Social categorization and person memory: The pervasiveness of race as an organizing principle

Abstract

Two studies investigated the pervasiveness of race as a social categorization and whether the organization of information around racial categories is sensitive to contextual factors. Both studies measured accentuation eflects (more intra-than inter-race errors) and own-group bias (fewer confusions between own-than other-group members) in person memory, using the paradigm developed by Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff and Ruderman (1978 and Neuberg (1990) and Brewer (1988) argue that category-based processes have priority over attribute-based processes. Given our limited cognitive resources, it is both simpler (requiring less effort) and more efficient (requiring less time) for a perceiver to use categorical information to process information about individuals belonging to a group, than it is to analyse each person on an individual basis. According to Fiske and Neuberg (1990), the stage of 'initial categorization' occurs immediately as a perceiver encounters information (whether in the form of skin colour, clothing, speech style etc) sufficient to cue a meaningful social category. This initial stage indicates the pervasiveness of social categorization, with basic types of categories (e.g. race) thought to be accessed for virtually any target. The research reported below explores the ubiquity of social categorization and whether the organization of information around social categories is sensitive to contextual factors such as the relevance of a topic to a social category, and perceivers' processing goals.The paradigm we use to explore these issues has its origins in the pioneering studies of Henri Tajfel(1959), who proposed a theory of social judgment that provided a purely cognitive basis for the accentuation of intergroup differences. According to Tajfel, the categorization of objects (including social groups) is based on similarities within and differences between categories. Assimilation and contrast effects refer, respectively, to the accentuation of these basic processes, whereby perceivers minimize within-group differences and, especially, exaggerate between-group differences. Although the former effect was not significant in the original study (Tajfel and Wilkes, 1963), it has been found in later studies and the accentuation effect has been generalized from objects to social groups (Lilli, 1970;Marchand, 1970;Tajfel, Sheikh and Gardner, 1964). The magnitude of such accentuation effects can be seen as an index of the extent to which information is organized around social categories.Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff and Rudennan (1978, Experiment 1) extended this paradigm by having white subjects listen to a tape recording of a small-group discussion and simultaneously observe slides of each speaker (three black men and three white men) as he talked. After the 15-minute discussion, subjects were given a list of all the suggestions that had been made, and a set of pictures of all the participants. Subjects were asked to indicate which speaker had made each suggestion. The idea behind the study is simple: if race is used as...

Constituents of political cognition: Race, party politics, and the alliance detection system

“…Of course, only showing an increase in categorization by a contextually-relevant category (such as political party) and a decrease in a crossed, irrelevant category (such as race) is not sufficient on its own, because such a pattern could be consistent with any number of more general effects, such as shifts in attention, limited resources, or attention to contextual relevance (although previous research suggests that contextual relevance does not reduce chronically-activated social categories such as race; e.g., Hewstone et al, 1991;Stangor et al, 1992). This is why categorization by sex has been used as a contrastive category in previous studies, to which reductions in categorization by race can be compared.…”

“…Stangor et al, 1992;Hewstone et al, 1991). Using a non chronicallyactivated category is not theoretically interesting to cross with alliance because these categories are trivially-easy to reduce, such that categorization will be unlikely to occur even in the baseline condition, let alone in contexts when crossed with alliance membership.…”

“…That is, the non-partisan baseline conditions provided an experimental control for idiosyncrasies of the target photos and also any general topic-by-social-category interactions (i.e., demonstrating that we were not differentially priming either race, sex, or age when presenting these particular political issues; previous research furthermore suggests that chronicallyactivated social categories such as these are insensitive to contextual primes; e.g. Stangor et al, 1992;Hewstone et al, 1991). Consistent with previous results, very strong categorization by all three categories occurred (e.g., Lieberman et al, 2008;Taylor et al, 1978).…”

How malleable is categorization by race? Evidence for competitive category use in social categorization.

“…In all three studies, there was evidence for an amplification due to topic relevance, although the evidence was weak in Study 2 (with p ϭ .09). As discussed in the Appendix, Hewstone, Hantzi, and Johnston (1991) did not find an effect of topic relevance in race categorization, but two subsequent studies did (Cabecinhas & Amâncio, 1999;Maddox & Chase, 2004). Cabecinhas and Amân-cio (1999) did not find an effect of topic relevance in gender categorization.…”

Prejudice reduction in an educational setting. Practical outcomes from theoretical approaches

“…Research on prejudice shows that cognitive processes activate automatic racial and ethnic biases despite egalitarian values. Race and ethnicity prove to be salient and difficult to overcome (Park, Rothbart, 1982) while other social categories as occupation or appearance may be easier, but not so easily, to suppress (Hewstone et al, 1991). Our disposition to divide the world into us and them even when distinctions are unimportant and arbitrary and to favour ingroup members was shown in a series of classic studies where participants randomly assigned to groups allocated more money to fellow ingroup than outgroup members (Tajfel et al, 1971).…”