bodenhausen & peery (2009). social categorization and stereotypeing

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Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKSPCOSocial and Personality Psychology Compass1751-90041751-9004© 2009 The AuthorsJournal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.16710.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00167.xFebruary 2009001???19???Original ArticleSocial Categorization In vivoSocial Categorization In vivo

Social Categorization and Stereotyping In vivo: The VUCA Challenge

Galen V. Bodenhausen* and Destiny PeeryNorthwestern University

AbstractA substantial literature has examined the nature of social categorization, a fundamentalprocess having important implications for a wide variety of social phenomena.The great majority of this research has focused on the role of particular, clearlyidentified social categories (e.g. race, nationality, etc.) while ignoring or holdingconstant other identity dimensions. This approach has afforded considerableleverage for understanding how salient social identities influence perception,judgment, and behavior. However, it leaves unaddressed many questions abouthow particular social identities become salient and how (and whether) identitiesmight be inferred when category membership is ambiguous or unknown.Everyday social perception often occurs under conditions of volatility (dynamiccontexts), uncertainty (missing information), complexity (multiple bases forcategorization), and ambiguity (unclear meaning of available cues). As a consequence,research must address how these factors might qualify basic processes of socialcategorization. Available evidence is reviewed, and directions for future researchare discussed.

The central importance of social categorization in shaping perception,judgment, and behavior has long been recognized. The writings of seminaltheorists such as Allport (1954), Sherif (1948), and Tajfel (1974) emphasizedthe significance of the psychological borderlines that define membershipin particular social groups, and countless studies have examined theconsequences of salient category memberships on social functioning (forreviews, see Brewer & Brown, 1985; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000). Inthis article, we focus on research examining the role played by socialcategories in basic processes of social perception and cognition. Thedominant research strategy in this domain has been straightforward andpowerful: manipulate the identity of a target in a manner that makesmembership in a given category salient and clear, while holding constantall else that is known about the target. Goldberg’s (1968) classic study of sexdiscrimination provides a prototypic example. In this research, participantsevaluated the quality of written essays; essay content was held constant,but the name of the ostensible author was manipulated in a manner clearly

2 Social Categorization In vivo

© 2009 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 3 (2009): 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00167.xJournal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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conveying the sex of the author (e.g. John versus Joan). Although theresults of that particular study have been challenged (Swim, Borgida,Maruyama, & Myers, 1989), the basic methodology has remained popularand has even been refined. Kasof (1993) pointed out that particular namescan signal other social category memberships besides gender (e.g. agegroup or ethnicity), and they may also have personality connotations.Consequently, he provided pretested sets of names that differed in termsof gender but no other salient associations, so that researchers could morecleanly manipulate gender identities and nothing else.

This basic method of using salient cues to manipulate a target’s socialcategory has been widely adopted in studies of stereotyping and discrim-ination, both in the realm of gender bias and beyond, and it is not difficultto understand why. The logic is straightforward and the results provide acompelling picture of just how much one’s membership in particularsocial categories can modify how one is perceived by others. However, ineveryday life, it is relatively rare that others are encountered in such neatlypre-packaged ways. The real social environment is much messier, an ideaembodied in the military acronym used to describe the complicatedreal-world circumstances in which strategic decisions must be made: VUCA(e.g. Johansen, 2007). VUCA stands for Volatility (a dynamically changingsocial context), Uncertainty (missing information), Complexity (multiplepotentially relevant dimensions), and Ambiguity (multiple possible inter-pretations of available information). For example, upon encountering anactual person, rather than a carefully constructed laboratory stimulusperson, there will inevitably be multiple potential bases for categorization,confronting the social perceiver with the problem of complexity. Recentresearch has tackled many aspects of these complicating realities ofreal-world social perception, and our goal in the present article is to beginto outline the richer picture of social categorization and stereotyping thatemerges from this research. We begin our review by summarizing recenttheoretical and empirical approaches to the complexity problem, whichin many respects provides the foundation for each of the subsequentlyconsidered aspects of the ‘VUCA challenge’.

The Problem of Complexity

Although scholars have periodically called for research examining the fullmultidimensionality of a given individual’s social identities, by and large,researchers have tended to examine social identities one at a time (Frable,1997). As just noted, prominent research strategies often explicitly attemptto insure that only one focal identity category is salient to social perceivers.This approach necessarily involves impoverished, artificial stimuluspersons, because when actual persons are encountered, multiple identitiescan be readily detected from visual cues alone. How do perceivers dealwith this complexity? Do they simultaneously categorize the target in all


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available ways, or do they only activate a subset of the possibilities? Theconsequences of focusing on one particular social category, rather thanother equally applicable ones, can be considerable. For example, Mitchell,Nosek, and Banaji (2003) showed that exposure to the same set of Blackathletes resulted in relatively negative automatic associations when theindividuals were categorized on the basis of their race, but relativelypositive automatic associations when they were categorized by their(admired) occupation. Of course, in this research, participants were instructedto focus on a particular category. What happens when perceivers have thefreedom to spontaneously categorize a multifaceted social target?

Bodenhausen and Macrae (1998) proposed a theoretical perspectiveon the complexity problem that is built on the assumption that socialcategorization is dynamic and involves the activation of some aspects of atarget’s identity and the inhibition of other aspects. The central idea is thatin many circumstances, a single basis for categorization will come todominate social cognition, organizing perception and guiding inferences.To the extent that other category cues are noticed, they are likely to betreated as circumscribed personal attributes rather than identity-definingsocial categories (see Bodenhausen, Macrae, & Sherman, 1999); as a result,the various kinds of stereotypic associations that would normally come tomind regarding these other identities will tend to be actively inhibited(Macrae, Bodenhausen, & Milne, 1995). For example, Macrae et al. showedthat when a target’s ethnic identity was dominant, stereotypes associatedwith her gender were actively inhibited, whereas when a target’s genderidentity was dominant, stereotypes associated with her ethnicity wereactively inhibited. Quinn and Macrae (2005) also showed that, uponseeing a multiply-categorizable target, category activation is limited totask-relevant dimensions of identity; equally applicable but task-irrelevantcategories were not activated. The functional argument is that particularlymeaningful identities are the ones that get activated, while inhibitoryprocesses help to keep distracting or competing information out of workingmemory, where it could interfere with ongoing functions of the cognitivesystem (see Dagenbach & Carr, 1994). In this way, a complicated andpotentially contradictory set of informational cues can be organized intoa coherent, well-structured impression that is guided by the dominantsocial categorization framework.

Of course, this perspective immediately invites the question: whichcategory becomes dominant in any given instance? Properties of thestimulus, the perceiver, and the setting can all be important in determiningthe salience of a potential basis for categorization (for a review, seeBodenhausen, Todd, & Becker, 2007). For example, on the stimulus side,several studies have shown that the prototypicality of a given individualwith respect to a particular category strongly moderates the likelihood that(s)he will become the target of categorical bias (e.g. Eberhardt, Davies,Purdie-Vaughns, & Johnson, 2006; Maddox, 2004). When a target is not



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particularly prototypical of a given identity (e.g. race), then alternativebases for categorization may be pursued for which greater prototypicalityexists (e.g. gender or occupation), or the target may be individuated (Fiske& Neuberg, 1990). Eberhardt et al. (2006) provided a particularly com-pelling demonstration of this prototypicality effect, by showing that thelikelihood of a Black defendant receiving a death sentence is an increasingfunction of his racial prototypicality. On the perceiver side, the perceiver’sgoals may direct attention toward goal-relevant bases for categorization(see Bodenhausen & Hugenberg, forthcoming), and chronic prejudicesheld by perceivers may make prejudice-relevant identities more salient(Allport & Kramer, 1946; Stangor, Lynch, Duan, & Glass, 1992). The mainpoint of Bodenhausen and Macrae’s (1998) analysis is that in a variety ofcircumstances, a particular social category will come to dominate thesocial perception process in a manner that solves the complexity problemquite efficiently, by activating concepts stereotypically associated with thisdominant identity while simultaneously inhibiting competing organizationalframeworks.

However, it is clearly the case that perceivers also sometimes pay attentionto more than one category at a time. This phenomenon has been extensivelyinvestigated in research on crossed-categorization effects (for a review, seeCrisp & Hewstone, 2007). As emphasized in the common ingroupidentity model (Dovidio, Gaertner, & Saguy, 2009), some categories existwithin a nested structure, such that a member of any subordinate categoryis also necessarily a member of more inclusive, superordinate identities(e.g. a German is necessarily also a European), and it is possible thatcategories at more than one level of inclusiveness may be simultaneouslyconsidered by social perceivers. However, many social categories are nothierarchically nested; rather, they are orthogonal to one another (e.g. sexand race) or correlated to an unknown degree (e.g. sex and occupation).Research on crossed-categorizations has focused primarily on the conse-quences of these kinds of multiple-category memberships. Multiplecategories can become simultaneously activated in the minds of socialperceivers in a variety of circumstances, including (a) when there is noclear basis for category dominance, (b) when perceivers possess themotivation to think more deeply about a social target and thus go beyondthe most salient social category, and (c) when the situation explicitly drawsattention to more than one basis for categorization. Research in whichtwo identity dimensions are made simultaneously salient for participantshas shown that the number of category memberships shared betweenperceiver and target (i.e. 0, 1, or 2) typically influences evaluations of andbehavior toward the target in an additive fashion (Crisp & Hewstone,1999). Particularly noteworthy is the comparison between a case whereonly a single diverging categorization is salient (e.g. the perceiver is Whiteand the target is Black) versus a case where this diverging categorizationis crossed with a different, shared categorization (e.g. the White perceiver

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and the Black target are both Christians). The addition of a shared categoricalidentity tends to markedly reduce intergroup bias (in this example, racialbias); by the same token, the addition of a second non-shared categoricalidentity (e.g. Christian versus Muslim) tends to exacerbate intergroup bias(for a review, see Migdal, Hewstone, & Mullen, 1998).

Research has also sometimes revealed more complex evaluative tendenciestoward cross-categorized targets than the additive pattern just described(Crisp & Hewstone, 2007; Vescio, Judd, & Chua, 2006). For example, asocial-inclusion pattern is said to occur when a target who shares anycategorical identity with the perceiver is viewed equivalently favorably(irrespective of whether just one or two or more identities are shared).Research on crossed-categorization effects has shed considerable light onthe evaluative outcomes that emerge when targets’ identities are morethan one-dimensional, but much less is known about the patterns ofstereotype activation and application that might characterize perceptionsof these complex targets. If a perceiver encounters an Asian woman underconditions in which both identities are salient, the existing literaturewould provide a firm basis for hypothesizing about how this person willbe globally evaluated, depending on the ethnicity and gender of theperceiver. However, what if the perceiver wants to make a specific inductiveinference about the target, such as whether she will be a good candidatefor graduate training in engineering? Here, descriptive as well as evaluativeconsiderations are important, and in this case the two categories produceconflicting stereotypes (i.e. women are stereotypically seen as less well-suitedfor engineering than men, whereas Asians are stereotypically seen as morewell-suited for engineering than many other ethnic groups are). Evidencebearing on this question is limited, but one relevant study was conductedby Pittinsky, Shih, and Trahan (2006), who showed that subtle situationalcues oriented perceivers to stereotype multiply-categorizable targets eitheron the basis of their gender or their ethnicity, but not both; Klauer,Ehrenberg, and Wegener (2003) provided converging evidence. Moreresearch is required to understand how stereotyping unfolds when perceiversare confronted with realistically multidimensional social targets.

Certain kinds of categorical conjunctions, or intersectional identities,may even render a person less likely to be noticed or considered at all.Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach (2008) argue that when individuals possesstwo or more subordinated social identities (e.g. gay African Americans),they are subject to ‘intersectional invisibility’, because they are not prototypicof either of their respective identity groups (i.e. the prototypical gayperson is not African American, and the prototypical African Americanis not gay). This perspective offers an interesting counterpoint to thenotion of double jeopardy, which asserts that each additional subordinatedidentity a person possesses is likely to magnify the disadvantage (s)heexperiences (e.g. Berdahl & Moore, 2006; Davis, 1981). Specifically,members of multiple subordinate groups may be susceptible to an arguably



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even more insidious form of discrimination – social invisibility. Thisinvisibility may possibly result in individuals experiencing less of thediscrimination and oppression targeted at their respective identity groups,given that non-prototypical members of stigmatized groups are less likelyto be targets of bias (e.g. Eberhardt et al., 2006; Maddox, 2004). However,invisibility subjects people to different forms of unfair treatment – ornon-treatment, as the case may be. Non-prototypical members of groupsare less likely to be noticed, to be heard, or to have influence over othermembers of their groups (e.g. Hogg, 2001). Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach(2008) review a variety of cultural, political, and legal disadvantages thatare likely to be associated with intersectional invisibility of this sort. Thus,it seems that the multiple-category problem can sometimes be moreproblematic for the target than for the perceiver.

Beyond constructing ad hoc, hybrid representations of targets for whomtwo (or more) categories are salient, perceivers also develop more enduringsubtypes. When a particular combination of social categories is encounteredwith sufficient regularity, perceivers can construct a representation of thisparticular conjunction of identities that comes to function much like one-dimensional categories do (Brewer, Dull, & Lui, 1981). That is, typicalfeatures become associated with the category conjunction, and thesestereotypic features may be activated automatically once a target is identifiedas a member of the subtype. It is clear that the content of such stereotypesis not necessarily simply inherited from the ‘parent’ categories (Kunda,Miller, & Claire, 1990); rather, emergent properties can come to characterizethe conjunction that would not be viewed as typical of either parentcategory. The fact that the content of subtypes can be so distinctly differentfrom that of the separate constituent identities raises the interestingpossibility that the latter categories may compete with the subtype as abasis for organizing social perception, resulting in their active inhibitionwhen the deviating subtype becomes dominant (see Macrae, Bodenhausen,Milne, & Castelli, 1999).

When perceivers encounter a social target who displays a substantialnumber of salient category cues, it is also possible that categorical processingof the target will be abandoned, so long as the identified categories donot converge in their implications (Hall & Crisp, 2005). This process isknown as decategorization (Crisp & Hewstone, 2007) or personalization(Brewer, 1988). Any attribute a person possesses is a potential basis forsocial categorization (e.g. introverts, opera fans, etc.; see Bodenhausenet al., 1999). However, when personalization occurs, the individual’scharacteristics operate as more circumscribed personal descriptors (ratherthan as global organizing frameworks) that serve to differentiate him orher from other individuals. In order to arrive at an evaluation of thepersonalized target, the implications of identified attributes must beintegrated in an impression-formation process that is often assumed to beeffortful and resource-consuming (e.g. Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; but see



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Kunda & Thagard, 1996). In this sense, social perceivers’ multiple-categoryproblem is transformed into a multiple-attribute problem (e.g. Edwards &Newman, 1982) when personalization occurs.

It is thus apparent that the complexity problem facing social perceiversin everyday life has produced multiple coping strategies, including (a)focusing attention on a dominant category and neglecting or inhibitingalternative categories; (b) constructing ad hoc, hybrid representations thatrely on more than one category to define another’s identity; (c) constructingstable subtype representations that capture the characteristics of frequentlyencountered category conjunctions; (d) ignoring or overlooking individualswho do not fit neatly into preconceived categories (i.e. intersectionalinvisibility); and (e) abandoning social categorization in favor of personalizedimpressions.

The Problem of Volatility

The inherent complexity of social targets sets the stage for the possibilityof dynamic cross-temporal and cross-situational variations in how a givenindividual is categorized, producing the volatility problem. As targetsmove into and out of social roles (e.g. Stryker & Serpe, 1982), pursuegoals and enact habits associated with particular environmental cues(Aarts, 2007), and generally respond to the affordances and constraintsimposed by the social situation (Reis, 2008), perceivers may categorizethem in different ways. The idea that social categorization is responsive tosituational contingencies is a central element of self-categorization theory(SCT; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994). According to SCT,situational features often provide strong cues to the relevance of particularsocial identities. One type of cue is normative fit, or the extent to whicha target’s behavior aligns with the norms and stereotypes associated witha particular category to which (s)he belongs (Oakes, 1987). In keepingwith this idea, Macrae et al. (1995) found that when a Chinese womanwas seen applying make-up, gender stereotypes were activated but ethnicstereotypes were inhibited, whereas when the same target was seen eatingrice with chopsticks, ethnic stereotypes were activated but gender stereotypeswere inhibited.

Comparative fit can also cue particular categorical identities, to theextent that these identities can account for patterns of similarities anddifferences observed in a given situation (e.g.,Wegener & Klauer, 2004).Identities can also ‘pop out’ simply by virtue of being statistically rare,either in general or in a given context, such as being the only woman ina room full of men (e.g. Biernat & Vescio, 1993). All of these findings suggestthat a crucially important property of social situations that influences howperceivers categorize others is the comparative context that is made salientin the situation, in addition to the baseline salience or accessibility of thecandidate categories (e.g. Rutland & Cinnirella, 2000).



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In the case of hierarchically nested social categories, context can signalwhich level of the hierarchy is most relevant to ongoing behavior. Forexample, Nicolas Sarkozy might alternately be categorized as Parisian,French, or European, depending on whether the context makes regional,national, or continental concerns salient. Shifts to more inclusive types ofcategorizations can have noteworthy effects on social evaluation, particularlywhen they result in the target being included in a category to which theperceiver also belongs. A German might evaluate Sarkozy more favorablywhen thinking of him as a European (a shared ingroup) rather than as aFrenchman (an outgroup), as emphasized in the common ingroup identitymodel (e.g. Dovidio, Gaertner, & Taguy, forthcoming). However, researchhas also shown that shifting comparative contexts can modify the characteristicsthat are seen as most prototypic or defining of shared superordinatecategories, in ways that overvalue the assumed characteristics of one’s ownsubordinate category (e.g. Waldzus, Mummendey, & Wenzel, 2005; Wenzel,Mummendey, Weber, & Waldzus, 2003). Thus, although the hypotheticalGerman may categorize Sarkozy as European when the context promotesthat level of abstraction, Sarkozy may nevertheless be seen as a less prototypicEuropean than, for example, Angela Merkel, and therefore still be subjectedto devaluation. In other words, the basic-level categories that are mostcommonly used in construing the social world – in particular the ones inwhich the perceiver holds membership – may continue to exert aninfluence on social perception, even when a shared superordinate categoryis activated by the comparative context.

Just as some contexts can push perceivers to categorize at a level super-ordinate to basic-level categories, other contexts can make subtypes salient.Wittenbrink, Judd, and Park (2001) showed that White participants’ automaticreactions to a Black target varied as a function of whether he was depictedon an urban street corner or inside a church, with more positive automaticreactions being evident in the latter context. When targets are seen inparticular social roles (churchgoer, prisoner, lawyer; see Barden, Maddux,Petty, & Brewer, 2004), it is likely that the basic-level categories will beabandoned in favor of more circumscribed subtypes that vary considerablyin their evaluative connotations (Devine & Baker, 1991). Findings such as theseemphasize the situational malleability of social categorization and documentthat even perceivers’ most automatic responses to the social world shiftaccording to context. Moreover, even when a given category remains constant,the stereotypes relevant to that category may shift when category membersare encountered in different contexts. Mendoza-Denton, Park, and O’Connor(2008) demonstrated that gender stereotypes are situationally moderated;specifically, they showed that men were expected to be more assertive thanwomen in work and sport situations, but women were expected to bemore assertive than men in ‘hearth and home’ situations. Thus, like thecategories with which they are associated, stereotypes are dynamic andcontext sensitive (Garcia-Marques, Santos, & Mackie, 2006).



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Different social environments can also change the priorities andmomentary biases of the social perceiver in ways that influence howothers are categorized. For instance, situational contexts can influence theepistemic motives of the perceiver and thereby influence the type ofcategorization process that unfolds. Situations that impose time constraintsincrease the need for closure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), making it lesslikely that multiple bases for categorization will be considered; under suchcircumstances, impressions may be particularly likely to focus on a singledominant category. Conversely, situations that increase motivation foraccuracy, such as when one’s outcomes depend on the veracity of one’sjudgments (Erber & Fiske, 1984) or when one will be held to account forone’s judgments (Tetlock, Skitka, & Boettger, 1989), may increase theextent to which perceivers attend to multiple possible bases for socialcategorization. For example, Pendry and Macrae (1996) showed that,whereas both accountable and unaccountable participants automaticallycategorized a visually presented target at the level of her gender, onlyaccountable participants also categorized her at the subtype level (i.e.businesswoman). Additionally, situationally salient motives can directperceivers toward particular kinds of social categorizations. When perceivers’self-esteem is momentarily threatened, it may motivate them to perceiveothers in terms of relatively devalued social categories, so that ensuingfeelings of superiority can assuage their bruised egos (e.g. Fein & Spencer,1997; Kunda & Spencer, 2003).

It is thus apparent that social categorization of any given target can bequite volatile and subject to rapid situational modulation. Situations candirectly influence social categorizations by (a) presenting a pattern ofbehavioral cues that can be easily accounted for by a particular category,as emphasized by self-categorization theory, (b) inviting comparisons thatprivilege a particular level of abstraction in the social categorization process,or (c) signaling the relevance of specific subtypes. Situations can alsoindirectly influence social categorization by activating particular goals andmotives within the perceiver that then bear on the process and outcomesof social categorization. In everyday life, social targets are moving targets.

The Problems of Uncertainty and Ambiguity

Uncertainty and ambiguity are closely related concepts. For our purposes, theprimary distinction concerns the availability versus the clarity of relevantinformation. Uncertainty exists when relevant information is unavailableand thus unknown, whereas ambiguity exists when relevant informationis available, but its meaning is unclear. Because there can be some blurringbetween these cases, we will consider both problems together.

Do people engage in social categorization on the basis of unavailableinformation? At first blush this seems rather unlikely, but in fact, theliterature suggests that there are indeed certain default categories that tend



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to be assumed in the absence of any clear data to the contrary. Silveira(1980) proposed that, by default, people = male, an assertion that hassubsequently been supported empirically (e.g. Hamilton, 1991; Merritt &Harrison, 2006). That is, when a person’s gender is not known, theindividual is assumed to be male. One argument about why this may bethe case is that in a traditionally sexist culture, the category ‘male’ isregarded as the central and important one; deviations from this valuedidentity are thus psychologically marked and will tend to be explicitlynoted. Unless membership in the relatively devalued category is explicitlynoted, then membership in the culturally dominant category is assumed.A similar argument could be made regarding ethnicity, and at least amongWhite people, there is indeed a tendency for a ‘people = White’ defaultassumption (Merritt & Harrison, 2006). Research looking at the amountof time taken to categorize multiply categorizable targets has also pointedtoward a ‘white male default’ representation of persons (e.g. Richeson &Trawalter, 2005; Zárate & Sandoval, 1995).

Pratto, Korchmaros, and Hegarty (2007) further postulated theexistence of more fine-tuned default assumptions based on stereotypicgender–occupation and race–occupation combinations. For example,professional basketball player = Black, while professional golf player = White.Pratto et al. showed that gender and race tend to be explicitly mentionedonly when people deviate from what is typical for their occupation. Otherkinds of categories also carry racial and gender connotations. For example,Wirth and Bodenhausen (forthcoming) showed that different types ofmental illnesses carry gender-based expectations that have a systematicinfluence on the stigmatizing reactions elicited by persons experiencingmental health problems (e.g. depression is associated with women, whilealcoholism is associated with men). In this sense, even when informationabout race or gender is not explicitly available, default assumptionsnevertheless can provide an unspoken background on which more focalqualities of the target are evaluated. It is thus apparent that many socialcategories have racial and gender elements folded into them, sometimes ina quite implicit way – and these elements carry status-related connotationsthat can be quite consequential.

Another context in which categorization can proceed in the absence ofexplicit information is the case of concealable identities. Sexual orientationprovides one example. Unless a person discloses his or her sexual orientationor engages in relevant public displays of affection, there is uncertainty aboutcategory membership. Undoubtedly, there is a ‘people = heterosexual’default assumption, but there is also an implicit lay ‘inversion theory’ ofhomosexuality that holds that gay men have feminine qualities andlesbians have masculine qualities (Kite & Deaux, 1987). As a consequence,feminine men may often be categorized as gay, and masculine womencategorized as lesbians, in the absence of any definitive information aboutthe target’s sexual orientation (e.g. Deaux & Lewis, 1984; McCreary, 1994).



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Such categorizations can happen rapidly and on the basis of very limitedsamples of behavior (Ambady, Hallahan, & Conner, 1999; Johnson, Gill,Reichman, & Tassinary, 2007). Moreover, these categorizations can havenoteworthy effects on subsequent information processing, regardless ofwhether they are accurate or erroneous (Rule, Ambady, Adams, & Macrae,2007). Collectively, this research suggests that social perceivers readilycategorize targets in ways that are not supported by definitive explicitevidence, suggesting that the problem of uncertainty is not particularlytroubling to perceivers in many circumstances.

The ambiguity problem arises when perceivers are uncertain which oftwo (or more) ostensibly mutually exclusive categories applies to a target.For example, we may occasionally encounter people who are sufficientlyandrogynous to make it difficult to ascertain their gender, and at least onestudy suggests that with brief exposure, androgynous individuals cansometimes be miscategorized on the basis of gender-atypical features(very long hair, for a man, or very short hair, for a woman; see Macrae& Martin, 2007).

In contrast to gender ambiguity, ethnic ambiguity may be a much morecommon phenomenon, and one for which more relevant research is avail-able. Ethnic ambiguity, in terms of visual appearance, can exist simplybecause of phenotypic variability within ethnic groups. In one of theearliest studies on the categorization of racially ambiguous faces, Pettigrew,Allport, and Barnett (1958) had South African subjects categorize facialpictures as European or African. Included in the stimulus set were raciallymixed faces, and the results showed that White participants were quiteunlikely to categorize these faces as Europeans, a finding consistent withthe ‘ingroup overexclusion effect’ (Leyens & Yzerbyt, 1992), the tendencyto be quite careful and conservative regarding who is admitted tomembership in one’s ingroup categories. More recent evidence also supportsthe operation of this phenomenon in the domain of racial categorizationand links it especially to individuals who have a strong allegiance to theingroup. For example, Blascovich, Wyer, Swart, and Kibler (1997) showedthat high-prejudice White participants took significantly longer to categorizeracially ambiguous faces, apparently out of a more acute concern to ‘getit right.’ Castano, Yzerbyt, Bourguignon, and Seron (2002) also showedthat highly identified northern Italians were generally more likely tocategorize ambiguous the faces as southern rather than northern Italians,compared to low identifiers. These studies collectively suggest that ethnicambiguity is typically resolved by placing targets into outgroups ratherthan ingroups.

Hugenberg and Bodenhausen (2004) reported studies showing that theambiguity and volatility problems can sometimes intersect. In theirresearch, White participants were asked to categorize racially ambiguousfaces as Black or White. The central hypothesis was that categorizationswould be influenced by momentary features of the faces that either did



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or did not align with stereotypic expectations for a given ethnic category.A social target’s affective state is one volatile situational factor that mayrelate to stereotypic expectations. Specifically, because cultural stereotypesportray African-American men as hostile, it was hypothesized that angryracially ambiguous faces would be more likely to be categorized as Black,whereas happy racially ambiguous faces would be more likely to becategorized as White. This pattern was in fact observed, but only forindividuals who were relatively high in implicit racial prejudice and thereforemore likely to hold a stereotypic view of African Americans. Hutchingsand Haddock (forthcoming) replicated these findings and further showedthat the angry expression evident on the face of a racially ambiguoustarget was judged to be more intense among participants who were highin implicit racial prejudice (see also Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003).

In the bulk of the research on ethnic ambiguity discussed above, faceswere intentionally created or selected by researchers to be ambiguous. Ineveryday life, individuals who happen to have ambiguous facial physiog-nomies have various options for altering their appearance to more closelyapproximate a particular racial or ethnic identity prototype. For example,hairstyles and clothing choices can increase an otherwise ambiguous target’sfit to an ethnic category prototype. MacLin and Malpass (2001) examinedcategorizations of faces that were ambiguous as to whether they wereAfrican American or Hispanic. By adding either a Black or Hispanic hairstyle to the same face, racial categorizations markedly diverged. Moreover,associated perceptual distortions were observed, such that the same facewas judged to be darker and to have a wider mouth when it was depictedwith an African American, rather than a Hispanic, hairstyle, a phenomenondubbed the ambiguous-race face illusion.

Of course, many individuals appear to be ambiguous with respect totraditional racial or ethnic groups because they are in fact multiracial. Assuch, the expectation that they can or should be categorized in terms ofhistorically distinct racial categories deserves to be examined. Whenperceivers are forced to choose, for example, either ‘Black’ or ‘White’ asthe suitable category for a particular ambiguous target, the choice may notnecessarily reflect how they would spontaneously categorize a potentiallymultiracial individual. It may be the case that perceivers attempt to pigeonholeambiguous targets into one conventional monoracial category or another,but it may also be the case that they view more than one category is beingapplicable to the target (e.g. both Black and White), or they may categorizethe individual in terms of a more novel category conjunction that has its owncharacteristics and is not merely the conjunction of the two monoracial‘parent’ categories.

Peery and Bodenhausen (2008) investigated this very question by havingparticipants categorize racially ambiguous targets who had been identifiedas biracial via pictures of a Black/White interracial couple representingthe parents of the target. By using a speeded dual-categorization task,



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which required Black/not Black and White/not White judgments for thesame targets, Peery and Bodenhausen were able to more definitivelydetermine whether participants tended to apply monoracial or multiplecategories. In the dual-categorization task, there are four possiblecategorization patterns: Black (and not White), White (and not Black),both Black and White (reflecting the conjunction of the parent categories),or neither Black nor White (reflecting a special subtype). The ingroupoverexclusion effect described above suggests that White participantswould tend to select ‘not White’ responses for biracial targets, but it doesnot provide a firm basis for deciding whether they will select the ‘Black’or ‘not Black’ category for these targets. Historically in the United States,racially mixed persons were defined as belonging to the racial group oftheir ‘socially subordinate’ (i.e. minority) parent. This rule, termed theprinciple of hypodescent, characterized legal as well as lay definitions ofracial group membership in earlier times. If this rule still influences racialcategorizations, it would lead to the prediction that many perceivers willcategorize biracial targets as Black (and not White). Indeed, in a speededcategorization task, the racially ambiguous faces were significantly morelikely to be categorized as monoracially Black when the target was explicitlyknown to be biracial, compared to when the ancestry of the same personwas unspecified. These results suggest that cultural traditions specifyingthe rules of category membership provide another basis for resolvingambiguity concerning a target’s social identity. An important direction forfuture research will be to examine how stereotyping unfolds in the caseof biracial targets. Even though they may commonly be categorized asBlack, they may nevertheless be seen as relatively non-prototypic of thatcategory and thus be less prone to stereotyping and discrimination on thebasis of race (e.g., Maddux, 2004).

Thus, categorization of social targets can be complicated by missing orambiguous information pertaining to commonly referenced social identitiessuch as race and gender. This uncertainty or ambiguity may be resolvedby (a) relying on default category assumptions (e.g., people = White) ortheories about cues to category membership (e.g., feminine man = gayman), (b) avoiding inclusion of ambiguous persons in one’s ingroup (i.e.,ingroup overexclusion), unless it is somehow beneficial to do so, or (c)looking for alignment with existing stereotypes that might suggest aparticular category membership. Coping with uncertainty or ambiguity maynot always require adherence to strict categories though, as an increasinglycomplex and heterogeneous world may lead to the formation of newcategories (e.g., categorizing multiracial people as such rather than relyingon existing monoracial categories).

Conclusion

‘Remember this: VUCA is where history happens’

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This quote, attributed to Col. Will Gunn in Brenner (2007), drives homethe point that in the real world, choices have to be made under informa-tionally complicated conditions that are characterized by volatility, uncertainty,complexity, and ambiguity. We have argued that we commonly face thesesame challenges as we attempt to navigate the everyday social world;in other words, VUCA is also where social perception happens. Socialcategorization has long been viewed as a key cognitive strategy for organizingsocial perception in a manner that confers both efficiency (e.g. Macrae,Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994) and coherent meaningfulness (e.g. Oakes,1996). We have argued that in much of the past research on the role ofsocial categories in cognition and behavior, experimental procedures havegreatly constrained the process of categorization by limiting the categorycues that are available or constructing experimental situations so that theyrender one particular basis for categorization highly salient. Such anapproach is certainly illuminating, and it will no doubt continue to be used.Yet, perceivers routinely encounter others who are richly multifaceted,dynamically changing, and at least partially ambiguous or unknown. Howsocial categorization unfolds in such circumstances has increasingly becomethe focus of social psychological investigation, and we have attempted tohighlight a number of conceptual and empirical perspectives emergingfrom this work.

Upon reflection, it is apparent that the different elements of the VUCAchallenge are often interlocking in nature. Situational volatility directlybears on how complex, multifaceted targets are categorized, and it modulatesthe availability of information about a target, thus creating differing degreesof uncertainty and ambiguity. To explore these interconnected aspects ofsocial perception, it is essential to examine categorization and stereotypingin response to multidimensional targets who are encountered in differentkinds of contexts, and this is exactly the kind of research that is becomingmore common in the recent literature. One theme emerging from thework we have reviewed is that social categorization processes are quiterobust to the potential perturbations posed by the VUCA challenge.Perceivers seem to manage to find effective, if not entirely unbiased, waysof coping with complicated, incomplete, ambiguous, and changing identitycues. This, of course, makes a good deal of sense, as categorization wouldhave little value to the social perceiver if it were easily defeated by thecomplexities of the actual contexts in which social perception typicallyoccurs. Still, much remains to be learned about how categories andstereotypes shape our reactions to the fascinatingly complicated and potentiallyenigmatic people we deal with on a daily basis.

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Jennifer Richeson for helpful comments on a draft ofthis article.



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Short Biography

Galen Bodenhausen is the Lawyer Taylor Professor of Psychology andMarketing at Northwestern University, where he also serves as co-directorof the Center on the Science of Diversity. He earned his PhD in socialpsychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hisresearch addresses the cognitive functions of social attitudes and stereo-types, particularly their roles in influencing attention, perception, memory,judgment, and behavior. A frequent focus of his recent research is on therelatively automatic and implicit aspects of prejudice and stereotyping.Bodenhausen is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, theAmerican Psychological Association, the Society for Personality andSocial Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of SocialIssues. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of Personality and SocialPsychology Review.

Destiny Peery is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology atNorthwestern University. Her research interests include the perceptionand categorization of ambiguous targets (e.g., racially ambiguous ormultiracial people), as well as other issues of social cognition and stereotyping/prejudice more broadly. Destiny received her BA in psychology from theUniversity of Minnesota.

Endnote

* Correspondence address: Galen V. Bodenhausen, Department of Psychology, NorthwesternUniversity, 2029 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208-2710, USA. Email: [email protected]

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