Individuals who contradict stereotypes get subtyped so the overall stereotype survives intact

Evidence

When people confront individuals whose character disputes their outgroup stereotypes, they readily admit the individual exceptions only to “re-fence” the stereotype (Allport, 1954/1979, p. 23): People create small subtypes to contain the exceptions, thereby protecting their overall categories (for references, see Fiske, 1998). Subtypes are cognitively convenient because they allow people to retain their comfortable categories. And they are socially convenient because they justify the status quo. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 304

Categorization

• XREF: This is the cognitive mechanism explaining why positive contact with individual outgroup members fails to reduce group-level prejudice — core to contested contact-theory claims in the vault.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 304