Where Do Stereotypes Come From? (Causes of Social Categorization)

Where do stereotypes come from? While I won’t attempt to fully answer this question in this short of a video, I’ll describe several cognitive, neurological, and social factors that underly our propensity to stereotype. In our next video, I’ll describe several of the effects that stereotyping has on how we think and how we perceive those around us, and in future videos we’ll explore in much more depth both the causes and effects of stereotyping using examples from many different social groups. Social Categorization: Thinking about people primarily as members of social groups rather than as individuals. Primary Social Categories: Social categories that are processed in the brain first (e.g., race, sex, and age). Secondary Social Categories: Social categories that are not processed in the brain first, often because they require additional information and/or are invisible (e.g., someone’s political affiliation). Visible Social Categories: Social categories that are typically visibly apparent when looking at someone (e.g., their race, sex, and age). Invisible Social Categories: Social categories that are typically not visibly apparent when looking at someone (e.g., their sexual orientation). Amygdala: The part of the brain that controls emotion-related responses, especially fear. Executive Control: Housed in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, this refers to the ability to plan and behave in goal-directed ways (e.g., thinking before you speak); also commonly referred to as inhibitory control or executive functioning. Solo Status: Being the only member of a certain group in a given situation (e.g., being the only female in your philosophy class). Accessible Categories: Categories that we think about commonly and use often when describing people. In-group: A group that we identify with or see ourselves as belonging to. Out-group: A group that we don’t belong to and/or that we view as fundamentally different from us. Socialization: The process by which a person learns to adjust to society (or a group) and behave in ways that society (or that group) deems acceptable.