ABSTRACT
When-and to what extent-should we be upset by those who stereotype? Ever since the early theorizing on stereotyping (e.g., Allport, 1954; Lippman, 1922), there has been a growing acknowledgment that stereotyping is natural, inevitable, and perhaps even functional. The world is a complex place, and it is unreasonable to expect that people could hold all that complexity in their minds when thinking about social categories. If we did not simplify or chunk the social world, it is quite possible that we would feel overwhelmed and disoriented by the constant stream of information, as we struggled to navigate our way through all the buzzing, teeming complexity. So we rely instead on sketchy stereotypes, which might not be totally accurate or nuanced, but at least will give us a basic blueprint to understand and predict the world we live in.
