Essentialization processes in men and women: A Brazil-Spain comparative study
Abstract
The main objective of this research is to present the results of an experiment based in the brain transplant paradigm. It was done in Brazil and Spain and its aim was to study various essentialization processes among different social categories. It was possible to identify that naturalizable social categories are more essentialized than entitative ones, that essencialization is greater in Brazil than in Spain, and that the direction of the supposed brain transplant in which the experiment was based had an impact only among Spanish participants. In both countries the attribution of internal causes was the most common explanation together with a biologization of gender with special reference to hormones and genes used as arguments to elaborate common sense explanations of human behavior. Altogether the results found lead us to the conclusion than essentialization plays an important role in the perpetuation of sexism and other forms of gender roles stereotypes.Downloads
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