If we think for a moment about ourselves in the midst of a changing world, a world in which many distinctions exist, we find something inherent within ourselves. The world is complex. We seek understanding. Consequently, we categorize.
Just as scientists develop classification systems to reduce complexity, so too do we rely on categorical systems in our daily lives. George Kelly, a prominent personality theorist, succinctly described and portrayed human beings as lay scientists who seek to organize, predict, and control their world (Kelly, 1955).
“Mankind, whose progress in search of prediction and control of surrounding events stands out so clearly in light of the centuries, comprises the men we see around us every day. The aspirations of the scientists are essentially the aspirations of all men.”
- George A. Kelly (1955)
We have an innate ability to categorize and under this sphere, stereotyping and prejudice emerge. Our ability to categorize may be one of the most basic and important yet uncompromisingly complex actions our minds can do. Indeed, although categorization is a most basic cognitive process, it plays an important aspect in the area stereotyping and prejudice (Allport, 1954). Allport posits that social categorization is a necessary precursor of prejudice (Allport, 1954). Bruner suggested that social categorization is an inescapable and inevitable feature of human existence (Bruner, 1957).We categorize because in us exists an underlying need to structure our worlds, even our social worlds, into boxes of comfort and safety (Stangor & Schaller, 1996).
Thus our basic thought process presents us with a dilemma of sorts. On one hand, we acknowledge the existence of categorization and their contribution to our individual viewpoint on how we look out into our social world. On the other hand, we also acknowledge our capacity to communicate and evolve as social animals. We acknowledge shared information and sometimes shared information may lead to pernicious and destructive societal, political and psychological consequences. In short, not only are we forced to evaluate our selves as individuals for our responsibility but we are also challenged to evaluate ourselves as citizens and members in relation to our families, our peers, our workforce, our corresponding nations and within our own culture. Can a single mind of an individual be sufficient enough to alter the society in which he or she lives? Can societal consensus bring change within an individual and what processes do these entail?
First of all, how does categorization relate to stereotypes and stereotype formations? One of the important functions of stereotypes is that it stems from a basic human motive; to understand, comprehend and predict the world (cf. Heider, 1958). Stereotypes, at its epistemic base, provide not just useful information about others but also provide a systemic way of processing an otherwise chaotic world (Stangor & Schaller, 1996). We use our individual beliefs about others to help us understand and explain individual behaviour and evidently the same idea persists in stereotype formation within the collective level. Understanding social events and rendering them more clearly cannot be done without the development of stereotypes in collective group (Tajfel & Forgas, 1981).
The basic aim of this paper is to further understand the linkages that connect the individual and collective representations in light of their complementary perspectives regarding stereotypes. The individual perspective emphasizes the viewpoint of stereotypes originating within the mind of the individual person. The collective perspective emphasizes that stereotypes are part of the social fabric of society and thus consensually shared (Stangor & Schaller, 1996). This dichotomous relationship model of collective and individual representations, although complimentary, may produce a parochial, static outlook on their subsequent contributions on our complete understanding and inquiry in the realm of stereotypes and the stereotyping process. The time for an integrated perspective is very ripe thanks to the broad insights of synthesis within individual and collective psychology. The idea that the individual approach and collective approach in regards to categorization operates interactively fits best with current theoretical and empirical knowledge particularly in the fields of a shared rich, broad socially shared cognition (Levine, Resnick, & Higgins, 1993; Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991; Wegner, 1987), placement of individuals' cognitions about groups within a broader social context (Turner, 1991; Brauer, Jacquelin & Judd, 2001) and relevantly within the contribution of language and language abstraction (Maass, Salvi & Semin, 2000). Further exploration of these subsequent fields as well as proposing two new theoretical evidences in the fields of learning and in computer network simulation models should also advance a unifying integrationist perspective. A particular case in point would be the resurgence of interest in social perception which deals with how both individual as well as groups organizes an insurmountable amount of information as through which learning occurs (Pryor & Ostrom, 1981).
Whereas learning takes an apparent individualistic approach, computer modeling on the other hand inclines towards a collective approach. Technology and recent developments in computer simulations have given us an opening to study never before studied groups, collectives and networks (Van Overwalle & Heylighen, 2006). Computer simulation and modeling has also gone a long way from Gordon W. Allport's Nature of Prejudice to experimental/theoretical dynamic systems of connectionist modeling (Van Overwalle & Heylighen, 2006). Technology broadly opens up new windows of opportunities which would now allow us to analyze and investigate huge amounts of data and information leading to a better understanding of social categorization. From computer simulation models, we understand that there is a bridge between the individual approach and the collective approach existing upon the shoulders of language and communication. Surprisingly, Van Overwalle and Heylighen's findings place a crucial emphasis on a trust-relationship between individual agents. Also within the field of technology, computer modeling produces empirical generalizations and theoretical analyses of both individual and collective processes representing differing levels of social reality (Nowak, Szamrej & Latane, 1990). More specifically, these same computer simulations may help determine the extent to which group-level phenomena result of individual-level processes and how individual-level processes result in group-level phenomena.
