British Journal of Social Psychology (2014) © 2014 The British Psychological Society www.wileyonlinelibrary.com Brief report ‘More than skin-deep’: Biological essentialism in response to a distinctiveness threat in a stigmatized fan community Courtney N. Plante 1 *, Sharon E. Roberts 2 , Jamie S. Snider 3 , Catherine Schroy 3 , Stephen Reysen 3 and Kathleen Gerbasi 4 1 University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 2 Renison University College, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 3 Texas A&M University – Commerce, Texas, USA 4 Niagara County Community College, Sanborn, New York, USA We investigated how group distinctiveness threats affect essentialist beliefs about group membership in a stigmatized fan community. An experiment conducted on 817 members of the fan community revealed that highly identified fans who perceived significant stigmatization were the most likely to endorse essentialist beliefs about group membership when exposed to a distinctiveness threat via comparison to a highly similar (vs. dissimilar) outgroup. These results bridge essentialism research and research on distinctiveness threat by demonstrating the mutability of group essentialism beliefs as a defensive response to distinctiveness threats. Implications for future research are discussed. People want to belong to distinct groups. This desire is strong enough that people would rather identify with a stigmatized but distinct minority than with an accepted majority (e.g., Ellemers, Spears, & Doosje, 2002; Jetten, Spears, & Manstead, 2001; Spears, Doosje, & Ellemers, 1997). While research abounds demonstrating such defensive responses, no research has tested whether people defend against such distinctiveness threats by endorsing essentialism – the belief that group members share an immutable essence. This lack of research persists despite growing evidence that essentialist beliefs are selectively endorsed by minorities in response to other identity threats (e.g., marginalization, Morton & Postmes, 2009). The present research aims to bridge this gap between research on distinctiveness threat and strategic essentialism by testing whether people strategically employ essentialist beliefs to cope with distinctiveness threats. Distinctiveness threat Social identity theory and self-categorization theory posit that our groups become part of ourselves (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). Two premises are central to these theories: people compare their ingroup to relevant *Correspondence should be addressed to Courtney N. Plante, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G1 (email: cplante@uwaterloo.ca). DOI:10.1111/bjso.12079 1