Beliefs about race map onto SIT social change versus social mobility belief systems.

Evidence

One prominent distinction of beliefs about the structure and nature of racial–ethnic categories is the essentialist versus constructivist approach to race (Roth et al. 2023). Broadly speaking, essentialism defines racial–ethnic group membership as biologically determined and immutable, suggesting—just like a social change belief system—that changing group memberships is impossible (Shih et al. 2019), whereas constructivism defines race and ethnicity as socially constructed and context-dependent categories (for a detailed definition of these approaches, see, e.g., Rothbart and Taylor 1992; Roth et al. 2023). Similar belief systems exist for the conceptualization of sex and gender (Atwood et al. 2024; Haslam and Whelan 2008), sexual orientation (Morgenroth et al. 2021; Arseneau et al. 2013) and other fundamental social categories. On the basis of these definitions, essentialist beliefs align with the social change belief system in SIT, whereas social constructivist beliefs align with the social mobility belief system in SIT. — Anna X. Huang, Jacqueline M. Chen, and Juliane Degner, Being One or the Other, Both or Neither, 85

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels how the reader’s work on ingroup essentialism/entitativity pressure maps onto belief-system strategies; essentialism aligns with change strategies, constructivism with mobility strategies. — connects to: Constructivist views of race enable mixed-race identity mobility — Anna X. Huang, Jacqueline M. Chen, and Juliane Degner, Being One or the Other, Both or…, 104; Beliefs about social permeability, not objective structure, shape whether people pursue mobility or change — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2680; The social mobility belief system assumes society is permeable enough for individual escape (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The social mobility belief system assumes society is permeable enough for individual escape #expands (0.82)
• Beliefs about social permeability, not objective structure, shape whether people pursue mobility or change #corroborates (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2680
• Belief in individual mobility suppresses victims’ perception of discrimination. #exemplifies (0.76)
• Universalizing SIT fails to distinguish prejudice from bigotry. #qualifies (0.72) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 391
• Allport held ingroup favoritism only weakly predicts outgroup hostility, unlike SIT #qualifies (0.70) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 436