ABSTRACT
Research on group perception has a long and varied history in social psychology. One of the earliest topics to be studied empirically was the nature of people’s stereotypes about a variety of national and ethnic groups (D.Katz & Braly, 1933). The study of stereotypes has continued to be an active area of inquiry ever since and has produced a massive literature exploring numerous aspects of the belief systems people generate and adhere to in their conceptions of groups (G. Allport, 1954; Brigham, 1971; Fiske, 1998; Hamilton & Sherman, 1994). In this history we have learned a great deal about the cognitive and motivational underpinnings of stereotype formation, use, and preservation (cf. Macrae, Stangor, & Hewstone, 1996). Certainly the study of the categorization process, as a fundamental cognitive mechanism, has been central in the literature ever since Allport’s (1954) classic text highlighted its role in “the normalcy of prejudgment.” Of course, the burgeoning research literature stimulated by social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and self-categorization theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) has placed the categorization process on center stage in analyses of group stereotypes and has highlighted the motivational benefits that can be gained by intergroup differentiation.
