Module 4: Social Categorization and Stereotypes

What is social categorization?

Placing ourselves and others into social groups based on shared characteristics.

Why do people categorize?

To simplify information and make quick judgments.

Why must categorization occur before stereotype activation?

The person usually must first be recognized as a group member before group stereotypes activate.

What is the double-edged sword of category-based memory?

Categories can improve memory but can also create false or stereotype-consistent memories.

What did Cohen (1981) show?

People better remembered details consistent with the category they were told, such as waitress vs. librarian.

What are the 3 basic social categories?

Race, gender, and age.

Why are they called “basic” categories?

They are noticed very quickly, easily, and often automatically.

What is intersectionality?

Multiple social identities combine and can create unique experiences and stereotypes.

Created by history, law, culture, and systemic structures.

"You cannot understand the experience of X without looking at how Y and Z completely reshape it."

What is a subtype?

A more specific social category formed by combining categories, roles, or traits.

Created by the human brain to process information and protect existing stereotypes from being proven wrong

Ex: If someone holds a broad, negative stereotype that "elderly people are fragile and helpless," but then meets an older adult who runs marathons, their brain creates a subtype: "the golden ager"

What did Emma DeGraffenreid's case demonstrate?

Discrimination against Black women could be missed when race and gender were considered separately.

What is bottom-up processing?

Using directly observable information from the person or environment.

What is top-down processing?

Using prior knowledge, stereotypes, context, goals, or emotions to interpret someone.

What is prototypicality?

How closely someone matches an observer's mental image of a social category.

How does prototypicality affect categorization?

More prototypical people are categorized faster and more easily.

What is racial phenotypical bias?

More racially prototypical features can strengthen categorization and later stereotype use.

Within any given racial minority group, individuals who possess physical features considered highly "typical" or distinct for that group are subjected to stronger and more frequent negative stereotypes than individuals with less typical features

What is minority bias in categorization?

Racially ambiguous faces are more likely to be classified as belonging to a minority group.

How does attention theory explain minority bias?

People learn majority features as common and focus more attention on distinctive minority features.

Attention theory explains minority bias by showing that our brains are like spotlight cameras that naturally hyper-focus on whatever is rare or different.

Because the majority group is seen most often, the brain treats them as the "default." When a minority group appears, the brain treats them as a "special event" and processes them differently.

How can stereotypes affect categorization top-down?

Existing stereotypes can influence which category an ambiguous person is placed into.

How can situational context affect categorization?

People focus on whichever identity is most distinctive or relevant in that situation.

Imagine a man who is both a Black person and a trained doctor wearing hospital scrubs

When he is standing in an operating room, patients instantly categorize him as a "medical expert." The hospital setting makes his professional role the most relevant cue. The brain's spotlight locks onto his scrubs and clipboard, bypassing racial stereotypes

If he walks into a subway station late at night to catch a train home, the professional context disappears. To an anxious commuter, his scrubs are less noticeable than his race and gender. The brain's spotlight shifts, and he is suddenly categorized as a "potential threat" based on societal racial biases

How does prejudice affect racial categorization?

More prejudiced people pay more attention to race and rely more on stereotypes for ambiguous faces.

Can prior emotions affect categorization?

Yes. Preexisting fear can influence how racially ambiguous people are categorized.

What is an ingroup?

A group you belong to—“us.”

What is an outgroup?

A group you do not belong to—“them.”

What does the minimal group paradigm show?

Even meaningless group assignments can produce ingroup favoritism.

Human beings are hardwired for instant tribalism. We will automatically favor "us" and discriminate against "them" based on completely meaningless, random labels.

What is ingroup bias?

Favoring members of one's own group.

What is the outgroup homogeneity effect?

Seeing outgroup members as more alike than ingroup members.

What are 2 explanations for outgroup homogeneity?

We notice differences within our own group and compare outgroups more at the group level.

What is cross-racial identification bias?

People often recognize faces from their own racial group more accurately.

What is ingroup overexclusion?

Using very strict boundaries so an outgroup member is not mistakenly treated as an ingroup member.

Who is especially likely to show ingroup overexclusion?

Highly ethnocentric people and people facing scarce resources.

Ethnocentric people overexclude out of fear of cultural contamination.

People facing scarcity overexclude out of fear of physical starvation / resource loss.

What is the ultimate attribution error?

Explaining negative outgroup behavior internally but positive outgroup behavior situationally.

A systemic cognitive bias where people explain the behavior of entire social groups based on whether they belong to the "in-group" (their own team) or the "out-group" (the rival team)

What is social role theory?

People mistake behavior required by social roles for natural traits of the group occupying the role.

Historically and structurally, women have been disproportionately funneled into communal or caregiving roles (like nursing, teaching, and childcare), while men have been disproportionately funneled into agentic, competitive roles (like corporate executives, military leadership, and construction)

What is correspondence bias?

Overestimating personality causes and underestimating situational causes of behavior.

Also called the fundamental attribution error

In short, when we see someone do something, we automatically jump to the conclusion that their behavior corresponds directly to who they are as a person, completely ignoring the external forces pushing them to act that way

What is an illusory correlation?

Perceiving a relationship that does not exist or is weaker than believed.

Imagine you live in an apartment building with an old elevator, and you are running late for work. You rush to the elevator, press the button, and it takes an agonizingly long time to arrive.

• The Illusory Correlation: You instantly get frustrated and think, "The elevator is always slow whenever I am running late!"

• The Reality: In reality, the elevator runs at the exact same speed every single day. You just happen to notice and fiercely remember the slow elevator on days when you are stressed and checking your watch. On the hundreds of days when you are on time and the elevator is perfectly normal, your brain doesn't bother to store the memory

What did Hamilton and Gifford show?

Rare minority-group membership and rare negative behavior become falsely associated because both are distinctive.