Mixed Race Studies

Essentialist theory of ‘hybrids’: from animal kinds to ethnic categories and race

Asian Journal of Social Psychology
Early View (Articles online in advance of print)
Published Online: 2010-07-20
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-839X.2010.01315.x

Wolfgang Wagner
Department of Social and Economic Psychology, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain

Nicole Kronberger
Department of Social and Economic Psychology, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

Motohiko Nagata
Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Ragini Sen
Institute of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Mumbai, India

Peter Holtz
Department of Social and Economic Psychology, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

Fátima Flores Palacios, Faculty of Psychology
National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico

This article presents a theory of the perception of hybrids, resulting from cross-breeding natural animals that pertain to different species and of children parented by couples with a mixed ethnic or racial background. The theory states that natural living beings, including humans, are perceived as possessing a deeply ingrained characteristic that is called ‘essence’ or ‘blood’ or ‘genes’ in everyday discourse and that uniquely determines their category membership. If, by whatever means, the genes or essences of two animals of different species are combined in a hybrid, the two incompatible essences collapse, leaving the hybrid in a state of non-identity and non-belonging. People despise this state and reject the hybrid (Study 1). This devaluation effect holds with cross-kind hybrids and with hybrids that arise from genetically combining animals from incompatible habitats across three cultures: Austria, India and Japan (Study 2). In the social world, groups and ethnic or racial categories frequently are essentialized in an analogue way. When people with an essentialist mindset judge ethnically or racially mixed offspring, they perceive a collapse of ethnic or racial essence and, consequently, denigrate these children, as compared to children from ‘pure’ in-group or out-group parents (Study 3). The findings are discussed in terms of the widespread ‘yuck factor’ against genetically modified animals, in terms of the cultural concepts of monstrosity and of racism and prejudice.

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