Social Categorizaiton

Question 1

Social Categorization via Facial Features

Answer 1

• Facial features provide cues for social categorization into groups.
• Categories include perceptually obvious ones (e.g., age, race, and sex) and ambiguous ones (e.g., sexual orientation, political affiliation).

Question 2

Automatic and Effortless Categorization

Answer 2

• Categorization often occurs unintentionally and unconsciously.
• It involves both cognitive mechanisms (e.g., pattern recognition) and motivational factors (e.g., simplifying social understanding).

Question 3

Categorization of Obvious Groups

Answer 3

Highly Accurate Judgments:
- People can accurately categorize age, race, and sex using facial features like skin tone, face shape, and structure.

• Example: Observers achieve near-perfect accuracy (99%) when categorizing race from facial portraits.

Automatic Processing
- Recognition of obvious groups triggers distinct cognitive processes.

• Example: Participants categorize gender faster when it aligns with a face they just observed.

Question 4

Categorization of Ambiguous Groups

Answer 4

Moderate Accuracy:
- Categorizing groups with subtle or ambiguous markers (e.g., sexual orientation, political leaning) exceeds chance but is less accurate (~65% on average).
- People often underestimate their categorization abilities.

Unconscious and Rapid Judgments:
- Snap judgments (e.g., recognizing a sexual orientation from facial cues in 40 milliseconds) are more accurate than deliberate attempts.

Implicit Categorization:
- Even without direct cues or explicit tasks, individuals categorize based on ambiguous features. For instance, likability ratings differ by sexual orientation, even when unmentioned.

Question 5

Mechanisms Behind Categorization

Answer 5

Perceptual Learning
- Recurring experience with a group enhances recognition of features distinguishing its members

Motivation and Cognitive Efficiency
- Categorization is driven by the need for efficiency and acquiring relevant information
- Women at peak ovulation are better at discerning men’s sexual orientation, likely due to mating motivations.

Categorization-Individuation Model
- People initially categorize based on distinguishing features (shared characteristics) before individuating group members.
- Familiarity with a group improves memory and identification accuracy.

Question 6

Social Consequences

Answer 6

Stereotyping and Bias
- Categorization shapes perceptions, inferences, and stereotypes

Behavioral Implications
- Categorization influences decision in contexts like hiring or sentencing

Essentialism
- People infer that traits of individuals are inherent to their social categories, reinforcing stereotypes and biases

Question 7

Implications

Answer 7

• People often categorize accurately with little conscious effort, illustrating the efficiency of human cognition
• However, reliance on categorization can perpetuate biases and reinforce stereotypes
• Categorization affects memory, interpersonal interactions, and judgments in professional or legal contexts

Question 8

Rudimentary recipe for group stereotypes

Answer 8

• Exaggeration of differences between categories
• Exaggeration of similarities within categories

Question 9

Rudimentary recipe for prejudice

Answer 9

Ingroup favoritism/bias (us vs them)

Question 10

Overcoming Ingroup favoritism

Answer 10

It’s hard to overcome
- Increased oxytocin does not lead to reduced intergroup prejudice, it leads to an increase in ingroup favoritism

Question 11

Potential Strategies to reduce ingroup favoritism

Answer 11

• People have motive to perceive self positively causing prejudice favoring ingroup over outgroup that results in a positive perception of self

Implication
- If people are provided with some other way to feel good about themselves, they may be less motivated to achieve that goal through prejudicial perceptions of ingroup and outgroup

Question 12

Decategorization

Answer 12

If people are encourage to perceive group members as distinct individuals, it weakens the us vs them

Question 13

Recategorization

Answer 13

If people are encourage to perceive that both ingroup and outgroup is a part of a bigger group, it can weaken the categorical distinction

Question 14

Categorization and facial recognition

Answer 14

• Exaggeration of similarities within categories
• Exaggeration of similarities within outgroups [bigger effect] - the outgroup homogeneity effect
• Consequence: relatively poor recognition memory for faces of outgroup members (they all look alike)

Question 15

Categorization and facial recognition (pt 2, research)

Answer 15

• In general, poorer recognition memory for outgroup faces
• This effect is exaggerated when people are especially concerned about fitting in with and belonging to their ingroup
• This effect can be reduced by intergroup contact
• The effect disappears when perceiving angry faces

Ingroup member -> relevant -> encode features -> accurate recognition

Outgroup member -> irrelevant -> minimal encoding -> poor recognition

Outgroup member -> relevant -> encode features -> accurate recognition

Question 16

Reputational Concern & Expected Cooperation

Answer 16

RC: Individuals are motivated to maintain positive reputations, especially among those they frequently interact with, such as ingroup members. This concern leads to increased cooperation within one’s own group to uphold a favorable image.

EC: People tend to assume that ingroup members are more likely to reciprocate cooperative behaviors. This expectation encourages cooperation within the group, as individuals anticipate mutual support.

Research shows that the expectation of reciprocity plays a more significant role in ingroup favoritism than RC