Ethnic slurs reveal how simply the brain represents different outgroups

Evidence

In terms of the general structure of ethnic labels, paralleling research on stereotypes (see Judd & Park’s ch. 8 in this volume), ethnophaulisms reflect two basic dimensions: On the one hand, the array of ethnophaulisms used for an ethnic group can vary in complexity, which indicates the type of cognitive representation being used for the ethnic groups (Mullen & Johnson, 1993, 1995; Mullen, Rozell, & Johnson, 2000, 2001). The ethnophaulisms for some ethnic groups are distributed across different semantic categories, indicating a relatively higher level of complexity in cognitive representation. For example, two of the four ethnophaulisms applied to Spanish immigrants in the US refer to some aspect of a group name (“spanisher” and “spinach”) while the other two ethnophaulisms refer to personal names (“diego” and “josé”). Alternatively, the ethnophaulisms for other ethnic groups are clustered into relatively few semantic categories, indicating a relatively lower level of complexity in cognitive representation. For example, all of the four ethnophaulisms applied to Belgian immigrants in the US refer to some aspect of a group name (“belgeek,” “belgie,” “blemish,” and “flamingo”). … As suggested by Graumann and Wintermantel (1989), the use of ethnophaulisms provides a gauge of prototype representation of ethnic groups: “Typing [a member of a social category] by nouns fixates the other person as a typical instance of a social category” (p. 192, emphasis added). This simplified cognitive representation of an ethnic outgroup seems to be exaggerated when the ethnophaulisms for that outgroup are clustered into relatively few semantic categories. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1281

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘complexity’ dimension of ethnophaulisms with concrete Spanish vs. Belgian examples.