Essentialist thinking––representing human cate- gories as having deep, hidden and unchanging properties––is a mode of category representation that makes social categories more apparent in social perception (Gelman, 2003; Hirschfeld, 1996; Medin & Ortony, 1989; Rothbart & Taylor, 1992). The consequences of this over-reliance on categorization in social perception has been widely documented (Prentice & Miller, 2007), however there has been little research investigat- ing the relationship between essentialist beliefs and automatic categorization processes. Viewing social categories as real and meaningful increases people’s sensitivity to social category-related information, and is likely to have consequences for automatic responding. Specifically we investi- gate whether holding essentialist beliefs is associ- ated with increased automatic motor-responses to ingroup and outgroup stimuli. Essentialist beliefs predict automatic motor-responses to social categories Brock Bastian, 1 Steve Loughnan 2 and Peter Koval 3 Abstract Essentialist thinking has been implicated in producing segregation between social groups even in the absence of negative attitudes. This mode of category representation brings social group information to the fore in social information processing, suggesting that the social consequences of essentialism are associated with basic categorization processes. Drawing on recent work demonstrating that automatic approach and avoidance behaviors are directly embedded in intergroup categorization, we show that people who hold essentialist beliefs about human attributes are faster to approach their ingroup. Moreover this relationship is not accounted for by explicit prejudice towards the outgroup and essentialist beliefs were unrelated to implicit evaluation of either group. The findings demonstrate that essentialist beliefs are associated with immediate behavioral responses attached to social category exemplars, highlighting the links between these beliefs and basic categorization processes. Keywords automatic motor-behaviour, embodiment, intergroup categorization, psychological essentialism Paper received 14 April 2010; revised version accepted 30 August 2010. 1 University of Queensland 2 University of Kent 3 University of Leuven Corresponding author: Brock Bastian, University of Queensland, School of Psychology, St Lucia 4072, Australia. Email: b.bastian@uq.edu.au Article Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 14(4) 559–567 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1368430210385258 gpir.sagepub.com G P I R Group Processes & Intergroup Relations