Group segregation breeds glib generalizations that go uncontradicted

Evidence

Allport observed that people universally and spontaneously separate themselves into homogeneous groups, into us and them categories. Being more comfortable with their own group, people rarely deal with other groups, allowing glib generalizations (“they” are all the same and different from “us”) with little risk of contradiction. Yet Allport (1954/1979) believed that categorization is necessary; “orderly living depends on it” (p. 20); “rubrics are essential to mental life” (p. 24), for five reasons: • Categories enable people to function in the world. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 286

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the outgroup homogeneity effect in later social psychology.

Related

• Unchecked intergroup contact allows glib we-they generalizations to persist. (similarity 0.89)
• Contact avoidance lets glib they-are-all-the-same generalizations go uncontradicted (similarity 0.87)
• Cognitive laziness in categorization generates belief in group essences (similarity 0.84)
• Categorization renders outgroups more homogeneous and ingroups more varied (similarity 0.83)
• Beliefs that groups have essences arise from categorizing lazily (similarity 0.83)
• Allport treated social categorization as normal and inevitable, not aberrant (similarity 0.82)
• Ethnocentric biases arise even from trivial or random group assignments (similarity 0.81)
• Recategorizing at broader levels can reduce intergroup prejudice. (similarity 0.80)
• Recategorizing group boundaries can expand ingroup identity from us-them to we (similarity 0.80)
• Visible group distinctions make people link personal needs to group status (similarity 0.80)
• Intergroup relations begin when people adopt collective rather than personal identity (similarity 0.79)
• Categorization inherently produces prejudgment that cannot be avoided (similarity 0.79)
• Cultures differ in whether identity derives from relationships rather than from category membership (similarity 0.79)
• Recategorizing group membership at more inclusive levels can undermine prejudice (similarity 0.79)
• Knowing a group well reduces reliance on rigid categorical thinking (similarity 0.78)