The Psychology of Stereotypes

This book has defined prejudice as involving a certain class of negative stereotypes. In chapter 2, this definition is elaborated further in light of developments in social and cognitive psychology. The human mind is an information-processing mechanism operating in real-time. Its defining problem is that of developing effective algorithms to cope with a threat of information overload. These algorithms distinctively involve compression of information, resulting in a predictable loss of fidelity. But even cognitive processing strategies involving significant filtering and compression can be cognitively optimal, relative to our contingent, “non-ideal” cognitive starting points. The basic cognitive expression of this fact is what psychologists call ‘categorization.’ Stereotyping is essentially just categorization applied to the domain of social cognition. As such, no epistemological aspersions can be cast on prejudice simply in virtue of being grounded in stereotypes. The chapter ends by explaining how this research relates to the currently popular concept of ‘implicit bias.’