The article explains how social categorization, intergroup comparison, group identification, and outgroup bias shape cultural stereotypes.

Social Identity Theory

Social identity theory is a good explanatory framework for many things in our social cognitions, relationships, and behaviors. The concepts of social categorization, social identification, and social comparison of in-group and out-group also explain the formation of social and cultural stereotypes.(Brown, 2000; Hogg, 2016; McLeod, 2019, October 24; Tajfel, 1982, 2001, Turner, Brown, & Tajfel, 1979); Tajfel & Turner, 1979/2004).

Social Categorization, Group identification, and Intergroup comparison

First, we categorize the things around us. Human perception tends to categorize objects to understand them. In the same way, humans categorize people and other social things to understand them. This is called “social categorization.”

We apply such social categories as male and female, boys and girls, the social and gender roles of a child, the social roles of a parent, a student, or a businessman because they help us understand the social world around us. We learn that people can be of different genders and sexual orientations. People can be from the high, middle, or low socioeconomic classes. They can be liberals and conservatives, Christians and Muslims, Germans, Americans, and British. Then, we assign them to these categories to predict what to expect from them. This is the source of our cognitive schemas and stereotypes. This is how we grasp social, political, and gender roles.

Second, we socially identify ourselves as members of social categories and groups that we believe we then belong to. And then, we adopt the appropriate social identity of the group we have categorized ourselves as fitting into. This is called “social identification.”

If one categorizes herself as a girl, it is likely that she adopts the corresponding gender identity and behaves like a woman, conforming to the gender norms and roles of womanhood. For her, it is emotionally important to identify with this group, and her self-esteem becomes bound up with its membership.

Third, if we categorize ourselves as belonging to a social group and identify with that group, then we begin to compare “our group” with “other groups.” This is called “social comparison.” We tend to favorably compare our group to other groups. This allows us to maintain our self-esteem.

In-groups Versus Out-groups

Social categorization tends to serve not only objective social cognition but also subjective self-identification. Therefore, people distinguish social groups in reference to themselves as either in-group (us) or out-group (them). And they are biased in their social perceptions.

First, they tend to see others in their own group as more similar to each other than they are. They are also predisposed to seeing others in the group to which they belong (in-group) as different from others (out-group).

Second, they are prone to seeing positive qualities in those from their in-group and negative qualities in those from their out-group. They are subjective and biased because such favoritism toward their own group enhances their self-image.

Social Categorization and Stereotypes

Stereotyping is the cognitive process of social categorization. It is natural for people to put things together into groups based on their similarities and differences. It is natural for people to stereotype others. Stereotyping is a normal tendency of social cognition when it is flexible and capable of adjustment.

A negative effect of stereotyping appears when social categorization turns into shaping an oversimplified and rigid image of a social group and a particular type of person. In this case, people tend to amplify the similarities between people belonging to the same group and the differences between those belonging to different social groups.

When members of one group identify as opponents of another, they must assert their status in order to maintain their self-esteem. Antagonism and contestation with other groups are related to their competing identities.

Cultural Stereotypes

Cultural stereotypes are just another kind of social stereotype. We categorize people in the same way, referring to the cultural groups they belong to. That is called a “cultural stereotype.”

Plenty of social labels can be perceived as cultural. These are Whites, Blacks, and Asians. These are Christians and Muslims. These are Palestinians and Jews. These are the Albanians and Serbs. One of these can be our “in-group,” while another can be our “out-group” for us.

The in-group is our “own culture,” while the out-group is “their culture.” Ours is certainly better than theirs. Our culture is noble and civilized, while theirs is savage and barbaric. Our great religion versus their primitive superstitions.

The in-group versus out-group distinction is a source of ethnocentrism, which seems difficult to overcome because it is entrenched in human social nature and the basics of social cognition.

Social and cultural stereotypes are at the root of intercultural prejudices and clashes. Prejudiced stereotypes between cultures can cause racism, discrimination, and other detrimental cultural clashes, such as between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, and between the Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia (McKeown, Haji, Ferguson, eds., 2016).