Categorization both enables judgment and necessarily biases it

Evidence

The act of categorization, however, deprives people of the ability to perceive some aspects of the world: stimuli can be assimilated to the category only if their peculiarities are overlooked. Here resides the dual nature of categorization: “Categorical thinking is a natural and inevitable tendency of the human mind” and “has property of guiding daily adjustments” (Allport, 1954/ 1979, pp.170–1), but it also impoverishes experiences and leads to a host of perceptual, judgmental, and memory biases. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1154

Categorization

• XREF: Links to vault’s contact-theory claims: the cost side of categorization is what intergroup contact must overcome.
• DEFINE: Sets out the dual nature of categorization — its adaptive guidance vs. its impoverishing cost.