ABSTRACT
The concept of justice provides people with a formula, the formula of formal justice, the purpose of which is to arrive at an appropriate balance among competing claims: like cases are to be treated alike, and different cases are to be treated differently. In this sense, formal justice provides a principle of direction for social institutions. Indeed, the law must be general specifically because the eventualities of social life are relentlessly unique and variable. Legal categorization occurs in two primary ways, corresponding to the two primary forms of generality through which legal rules are forged; that is, by legislation and adjudication. Today, many of the same insights that animated Allport's study are stimulating research advancements within the branches of sociology and social and cognitive psychology concerned with social cognition. Allport's perspective on the nature and origins of stigma and stereotype has remained highly influential within social and cognitive psychology.
