agree that prejudice is determined by many factors. The complexity of

The Categorization Process

Understanding prejudice is a complex issue. Most psychologists

agree that prejudice is determined by many factors. The complexity of

the issue is reflected in the fact that there is no all-encompassing theory

of prejudice. Instead, we will consider a number of overlapping theories

about its determinants.

Here we consider one piece of the puzzle: How prejudice,

stereotyping and discrimination can result from the basic way in which

people process information.

Consider the following situation related by Susan Fiske, a

prominent social psychology researcher. Dr. Fiske was having lunch

with a friend in the food court of a mall when two black men ran past

them followed by a white security guard. Her friend decided to help

the security guard so he jumped up and tried to tackle the first guy.

He was unable to capture the first man but he was able to tackle the

second guy and the two of them ended up on the ground. The security

guard landed on top of them and was prevented from pursuing the

first man. As it turned out, the man her friend tackled was the owner

of a store that had just been robbed by the first man. So, the real

thief, the first African-American man escaped thanks to her friend’s

intervention.

This incident raises several questions. Should Dr. Fiske’s friend

have intervened in this situation? Do his actions indicate that he is

prejudiced against African American males? Would he have intervened

if the men had been White? Regardless of the answers to these

questions, this story illustrates the important role that cognitive

factors play in setting the stage for prejudice.

Let’s think about what Dr. Fiske’s friend was able to do in this

situation. In a few seconds, he was able to notice the races of all

three people running; he grouped the first two people into one

category and made an assumption in microseconds that the two

people who were the same race were together. He then made the

complex assumption that if the security guard was chasing these other

people, particularly a White man running after two Black men, then

the Black men had probably done something wrong. Finally, he took

action to help the security guard. Unfortunately, he read the situation

incorrectly.

One thing this example illustrates is how rapidly people take in

complex information about other people. There were many cues in this

situation and within split seconds, the friend constructed the situation,

made a decision and reacted. At the same time, the story illustrates

how wrong one can be and how expectations can bias one’s perception.

If Dr. Fiske’s friend had looked a little closer, he would have noticed

that fellow number two was older and better dressed than fellow

number one. He might not have made the decision to intervene if he’d

had more time to think about it. Life, however, doesn’t always offer us

extended time to make important decisions.

Now let’s consider the following similar but more serious cases. In

1999, 22-year-old African immigrant, Amadou Diallo was shot at 41

times by four police officers. Nineteen shots hit and killed him. Diallo

was unarmed and had done no wrong. When the officers approached

him standing at the door of his N.Y. apartment building, they ordered

him not to move because they thought that he resembled a rape

suspect they were seeking in the area. When Diallo reached into his

pants to retrieve his wallet, the officers shot and killed him, thinking

he was reaching for a weapon. The police officers were acquitted of all

charges of wrongdoing.

A similar case occurred in 2006 when 23-year-old Sean Bell was

killed by police officers on his wedding day in Queens, N.Y. As he and

his friends left his bachelor party in the early morning hours, a group

of officers shot 50 bullets at them, killing Sean and seriously wounding

two of his friends because one of the men made a move that police

thought implied he had a gun. All officers were acquitted of all

charges. Sean Bell was a man of color, as were his friends.

Unfortunately, in the past several years, there have been similar

cases. Below are a few of the more recent cases:

– George Floyd (2020) – already discussed. All officers are facing

charges.

– Breonna Taylor (2020)- already discussed. Two officers have

been fired.

– Rayshard Brooks (2020) – Fatally shot by police after he fell

asleep in his car in a fast food drive-through lane due to

intoxication. He fled when officers tried to restrain him and was

shot twice in the back. The officers are facing charges.

– Daniel Prude (2020) – Died of asphyxia and intoxication after

police used a spit hood to restrain him and forced his head

against the pavement for three minutes. Seven officers have

been suspended and the case is under investigation.

– Atatiana Jefferson (2019) – Fatally shot by police through the

window of her home after a neighbor called police to say her

front door was open. The officer has been indicted on murder

charges.

– Botham Shem Jean (2018): Fatally shot by off-duty police

officer Amber Guyge, who mistook Jean’s apartment for her

own. She was convicted of murder and is serving a 10-year

murder sentence.

– Stephon Clark (2018): Fatally shot by police. Police shot him

eight times as he moved toward them because they thought his

cell phone was a gun. Federal authorities cleared the officers of

criminal charges.

– Philando Castile (2016): Fatally shot after telling officers he had

a gun in his car. Officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of all

charges.

The Diallo and Bell cases are significant though, because they

stimulated research by social psychologists. These tragedies raised

several questions about the nature and consequences of prejudice. Did

prejudice and stereotyping play a role in the shootings? Would police

officers have shot at Diallo and Bell if they were White or in an upscale

neighborhood? Were the officers reacting solely to possible danger

since they thought that their lives were at risk or was what they saw

shaped by stereotypes that link men of color to violence? These are

some questions that we’ll try to answer.

The Cognitive Miser View

Consider how much time you spend thinking about people. People

think more about people than about any other topic and probably more

than all other topics combined. Just turn on the television and you’ll

see that although some shows are devoted to the physical world, most

shows are about people and their relationships with others. The news

may cover things like an earthquake or a hurricane, but even footage of

these natural disasters tends to emphasize how people are dealing with

them. The news doesn’t spend most of its time focusing on the plate

shifts in the earth that caused the earthquake.

Humans are on the top of the list when it comes to thinking since

our cognitive abilities are better than those of any other mammal. You

might expect that because we are so well equipped to think, we would

spend all of our free time doing so. This is certainly not the case. If all

thinking were fun, we would probably spend much of our free time

doing math problems. I think I can safely say however, that only a very

small percentage of the population does math problems for fun. On the

contrary, researchers have found that often people seem pretty lazy or

careless about their thinking. Social psychologists generally consider

people to be Cognitive Misers. A miser is a person who is extremely

cheap. Sometimes, we’re reluctant to do much extra thinking so as

cognitive misers we try to avoid thinking too hard or too much. This

isn’t entirely a matter of laziness though. Our capacity to think can be

limited by a variety of factors so we are prone to making mistakes in

reasoning. One reason for this is that the world is so complicated,

especially the world of other people, that we cannot think carefully all

the time. So, we take a lot of shortcuts. Think about how much

information you process for example, every time you talk to a person in

any social setting. There are literally thousands of bits of information

present; can you notice, think about and respond to all of them? If

every time you talked to other people you had to notice in minute detail

every word they said and didn’t say (because sometimes what isn’t said

is more important than what is said), every nuance in their facial

expressions, voice and gestures and every characteristic of the social

setting in which you were conversing, you’d be paralyzed. You would be

so busy noticing and thinking that you wouldn’t have any time or

energy to respond.

We have figured out a way to solve this dilemma though, by relying

on mental shortcuts. By doing so, we attend to only some of the

incredible amount of information available to us. We deal with the vast

amount of information that constantly surrounds us by being cognitive

misers. We take in only as much information about others as we think

we need to make decisions and in order to respond to others.

These mental shortcuts are useful but we rely on them at some

peril, because sometimes they’re just plain wrong. They can lead to

inaccurate judgments and even bias how we view and interpret the

social world. We spend a lot of time thinking about people but we don’t

always spend time thinking deeply about them. When our emotions

enter the picture, things get even more complicated.

Categorization: To what group does it belong?

One shortcut we use is categorization. Categorization involves

sorting single objects into groups rather than thinking of each object as

unique. We put objects and people into groups on the basis of common

characteristics. Categorization then, basically answers the question

“What is it?” In the social world, the question is, “In what group does

this person belong?”

Think about what would happen if we did not function this way.

Imagine walking into a room and seeing a chair. If we could not quickly

categorize objects we would have to pick up the chair and examine it in

detail in order to identify it. We might taste it or try to put it on to see if

it’s clothing. Eventually, we would probably realize that its best use is

for sitting. This process would be incredibly time consuming and

inefficient and also boring. Because we can categorize though and

because all chairs have general common features, we can quickly look

at a chair we’ve never seen before and fit it into a category we know:

objects we sit on, specifically chairs.

Categorization is a basic human perceptual process. Interestingly,

children do not have to be taught to categorize; they do it

spontaneously. It’s necessary to teach them what the categories are,

but we don’t have to teach the process. When a child incorrectly calls a

cat “dog” for example, we tell them “No, furry animals with four legs

that meow are called cats but furry animals with four legs that bark are

called dogs.” The categories are culturally determined but the process

itself is inborn.

We categorize people just as we categorize chairs and animals. Once

we’ve categorized a person as a member of a particular social group, we

may employ stereotypes about the group in order to guide our thinking

and interaction with the person. We will cover stereotyping later but I

think you can anticipate how understanding the categorization process

is fundamental to understanding stereotyping and prejudice.

Types of Categorization: Basic Social Categories or “How Do I See

Thee?

We tend to categorize people according to a few basic social

categories. Which social categories do you think convey the most

information about a person? The research shows that race, gender and

age are the major ways in which we first classify people. These are

categories that quickly dominate our perceptions of others and are

considered to be basic or primitive social categories.

The categorization process occurs very quickly and usually without

conscious awareness. When basic category membership cannot be

determined, people feel off balance; they don’t know what assumptions

to make about the other person and they may be confused about how

they should act toward the person. Multiracial people for example, are

frequently asked, “What are you?” (I always think the proper answer

should be “A vampire”) since their ambiguous race may prevent people

from placing them in the “correct” category.

Although race, gender and age are basic social categories that we

assess within milliseconds of meeting others, there are other social

categories that we use as well. People are categorized for example,

according to their level of physical attractiveness (with attractive people

receiving better treatment). People are also categorized based on their

sexual orientation, religion, weight, skin tone, nationality, political

affiliation and social class, just to name a few classifications.

Since we all belong to multiple social categories, the context we’re

in may determine which of our group memberships will stand out in a

person’s mind. When a person in a group differs in some way from the

other group members, the person is more likely to be seen in terms of

that category. Thus, in one study, people thought of a Black woman in

terms of her gender when she was observed in an all-male context and

in terms of her race when she was shown in an all- White context. In

another study, people thought of an Asian woman in terms of her

gender when they saw her putting on makeup but in terms of her race

when they saw her eating with chopsticks.

What is Race?

Race is an important categorization variable, particularly given the

history of the United States, but what exactly is race?

Many people assume that there is a clear genetic basis for

objectively

classifying people according to race. The fact is however, that

classification by race has changed over time according to historical and

geographical factors. For instance, it was common for Americans in the

early part of the twentieth century to consider Irish Americans as a

racial group distinct from Whites, but today such thinking would be

considered absurd. In the United States, people tend to be classified

according to the racial Black-White dichotomy – you are either Black or

White (unless you are Latino, Asian or American Indian). This

classification emerged in the U.S. in the early 1600s as a direct result

of slavery. According to the “one-drop” rule, a person with any known

Black heritage, no matter how little, was legally Black and was thus a

slave. The “one-drop” rule classification still exists in the minds of

many Americans. In contrast, in Brazil, there are multiple racial

categories that are based on a person’s skin tone. Some people can

easily change their race by getting on a plane and flying from N.Y. to

Brazil or to other places. What changes is not their physical

appearance but their socially constructed categorization.

Biologically, race is not a useful concept since genetic studies find

more genetic differences within traditionally defined racial groups than

between them. Here are some surprising findings regarding race:

• Research has found that Black people from the United States,

Ghana and Somalia are no more genetically similar to each

other than they are to Arabs, Swedes or Greeks.

• Genetic research in the United States indicates that many

people with markers for European DNA physically look Black.

• Asian DNA is common in Native Americans.

• Sometimes racial categories that are based on skin color and

geography are downright confusing. Many Indians from India

for example, have dark skin like people of African descent.

They also have European facial features but they live in Asia.

How should they be classified?

Although we are all very similar genetically (any two people,

regardless of ancestry, share 99.9% of the same genetic information)

we do look different. Most biologists believe that these physical

differences are largely due to adaptations to climate. Humans

originally came from Africa. Small groups left the continent and

traveled all over the world. This migration took people to varied

climates, ranging from Northern Europe to the hot climates of south

Asia. People adapted to these climates physically. Those in northern

climates lived with low levels of sunlight and needed light skin in order

to absorb as much vitamin D from the sun as possible. People with

lighter skin color were more likely to survive and reproduce, so over

time, people in these areas ended up with a light skin tone. In

contrast, people in hot, sunny southern climates needed more melanin

in the skin for protection from ultraviolet rays, so those with darker

skin had built-in sunscreen and were more likely to survive. Eyelid

folds (found in some Asian groups) may have evolved to help protect

the eye from the glare caused by snow in northern Asia or to protect it

from dust (scientists are not completely clear about the cause). A

small, rounded body shape such as found among Inuit Eskimos may

have evolved as a way to help the body conserve heat, while a tall

body type may have evolved in parts of Africa to help cope with

extreme heat since heat leaves a long body surface more easily.

Genetic material is not always expressed physically although it

resides in a person’s DNA. Therefore, people who look superficially

different may be quite similar at a genetic level. For example,

Europeans are the population most closely linked genetically to

Africans despite differences in skin color and hair texture.

These biological differences are in essence, superficial. Moreover,

they do not mark clear boundaries: Where for example, does “ Black”

end and “ White” begin? Is the child of an Asian mother and a European

father more Asian or more European? What do you think?