Generic descriptions (e.g., ‘girls are emotional’) are argued to play a major role in the development of essentialist reasoning about social categories. Although generics are prevalent across languages, studies exploring if and how generic language leads to essentialism have almost exclusively been conducted in English‐speaking communities and among Western samples. This is a significant limitation as scholars posit that generic language is a universal cue that signals which categories are culturally relevant. However, without research asking whether generics have similar consequences across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts, it is impossible to make a claim of universality. Here, we will fill this gap, by replicating and extending a previous U.S.‐based study assessing the effects of generic language in a sample of Persian‐speaking 6 to 9‐year‐old children (N = 160) and adults (N = 160) in Iran. Participants will hear generic (‘Foolies’) or specific (‘This Foolie’) statements (between subjects) that ascribe biological or cultural features to the novel social category of Foolies. We will measure the degree to which exposure to these statements leads to kindhood reasoning (i.e., offering formal explanations for category features) and essentialist reasoning in terms of inheritability. Identifying similar patterns in the Iranian sample as in prior US‐based work will support the hypothesis that generic language signals category importance and licences kindhood but does not contribute directly to reasoning about social categories as biologically inheritable. This work contributes to diversifying the field and critically informs theories of social essentialism.

中文翻译：

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仿制药何时会导致社会本质主义：来自伊朗的发展证据


人们认为，一般描述（例如，“女孩是情绪化的”）在关于社会类别的本质主义推理的发展中发挥着重要作用。尽管泛型在各种语言中都很普遍，但探索泛型语言是否以及如何导致本质主义的研究几乎完全是在英语社区和西方样本中进行的。这是一个重大限制，因为学者们认为通用语言是一种普遍的线索，表明哪些类别与文化相关。然而，如果不研究仿制药在不同的文化和语言背景下是否会产生类似的后果，就不可能声称其具有普遍性。在这里，我们将通过复制和扩展之前在美国进行的一项研究来填补这一空白，该研究评估了通用语言对讲波斯语的 6 至 9 岁儿童样本的影响（氮= 160）和成人（氮= 160）在伊朗。参与者将听到（受试者之间）通用（“傻瓜”）或特定（“这个傻瓜”）陈述，这些陈述将生物学或文化特征归因于新的傻瓜社会类别。我们将衡量接触这些陈述导致善意推理（即为类别特征提供正式解释）和继承性方面的本质主义推理的程度。在伊朗样本中识别出与之前美国研究中类似的模式将支持这样的假设：通用语言表明类别的重要性并许可友善，但不会直接有助于推理社会类别是生物可遗传的。这项工作有助于该领域的多样化，并为社会本质主义理论提供了批判性的信息。