title: Psychological essentialism and nationalism as determinants of interethnic bias.
abstract: The present study examined whether individuals without strong national identity (i.e., low nationalism) would be susceptible to temporarily elicited essentialism to alter their mental representations of ethnic boundaries, and thus increase interethnic bias. To test these ideas we experimentally induced essentialist beliefs among Japanese subjects about the boundary between Japanese and Chinese ethnicities, while measuring the strength of nationalism as an individual variable. The results were generally consistent with predictions, suggesting that the activation of essentialist beliefs can strengthen interethnic biases among people without strong nationalism.
authors.affiliation: Nagoya University, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, B4-1(780) Furo-cho, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan. tsukamoto.saori@h.mbox.nagoya-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Saori
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsukamoto
authors.forename: Joe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Enright
authors.forename: Minoru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karasawa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude / Q000208:ethnology*; D003469:Culture; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D007564:Japan / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D011287:Prejudice / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D012933:Social Identification; D013240:Stereotyping; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult