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social categorization thesis
social categorisation is useful
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Social Categorization
Humans are very efficient creatures and we use many tools to compress,
utilize, and retain information. One of the tools that we use is
termed social categorization. Social categorization describes a kind
organization used by people to remember social interactions. By
thinking of people as members of a group rather than as individuals
one can simplify and recall information quickly. As social creatures,
humans come in contact with many people of different colors, shapes,
sizes, and genders so this categorization, to some degree, is useful.
However, it also creates several social problems including, but not
limited to: discrimination, prejudice, racism, and stereotyping.
Social Categories, regardless of their negative aspects, serve a
purpose. They are efficient. Imagine having to sift through a pile of
papers, with no kind of order, to find one specific page of notes. How
hard would that be? It is much better to have the papers organized so
one can find what one is looking for easily (Blaine 15). In several
studies subjects were asked to process traits of a made-up person
while performing an unrelated cognitive task like listening to a
lecture. Some of the subjects were primed with a category (priming is
a procedure where word is flashed rapidly on a computer screen and a
person can't consciously comprehend it). The results showed that the
people who were primed did significantly better on the post-test than
those who were not. This demonstrates that categorizing is not a
cognitive (conscious) behavior; it simply helps us conserve resources
for other cognitive activities, such as memory and attention. Thinking
...
... middle of paper ...
...tegories that are applicable are not used (Blaine 18).
Social categories are culturally important to humans because it
organizes our perceptions. Our culture is what tells us how to
perceive the world and the people in it. Every culture has certain
distinctions or categories that are important to them. Hasidic Jews,
for example, are likely to categorize others according to their
religion as well as gender (two important values in this culture).
Many societies (including ours) are against interracial marriages due
to this cultural importance (Blaine 19).
In closing, we select social categories for several reasons. Those
reasons: noticeable physical characteristics, frequent use, and
cultural importance. Categories are meant to utilize our cognitive
ability and keep social information organized and readily available.
...ce, personality, and genetics that we all share (p. 5). While we try our best to not discriminate or oppress as humans we have unfortunately been taught to categorize. We are born with the ability to quickly gather information and categorize it in a way that makes sense to us. We categorize people by what they say, how they act, how they look and in this situation the language they choose to speak. This way of categorizing often leads to shallow or hurtful stereotypes these thoughts are inevitable. By judging, assuming we created the negative stigma and form ideas about what or who we think we know.
Stereotyping is a normal part of every one’s life. Humans, by nature, classify things. We name animals and classify them by common characteristics but stereotyping can have negative repercussions, and everyone does it. In a recent study it was proven that everyone has an unconscious need to stereotype (Paul). In Junteenth and The Invisible man, Ralph Ellison argues that stereotyping can cause mayhem by making the people become something they are not.
A stereotype can have multiple meanings, but one of the most prevailing definitions is that it assumes that groups are representable through a consolidated
What are Chinese like? Do they all have small eyes? Are all Chinese good at math? Do all Americans like hamburgers? People hold attitudes and beliefs about different groups because they allow us to answer these types of questions quickly. Such beliefs and attitudes are called stereotypes which are mental shortcuts that allow us to organize information about other people quickly. Stereotypes are activated automatically and without conscious awareness, even among people who describe themselves as unprejudiced (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). There are no explicitly good or bad stereotypes. If you hold negative belief toward people, stereotype turns into prejudice and thus discrimination. Prejudice consists of negative judgments and attitudes toward a person based on their group membership. On the other hand, Discrimination is the inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people based on their group membership. Prejudice becomes discrimination when it translates into the unequal treatment of individuals who are the object of the prejudicial attitudes (Ricardo A. Frazer & Uco J. Wiersma, 2001). People may ask what causes this to happen. We tend to favorite our in-group members more because...
Assume you’re walking down a street and everywhere you turn you encounter pitch black darkness. You reach a point where you only have two choices; either you go left where there is a group of tattooed muscular black men or you go right where you find a group of well dressed white men. What would you do? Your immediate choice would be to stay clear from the group of black men and that you’d be better off going to the right. What just happened here was that you assumed a certain group of human beings is more likely to cause you harm than the other. From a very young age we start to categorize things in to different groups. We see pencils, pens, erasers and we categorize them in a group and call them ‘stationery’. Similarly we tend to categorize human beings in to different groups and associate certain behaviors or traits with these groups. We have this urge to categorize because it makes us ‘cognitively effective’. When we categorize, we no longer need to consider information about each member of the group; we assume that what holds true for some members must also be true for other members of the group. The act of categorizing human beings is known as stereotyping. The word stereotype has Greek roots; ‘stereos’ meaning firm and ‘typos’ meaning impression hence, ‘Firm Impression’. The word itself implies that we associate certain ‘impressions’ with a group and hold these impressions to be true for most if not each member of the group. Although many leading sociologists and psychologists will have us believe that stereotypes are firmly grounded in reality, the truth is stereotypes exist only because we allow them to; we cause their existence and ultimately perpetuate them because in reality stereotypes are nothing but mere logical fal...
In conclusion, society shapes our perspective on people which classifies them into various social groups. Each defined by different characteristics that can be physical, ideological or ethnical. This leads to a discrimination of them for their difference traits. For this reason in the novel social groups are represented in particular ways so the audience can reflect over stereotypical issues.
In January 2013 a prominent national US newspaper quoted former Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, “It doesn’t matter where you come from, but where you are going.” However, In “The Land of Opportunity,” James Loewen discusses how significant inequality is in America. The social class that you are born into will influence your outlook on social class and will also be the social class you stay in (Loewen, 1995. 322). Your social class will determine the opportunities available for you including health, fitness, nutrition, education, SAT scores, medical resources and more (Loewen, 1995. 321-322). Loewen also proposes that the education system in America does not incorporate a proper analysis of our social class (Loewen, 1995. 323). It is necessary for students to be realistic about social inequality because it is linked with history. As students, we are socialized from an early age to believe in the American Dream through media and our loved ones. We were raised to believe our merit determines our success. In reality race and ethnicity, class, and gender play vital roles in determining where an individual ends up in life. The following articles raise inconvenient facts that go against the American Dream.
“Two dangers arise when in-group members have little exposure to out-groups members or knowledge of out-group history” (Ramirez-Berg pg. 18). One is that history can be replaced by other group’s experience. Two is the stereotypical image can be taken as normal or even natural. The five functions of stereotyping that are developed and passed on to others. The first two are focused on a personal level. One is cognitive function of the environment. Two is motivational function protecting values. “The remaining three are at group level, where stereotypes contribute to the creation and maintenance of group beliefs which are then used…” (Ramirez-Berg pg. 28). Three is explaining in a large-scale social event. Four is to justify action. Five is to differentiate in and out
While similar, the terms stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination all have their own distinct meanings. Gorham defines stereotypes as the organization of beliefs and assumptions people have toward social groups (19). Stereotypes can often be misrepresentative of a particular group because people unknowingly make assumptions about other people based on the knowledge they have acquired from media and/or people not in that particular social group. Examples of stereotypes can be beliefs that people of Asian descent are inherently good at math or that all black men are criminals. Unlike stereotypes which are predetermined assumptions people make about social groups, prejudice is holding negative feelings toward a group of people without fairly
Stereotyping is a form of pre judgement that is as prevalent in today's society as it was 2000 years ago. It is a social attitude that has stood the test of time and received much attention by social psychologists and philosophers alike. Many approaches to, or theories of stereotyping have thus been raised. This essay evaluates the cognitive approach that categorisation is an essential cognitive process that inevitably leads to stereotyping. Hamilton (1979) calls this a 'depressing dilemma'.
The vizier was the Chief Overseer of the land, sort of like a Prime Minister. Under the vizier were local governors called Nomarks. Nomarks ruled over an area of land called a nome. A nome was like a state or province. Other officials that reported into Pharaoh were the army commander, the chief treasurer, and the minister of public works. These officials each had different responsibilities and powers, but Pharaoh had the final say. Many of the Pharaoh's officials were priests and scribes.
A label defines an individual as a certain kind of person. Defining an act as deviant or criminal is not a simple straight forward process. A label is not neutral, it contains an evaluation of the person to whom it is applied. It is a ‘Master Status’ in the sense that it overshadows all the other statuses possessed by the individual. If an individual is labelled as criminal, mentally ill or gay, such labels tend to override the individuals status as father, husband, worker, friend or neighbour. Whether or not the label is applied will depend on how the act is interpreted by the audience. This in turn will depend on who commits the act and where and when it was committed.
Both victims and offenders of crimes of violence tend to be of a younger demographic, and incidents tend to be concentrated in poor neighbourhoods. Therefore, it is important to determine the process through which adolescents come to participate in violent behaviour and the conditions particular to disadvantaged neighbourhoods that foster adolescents’ propensity for violent behaviour. Sutherland’s theory of differential association is particularly useful for explaining the process involved in engaging in deviant behaviour, and it is helpful in explaining why disadvantaged neighbourhoods have the conditions that encourage deviant behaviour. Therefore, by applying socialization theory to crimes of interpersonal violence, this paper will argue
According to Baron, Byrne & Suls in their book Attitudes: Evaluating the social world. (1989) they defined the term Social Psychology as “the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior in social situations”. (p. 6). There are many concepts of social perception, two of these that will be looked at in this essay are Implicit Personality Theory and stereotypes. Implicit personality theory describes the beliefs, biases and assumptions, that an individual uses when he or she forms impressions on a stranger based on limited information. The way we form impressions and the different conclusions we make about other people based upon our individual impressions is also part of this theory. One of the first people to investigate how people form impressions was Solomon Asch in the 1940’s in his experiment ‘Forming Impressions of Personality' he was interested in how people form impressions and if certain traits affected peoples impressions. A good example of Implicit personality theory is if someone who is considered unpredictable they may be considered dangerous. The second Concept of Social Psychology that will be considered is stereotypes. Cardwell (1996) described stereotypes as “...A fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” may have beliefs and thoughts on different social groups and individual people and how they should act, and believe that all people in that group conform and have the same characteristics as the rest. By using stereotypes, it helps us simplify how we think of the social world as having a stereotype reduces our thinking process when we meet new people. An example of stereotyping is saying that all French people wear berets and have garlic a...
Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping are important topics at the cause of debating within social psychology. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits cling to all members, regardless of actual individual variation (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2010). As humans, people assign objects and individuals into categories to organize the environment. Individuals do this for not only organization, but also survival. Is stereotyping inevitable? That is the question; according to Devine (2007), it is, but Lepore and Brown (2007) have to disagree. Devine believes that “stereotyping is automatic, which makes it inevitable.” On the other hand, Lepore and Brown are not convinced that stereotyping is automatic, and have claimed, after observation, that it depends on the individual.