Who are you? categorization and social repercussions after racial cosmetic surgery

The current research was designed to examine the influence of racialphenotypic information on social categorization. Classic studies on essentialistbased categorization have shown that people tend to believe that group membership is not based solely on physical appearance, but by an alleged underlying essence (Medin & Ortony, 1989; Rips, 1989). However, Hampton, Estes, and Simmons (2007) have proposed a causal homeostasis account, which suggests that if one's outward appearance has changed sufficiently to look like a different category, people will believe that the internal makeup (or essence) has changed as well. The current research directly tests these models of categorization on social categories, as well as examines potential social repercussions of crossing seemingly immutable category boundaries.