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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results remain mixed regarding the effects of incubation tasks on divergent thinking, a type of creativity, generally assessed via the Unusual Uses Task (UUT). Using a within-subjects design, we compared 64 participants' performance on the UUT, after four different incubation tasks: copy a simple painting, copy a complex painting, 0-back-task, and rest. We hypothesized that an arts-related activity during incubation (here: copy a painting) would boost subsequent creativity. Five different creativity scores were computed from the raw UUT data, and we provide a step-by-step guide for how to compute these: fluency, flexibility, originality, subjective creativity, and usefulness. Creativity was only modulated by sex; women outperformed men on creative fluency. No other variables, nor the incubations, modulated any of participants' creativity scores. A within-group comparison showed that the unusual uses of our all-Iranian participants were more useful than unique, echoing previous work suggesting differences between Eastern and Western conceptions of creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People express essentialist beliefs about social categories from an early age, but essentialist beliefs about specific social categories vary over development and in different contexts. Adapting two paradigms used with Western samples to measure social essentialism, we examined the development of essentialist beliefs about seven social categories (gender, race, nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and team fan bases) among 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 88) and adults (N = 273) in Iran, a population that is underrepresented in psychology research. Focusing on natural-kind reasoning, we investigated the relative contribution of biological perception of social categories as well as cultural and motivational factors in the development of essentialist beliefs about these categories. Our findings suggest that biological perception of social categories plays a key role and that cultural and motivational factors become more relevant in essentialist reasoning about social categories that are not perceived as biologically marked. The developmental patterns of essentialist reasoning in our study also closely parallel those found in other cultures, namely the United States and Turkey, further suggesting the primary role of biological perception of social categories in natural-kind reasoning about the social world. Public Significance Statement: Social essentialist bias contributes to negative attitudes and behaviors such as prejudice and discrimination. This article investigates factors, including biological perception of social categories, cultural input, and motivational factors, in the development of social essentialism in Iran, an understudied population in psychology research. The article also compares this bias among Iranian adults and children to adults and children in the United States and Turkey. The findings show that across all three cultures, biological perception of social categories plays a prominent role in essentialism, but cultural and motivational factors add interesting nuance to patterns of social essentialism, especially with respect to social categories that are not perceived as biologically underpinned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]