily attribute human qualities to genetic (or otherwise “essential”) factors. Our studies suggest that the willingness to accept genetic explanations for group differences are, to some extent, a by-product of an incidental, apolitical factor like engaging in abstract (vs. concrete) thinking. This makes sense, considering the prevalence and early emergence of essentialist thinking in humans (Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011), which appears as early as 14 months (Newman & Keil, 2008). Thus, this work can also serve as a nexus for developmental and social psychological accounts of essentialism. It could also serve as a springboard for exploring the cross-cultural variance in essentialist thinking (Norenzayan & Heine, 2005), which may be systematically related to cultural differences in the tendency to think in abstractions. Indeed, one limitation of the current studies is that they were conducted with predominantly American participants recruited from online subject pools, and thus the generalizability of how construal level affects attitudes and beliefs is limited without direct replication in diverse samples.

Although our main findings were replicable across our five studies, the sizes of these effects were generally small. This is not surprising, considering the manipulations (categorizing words or a brief questionnaire about health) were innocuous, minor tasks, and that people’s beliefs about genetic causes for group differences should be well-formed and not influenced by a slight change in mind-set (Prentice & Miller, 1992). Moreover, even a small, but consistent, push toward attitudes that reinforce social hierarchy can have socially significant effects cumulatively in society (Martell, Lane, & Emrich, 1996). Also, although our manipulation of mind-set occurred in limited experimental contexts, practically, the effect of mind-sets represented in our findings may be incorporated into media and other cultural perspectives on groups with potentially extreme consequences. Historically, people’s acceptance of biological theories of race has been a foundational aspect of movements leading to atrocities against certain social groups (Dubow, 1995; Gould, 1996). Thus, our demonstration that inducing an abstract versus concrete mind-set, which involves some subtle, non-intrusive tasks (such as categorizing words), can consistently influence (even with modest effect sizes) people’s willingness to endorse genetic attributions for racial group differences is valuable in understanding the dynamics of intergroup perceptions and relations.

We focused on genetic attributions in our study, but there is no reason why abstraction should not also affect other types of essentialist attributions. Although we (and others) have speculated that attributions to more mysterious essences (e.g., “soul” or “spirit”) might not be readily endorsed by our relatively educated, Western participants, this may not necessarily be the case. For instance, in a sample of White students from eight Mississippi universities, 44.3% agreed (“somewhat” or “strongly”) with the statement that “God made the races different as part of His Divine Plan” (Orey, 2004). An interesting direction for future research is to delve into how abstraction affects essentialist (and other deterministic) explanations for inequalities, as well as the boundary conditions.

Our studies complement a rich body of literature which has highlighted the important role that essentialist attributions play in shaping intergroup relations (e.g., Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011; Haslam & Whelan, 2008; Prentice & Miller, 2007). In comparing the findings reported here with previous research that has focused on the motivational underpinnings of genetic attributions (Brescoll et al., 2013; Hegarty & Golden, 2008; Morton et al., 2009), theoretically interesting distinctions emerge. Studies have shown that system justification increases genetic attributions for gender differences, but only to the extent that these attributions serve to preserve the gender hierarchy (Brescoll et al., 2013; Morton et al., 2009). For instance, in one study, participants read an article arguing that gender differences were biological (vs. social), but easy (vs. difficult) to change. System justification motivation led participants to endorse the article that framed gender differences as relatively immutable, regardless of the purported origin. In our studies, construal had a direct effect on genetic attributions (Studies 1 to 5), but did not directly affect beliefs in immutability (Study 5).

Taken together, these studies suggest that there are multiple routes through which people arrive at essentialist explanations for group differences (see also Hegarty & Golden, 2008). It also suggests that construal and system justification should have divergent effects on genetic attributions in some cases. When group membership (“gay men”) is linked to some trait or behavior that is consistent with group status (immoral, promiscuous), both system justification motivation and mental abstraction should facilitate the tendency to make a genetic attribution for the trait. However, to the extent that abstract (vs. concrete) thinking leads people to focus on core, causal features, it should also exacerbate people’s tendency to make genetic attributions for group memberships in general. This could be system-challenging in some cases, insofar as it gives certain marginalized groups verisimilitude—for instance, people who are not heterosexual or non-cisgender identified, or afflicted with mental health illnesses, obesity, or substance addiction (e.g., Morton & Postmes, 2009).

It should be emphasized that although the results from Study 5 are consistent with the proposition that genetic attributions could lead to prejudice, the association between genetic attributions and prejudice in that study is correlational, and it is thus impossible to make a definitive inference about causality (see Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005). Findings from previous research (e.g., Keller, 2005; No et al., 2008; Williams & Eberhardt, 2008) have demonstrated that making salient biological theories of group differences can lead to negative outgroup attitudes, but more work is needed to fully understand the relationship between essentialism and outgroup attitudes—especially work that directly manipulates general belief in genetic attributions, our proposed mediator (Spencer et al., 2005). Indeed, there is reason to think that the relationship between genetic attributions will not always be linked to prejudice. When there is no relevant hierarchy, as was the case with the novel groups in Study 4, genetic attributions were not linked to attitudes at all. Genetic attributions may actually reduce prejudice in some cases, at least insofar as they are negatively associated with blame (Kvaale, Gottdiener, & Haslam, 2013).

Previous research has, in fact, linked abstraction to increased tolerance (Luguri et al., 2012; Yang, Preston, & Hernandez, 2013), but these studies seem to be tapping a different process. Specifically, in our own work (Luguri et al., 2012), we found that conservative (but not liberal) participants induced to think abstractly (vs. concretely) reported more tolerance toward “non-normative” groups, such as gays and lesbians, Muslims, and atheists, and this was because (as predicted) abstraction increased people’s concerns about fairness (see also Napier & Luguri, 2013). We reasoned that construal would only affect tolerance toward groups that are subject to overt discrimination because of the conflict this poses with the higher order value of fairness.

In those studies, we found no influence of construal level on attitudes toward Blacks. We predicted this would be the case because racial discrimination in contemporary America is more implicit than explicit, and people (especially conservatives) do not perceive the treatment Blacks (or Latinos, also measured) as unfair. The notable methodological difference between those studies and the current work is the order of the measures. In the current studies, genetic attributions were measured immediately following the construal manipulation, and then, in Study 5, we measured prejudice. The results are consistent with the idea that construal affected genetic attributions which, in turn, affected prejudice. Although more work is needed to support these causal claims, it seems conceivable that abstraction does not affect prejudice per se, but it affects the tendency to see groups as biological entities, on one hand, and it affects people’s concerns about acting in line with their moral values (e.g., fairness), on the other hand. These outcomes may or may not have downstream consequences for intergroup attitudes, depending on the context.

Nevertheless, history has shown that biological theories of social group differences can and often do have tragic consequences, and thus, it is important to understand what factors affect people’s endorsement of these beliefs. The present research links a nonsocial, contextual influence (construal level) to the tendency to perceive social group differences as stemming from inborn, inherent sources. This research adds an important angle to our understanding of essentialist beliefs, showing that the likelihood that people will accept genetic explanations for differences between social groups is (slightly, but reliably) affected by their current mind-set.

Supplemental Material

Supplementary Material

Supplemental material, Napier,_Luguri,_et_al_SupplementaryMaterials_14Feb2018 for Construing the Essence: The Effects of Construal Level on Genetic Attributions for Individual and Social Group Differences by Jaime L. Napier, Jamie B. Luguri, John F. Dovidio and Kathleen A. Oltman in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Supplemental Material

Supplementary Material

Supplemental material, napier_online_appendix for Construing the Essence: The Effects of Construal Level on Genetic Attributions for Individual and Social Group Differences by Jaime L. Napier, Jamie B. Luguri, John F. Dovidio and Kathleen A. Oltman in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Supplemental Material

Supplementary material is available online with this article.

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