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2 - “Those People All Look Alike”: The Myth of the Other

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2024

Kristin J. Anderson
Kristin J. Anderson
Affiliation:
University of Houston-Downtown
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Summary

Chapter 2 discusses the common belief that people different from us all look alike and act alike. The outgroup homogeneity effect, as it is called, is rooted in normal categorization processes that become oversimplified. Categorization produces a range of tendencies that contribute to prejudice such as stereotyping, inaccurate attributions, ingroup favoritism, outgroup derogation, dehumanization, even scapegoating and genocide. These phenomena are explained and connected to contemporary events such as anti-Asian hate crimes during the Covid 19 pandemic. Chapter 2 ends with strategies for change that include intergroup contact, creating more complex social identities, and cooperative learning.

Keywords

outgroup homogeneitydehumanizationinfrahumanizationcategorizationingroup favoritismattributionslinguistic intergroup biasscapegoatinggenocidecontact hypothesisstereotype suppression
Type
Chapter
Information
Benign Bigotry
The Psychology of Subtle Prejudice
 , pp. 54 - 92
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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