Social Categorization From Faces: Evidence From Obvious and Ambiguous Groups

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas O. Rule ◽  
Shelbie L. Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Skin Color ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Political Affiliation ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Face Shape ◽  
The Social ◽  
Better Than

People use facial features (e.g., face shape, skin color, eye structure) both in isolation and in combination to identify others as members of a variety of social categories. For some categories (e.g., age, race, and sex), the markers are obvious and people categorize their members almost perfectly. For others, however (e.g., political affiliation, religious following, and sexual orientation), the markers are ambiguous, yet people can still categorize members of these groups with better than chance accuracy and little effort or awareness. Here, we describe how people categorize others into both perceptually obvious and perceptually ambiguous social groups from their faces, discussing potential mechanisms that may underlie categorization accuracy and noting some of the social consequences that result from categorizing other people into groups.

scholarly journals Social cognitive development: The intergroup context

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Chalik ◽  
Antonia Misch ◽  
Yarrow Dunham
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Ecology

Throughout human history and across all human cultures, civilizations have organized themselves into social collectives, to the extent that it seems fair to say that social groups are the natural ecology of our species. In many ways, these groups play the same role as do categories in other domains; after all, the world is an incredibly complex place, and dividing it into categories is a powerful way to simplify this complexity and maximize efficiency in learning. In the social world, this way of working through complexity is especially important, given the extreme range of variability that exists across human individuals and communities. Children must navigate a world full of people with a range of properties that appear to have little in common with one another, posing a particularly difficult learnability problem. Social categorization allows children to work through this complexity by selecting features that denote meaningful differences between people. As a result, social categories become a fundamental lens through which we see the world.It should thus not surprise that social categorization of some sort exists across all human societies, making it a human universal (Brown, 2004). But, there are important differences across human cultures in how groups are defined, which groups are viewed as important, and what the consequences of group membership are. Thus, it is important to consider how cognitive development unfolds in an intergroup context. In this chapter, we broadly explore how children across development understand social categories and use these categories to navigate the social world. In doing so, we aim to demonstrate where there is diversity across human cultures in how social categorization unfolds, and what aspects of this diversity are grounded in common psychological tendencies and mechanisms.

EVALUATION OF THE PHENOMENON OF SPATIAL SEGREGATION IN LVIV. HISTORICAL ASPECT

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-83
Author(s):  
Senkiv Z ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Spatial Segregation ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Historical Aspect ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

The article attempts to outline the phenomenon of spatial segregation in Lviv. It highlights the historical aspects of this phenomenon, and their impact on the current situation. Also is outlined the own classification of the social groups which have developed at present city is considering the degree of their mutual isolation. It was found that in the historical aspect of spatial segregation in Lviv can be divided into three periods: - medieval (when it was discriminatory), Soviet (when it was a privilege marking of politically "trustworthy"), and modern (associated with property stratification). Each of these segregation stages has left its mark on the spatial character of the city, albeit to varying degrees. Thus, the medieval discriminatory segregation of space is now practically inactive; the Soviet partially changed its direction and lost its original meaning, the modern one is at the stage of active development and deepening. Eight social categories have been identified in modern Lviv, in relation to which the process of spatial segregation is taking place. Accordingly, an assessment of the phenomenon of spatial segregation is given, which should take into account the following factors: a) the frequency of intersection of social groups of different categories; b) the place where this intersection takes place (for example citywide holidays); c) territorial distribution of spatially segregated groups. Preliminarily assessed the isolation level of different social groups, which also has a urban dimension.

Found in Translation

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
pp. 1499-1507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas O. Rule ◽  
Keiko Ishii ◽  
Nalini Ambady ◽  
Katherine S. Rosen ◽  
Katherine C. Hallett
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Response Bias ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexual Orientations ◽  
Male Sexual Orientation ◽  
Better Than

Across cultures, people converge in some behaviors and diverge in others. As little is known about the accuracy of judgments across cultures outside of the domain of emotion recognition, the present study investigated the influence of culture in another area: the social categorization of men’s sexual orientations. Participants from nations varying in their acceptance of homosexuality (United States, Japan, and Spain) categorized the faces of men from all three cultures significantly better than chance guessing. Moreover, categorizations of individual faces were significantly correlated among the three groups of perceivers. Americans were significantly faster and more accurate than the Japanese and Spanish perceivers. Categorization strategies (i.e., response bias) also varied such that perceivers from cultures less accepting of homosexuality were more likely to categorize targets as straight. Male sexual orientation therefore appears to be legible across cultures.

scholarly journals Preps and Punks: An Inquiry into Externally Imposed Factors that Contribute to the Social Categorization of Students

2005 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgann Cope Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Hidden Curriculum ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
School Life ◽  
The Social

The division of students into social categories is a phenomenon that invites inquiry. Historically, students have tended to migrate towards one of two groups: the preps who embrace all aspects of school life and the punks who reject all aspects of school life. These two groups are reproductions of the social order. This paper inquires into three elements of the discourse of schooling that influence the categorization of students; normalization, the hidden curriculum and the social contract.

Living with diversity or living with difference? International perspectives on everyday perceptions of the social composition of diverse neighbourhoods

Divercities ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 211-234
Author(s):  
Katrin Großmann ◽  
Georgia Alexandri ◽  
Maria Budnik ◽  
Annegret Haase ◽  
Christian Haid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
International Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Neighbourhood Change ◽  
National Discourses

This chapter analyses which categories are mobilised by residents to describe the social groups in their area and which normative assessments are attached to those descriptions. This intersectionality approach allows one to see social stratification at work in how inhabitants of diverse neighbourhoods in Leipzig, Paris, and Athens perceive, describe, and judge their social environment. The three cities that are analysed represent different histories of diversification, and all three of them have experienced societal disruptions and change. The residents' own positionality shapes how they categorise other residents and judge their social environment. Moreover, the construction of social groups in diverse neighbourhoods in these cities draws on a variety of rather classic social categories and is influenced by national discourses. Stigmatisation often occurs at the intersections of these categories. Also, neighbourhood change is an important factor in the construction of social groups.

Real Men Don’t Say “Cute”

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Carpenter ◽  
Daniel Preotiuc-Pietro ◽  
Lucie Flekova ◽  
Salvatore Giorgi ◽  
Courtney Hagan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Education Level ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Verbal Expression ◽  
Large Scale Data ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scale Data

People associate certain behaviors with certain social groups. These stereotypical beliefs consist of both accurate and inaccurate associations. Using large-scale, data-driven methods with social media as a context, we isolate stereotypes by using verbal expression. Across four social categories—gender, age, education level, and political orientation—we identify words and phrases that lead people to incorrectly guess the social category of the writer. Although raters often correctly categorize authors, they overestimate the importance of some stereotype-congruent signal. Findings suggest that data-driven approaches might be a valuable and ecologically valid tool for identifying even subtle aspects of stereotypes and highlighting the facets that are exaggerated or misapplied.

scholarly journals Facial Stereotyping Drives Judgments of Perceptually Ambiguous Social Groups

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062110622
Author(s):  
Maryam Bin Meshar ◽  
Ryan M. Stolier ◽  
Jonathan B. Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Facial Appearance ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Social Encounters

When seeing a face, people form judgments of perceptually ambiguous social categories (PASCs), for example, gun-owners, gay people, or alcoholics. Previous research has assumed that PASC judgments arise from the statistical learning of facial features in social encounters. We propose, instead, that perceivers associate facial features with traits (e.g., extroverted) and then infer PASC membership via learned stereotype associations with those traits. Across three studies, we show that when any PASC is more stereotypically associated with a trait (e.g., alcoholics = extroverted), perceivers are more likely to infer PASC membership from faces conveying that trait (Study 1). Furthermore, we demonstrate that individual differences in trait–PASC stereotypes predict face-based judgments of PASC membership (Study 2) and have a causal role in these judgments (Study 3). Together, our findings imply that people can form any number of PASC judgments from facial appearance alone by drawing on their learned social–conceptual associations.

Social categories, Standardized Relational Pairs and identity work in World War II-narratives

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Schoofs ◽  
Dorien Van De Mieroop
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Identity Constructions ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
The Social ◽  
Concentration Camp Survivors

Abstract Drawing on Membership Categorization Analysis, we aim to tease out how narrators talk into being the social group constellations in their storyworlds and how these – potentially shifting – constellations can be related to the narrator’s identity constructions. We investigate two World War II-testimonies narrated by Belgian concentration camp survivors and scrutinize whether the expected Standardized Relational Pair of victim-perpetrator – viz. the camp prisoners versus the Nazis – is in operation, how these two categories are talked into being, whether other social groups are mentioned and how all these processes affect the narrators’ identity work. It proved to be the case that, even though the victim-perpetrator Standardized Relational Pair is indeed present in both testimonies, it functions very differently in both stories, resulting in almost opposing identity work by the two narrators.

scholarly journals The Many Colors Children See: Development and Intervention of Children’s Social Prejudices

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yopina G Pertiwi
Keyword(s):  
Intergroup Contact ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Implicit Information ◽  
Promising Solution ◽  
The Many

In light of the current socio-political situation that magnifies the majority-minority group division in the country, it is essential for parents and other elements of the society to discuss about how this situation may affect the development of the next generation. Both explicit and implicit information on social categorization provided by adults and other resources assist in the formation of children’s stereotype and prejudice towards various social groups. This paper reviews empirical studies on the development of prejudice across childhood and the strategy that can potentially facilitates the reduction of prejudice among children. It is evident that children have begun to use social categories to describe different social groups from a very young age and promoting intergroup contact may be used as a promising solution to lower prejudice among children.

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