Background Research
Categorization is the process of simplifying the social world by placing people into categories on the basis of characteristics such as age, race, gender, clothing style, height, ability status, or other cues. These categories are based on cognitive structures that contain a person's knowledge and beliefs about social groups and that cue what people attend to and use to organize their social world (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000). Categorization happens very quickly and the first cues people attend to are another's race and gender (Ito & Urland, 2003). However, people also attend to nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and posture (Zebrowitz, 1996) and to physical appearance cues such as attractiveness (Etcoff, 1999) and clothing (Stangor, Lynch, Changming, & Glas, 1992). Once a person has been categorized, the stereotypic beliefs associated with that category are activated, a process that often occurs automatically. However, stereotype activation can be inhibited when people are motivated to do so by goals such as the desire to see oneself in a positive light or the need to form accurate impressions of others (Kunda & Spencer, 2003).
References:
Etcoff, N. L. (1999). Survival of the prettiest: The science of beauty. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Ito, T. A., & Urland, G. R. (2003). Race and gender on the brain: Electrocortical measures of attention to the race and gender of multiply categorizable individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 616-626. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.4.616
Kunda, Z., & Spencer, S. J. (2003). When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they color judgment? A goal-based theoretical framework for stereotype activation and application. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 522-544. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.4.522
Macrae, C. N., & Bodenhausen, G. (2000). Social cognition: Thinking categorically about others. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 93-120. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.93
Stangor, C., Lynch, L., Changming, D., Glas, B. (1992). Categorization of individuals on the basis of multiple social features. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 207-218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.62.2.207
Zebrowitz, L. A. (1996). Physical appearance as a basis of stereotyping. In C. N. Macrae, C. Stangor, & M. Hewstone (Eds.), Stereotypes and stereotyping (pp. 79-120). New York, NY: Guilford.