Society is a composite of interacting people and groups. These groups play a significant role in maintaining social status, establishing group identity and social identity, and enforcing norms. As such, groups are essential for understanding human behavior. Nevertheless, the study of groups in everyday group life yields many diverse and sometimes contradicting theories of group behavior, and researchers tend to agree that we have yet to understand the emergence of groups out of aggregates of individuals. The current (...) paper aims to shed new light on the convoluted interrelation between groups and individuals by focusing on individuals’ social identities and group categorization. It does so by exploring the dynamic nature of the self and its implications on identity and group membership, and introducing a framework recognizing the fluidity of groups and group categorization. Incorporating historical insights with contemporary theories, this paper argues for a flexible understanding of group dynamics that surpasses rigid in-group and out-group classifications, proposing instead that group affiliations exist along a continuum that reflects the ever-changing social landscape. (shrink)

Taking a detour to reach a goal is intelligent behavior based on making inferences. The main purpose of the present research is to show how such apparently complex behavior can emerge from basic mechanisms such as contextual categorisation and goal attribution when perceiving people. We presentacacia (Action by Contextually Automated Categorising Interactive Agents), a computer model implemented using StarLogo software, grounded in the principles of Artificial Life (Al), capable of simulating the behavior of a group of agents with a (...) goal (for instance, to find a treasure in a treasure hunt ) in an environment where obstacles mask the goal site. The results of the simulations show that agents reach the goal the fastest when they follow each other and take detours. We argue that these results indicate that intelligent adaptive behavior is based on the contextual categorisation of environmental constrainst (that is, obstacles and other agents). (shrink)

This article demonstrates that Alfred Schutz’s theory of _typification_ and _relevance_ together have a great potential to conceptually clarify certain aspects of self-categorisation theory. More specifically, it focuses on the motivational bases of stereotyping, one of the core mechanisms underlying the categorisation of people into groups. Social psychologists have found that stereotyping of out-group members is motivated by factors, such as uncertainty reduction, or the enhancement of the self-esteem of in-group members. What categories and corresponding stereotypes are being (...) activated and applied is ultimately a function of the goals and pragmatic interests of the perceiver in any given situation. The article argues that this phenomenon can be explained, and accounted for, by Schutz’s tripartite system of relevances. To illustrate the theoretical issues at hand, the last section draws on the case of migrants arriving in Hungary and provides a potential explanation for why the ideal type of the _Gypsy_ was triggered and facilitated the way in which migrants have been attended and understood. (shrink)

This paper investigates the semantic bases of class membership in the noun class system of Gújjolaay Eegimaa (Eegimaa henceforth), a Niger-Congo and Atlantic language of the BAK group spoken in Southern Senegal. The question of whether semantic principles underlie the overt classification of nouns in Niger-Congo languages is a controversial one. There is a common perception of Niger-Congo noun class systems as being mainly semantically arbitrary. The goal of the present paper is to show that physical properties and culture-specific (...) factors are central principles of semantic categorisation in the Eegimaa noun class system. I argue that the Eegimaa overt grammatical classification of nouns into classes is a semantic categorisation system whereby categories are structured according to prototypicality, family resemblance, metaphorical and metonymic extensions and chaining processes, as argued within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. I show that the categorisation of entities in the Eegimaa nominal classification system productively makes use of physical properties such as shape as well as using culture-specific, less productive parameters for the semantic categorisation of entities denoted by nouns. The analysis proposed here also shows that the cases of multiple morphosyntactic classifications of nouns reflect multiple conceptual categorisation strategies. A detailed examination of the formal and semantic instances of multiple classification reveals the existence of conceptual correlations between the physical properties and the culture-specific semantic parameters of categorisation used in the Eegimaa noun class system. (shrink)

Though individual categorization or decision processes have been studied separately in many previous investigations, few studies have investigated how they interact by using a two-stage task of first categorizing and then deciding. To address this issue, we investigated a categorization-decision task in two experiments. In both, participants were shown six faces varying in width, first asked to categorize the faces, and then decide a course of action for each face. Each experiment was designed to include three groups, and (...) for each group, we manipulated the probabilistic contingencies between stimulus, category assignments, and decision consequences. For each group, each participant received three different sequences of category response, category feedback, decision response, and decision feedback. We found that participants were only partially responsive in the appropriate directions to the contingencies assigned to each group. Comparisons of results from different sequences provided evidence for empirical interference effects of categorization on decisions. The empirical interference effect is defined as the difference between the probability of taking a hostile action in decision-alone conditions and the total probability of taking a hostile action in categorization-decision conditions. To test competing accounts for multiple empirical results, including two-stage choice probabilities and empirical interference effects, we compared a quantum cognition model versus a two-stage exemplar categorization model at both aggregate and individual levels. Using a Bayesian information criterion, we found that the quantum model provided an overall better model fit than the exemplar model. Although both models predicted empirical interference effects, the exemplar model was able to generate probabilistic deviation by incorporating category information of the first stage into the feature representation of the subsequent decision stage, while the quantum model produced interference effect by superposition, measurement, and quantum entanglement. (shrink)

Meta-analytic results show that board gender diversity is modestly associated with firm performance, but there is notable heterogeneity among findings. Board gender diversity allows access to women’s perspectives, potentially helping boards, but diversity can also trigger biases that exclude women directors, such that boards do not integrate meaningful perspectives. Addressing this problem, we leverage the categorization-elaboration model, contact theory, and critical mass theory to build new theory as to how men directors can serve as allies to women directors to (...) better leverage diverse perspectives. We empirically test how considerations that reduce out-group categorization and bias against women moderate the board gender diversity-firm performance relationship. Our results show that gender diverse boards perform better with more formal contact among men and women director colleagues, and that gender diverse boards with more men directors who only have prior experience working with token-women, perform worse. Our work helps explain how and why board gender diversity can improve or detract from firm performance. This extends the literature by illustrating the important consequences that occur when firms do (or do not) have men directors who are likely to be allies of gender diversity. (shrink)

Categorization and decision making are combined in a task with photorealistic faces. Two different types of face stimuli were assigned probabilistically into one of two fictitious groups; based on the category, faces were further probabilistically assigned to be hostile or friendly. In Part I, participants are asked to categorize a face into one of two categories, and to make a decision concerning interaction. A Markov model of categorization followed by decision making provides reasonable fits to Part I data. (...) A Markov model predicting decision making followed by categorization is rejected. In Part II, a no-parameter model predicts decisions using categorization and decision responses collected in separate trials, suggesting that Part 1 results are not an artifact of the presentation of categorization and decision questions within a single trial. Decisions concerning interaction appear to be based on information from the category decision, and not from the face stimuli alone. (shrink)

In this paper, we demonstrate how the collaborative and sequential unfolding of a story ties into the constitution of a membership categorization device which we have glossed as ‘us and them’. The data come from a focus group activity where first and second generation immigrants to Denmark have been asked to discuss their situation in Denmark. Using Ethnomethodological Conversation and Membership Categorization Analysis, we present one story which involves a story-teller and his family and an elderly Danish (...) couple living in the same block of flats. In the telling of the story, co-participants align and affiliate, and disalign and disaffiliate, at sequentially relevant junctions. We will argue that not only do such phenomena indicate listenership and possible agreement to the moral of the story in its telling, but also to the morally implicative categorical work involved in the story’s telling. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the impact of causal relations between features on categorization in 5- to 6-year-old children and adults. Participants learned artificial categories containing instances with causally related features and noncausal features. They then selected the most likely category member from a series of novel test pairs. Classification patterns and logistic regression were used to diagnose the presence of independent effects of causal coherence, causal status, and relational centrality. Adult classification was driven primarily by coherence when causal links were (...) deterministic (Experiment 1) but showed additional influences of causal status when links were probabilistic (Experiment 2). Children’s classification was based primarily on causal coherence in both cases. There was no effect of relational centrality in either age group. These results suggest that the generative model (Rehder, 2003a) provides a good account of causal categorization in children as well as adults. (shrink)

The debates about ethics in the context of artificial intelligence have been recently focusing primarily on various types of utilitarianisms. This article suggests a categorization of the various presented utilitarianisms into static utilitarianisms and dynamic utilitarianisms. It explains the main features of both. Then, it presents the challenges the utilitarianisms in each group need to be able to deal with. Since it appears that those cannot be overcome in the context of each group alone, the article suggests (...) a possibility of using a combination of the two categories of utilitarianisms to resolve most of the challenges without the need to abandon the concept of utilitarianisms as such. Even this possibility comes with its own issues that might not be resolved within the boundaries of utilitarianisms, however. Therefore, another potential alternative based on a combination of various ethical systems is suggested and briefly explored. (shrink)

In view of recent studies that identified certain interest groups as potential whistleblowers, we propose an integrative conceptual framework to examine whistleblower behavior by whistleblower type. The framework, dubbed the whistleblowing triangle, is modeled on the fraud triangle and is comprised of three factors that condition the act of whistleblowing: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. For a rich examination, we use a qualitative research framework to analyze 11 whistleblowing cases of corporate financial statement fraud in Canada that were publicly denounced between (...) 1995 and 2012. Our analysis indicates that whistleblowers are not only insiders but also outsiders [financial analysts, auditing firms, journalists, politicians, customers, and investors]. It also suggests that a dynamic relation may exist between whistleblowers. In addition, our findings show that most whistleblowers opt for external channels when they fail to receive an adequate response from management, seek media exposure, are interested in financial benefits resulting from the act of whistleblowing, or are interested in protecting their investment. Lastly, we propose categorizing whistleblowers into four conceptual types: protective, skeptical, role-prescribed, and self-interested. (shrink)

When reusing existing ontologies for publishing a dataset in RDF (or developing a new ontology), preference may be given to those providing extensive subcategorization for important classes (denoted as focus classes). The subcategories may consist not only of named classes but also of compound class expressions. We define the notion of focused categorization power of a given ontology, with respect to a focus class and a concept expression language, as the (estimated) weighted count of the categories that can be (...) built from the ontology’s signature, conform to the language, and are subsumed by the focus class. For the sake of tractable initial experiments we then formulate a restricted concept expression language based on existential restrictions, and heuristically map it to syntactic patterns over ontology axioms (so-called FCE patterns). The characteristics of the chosen concept expression language and associated FCE patterns are investigated using three different empirical sources derived from ontology collections: first, the concept expression pattern frequency in class definitions; second, the occurrence of FCE patterns in the Tbox of ontologies; and last, for class expressions generated from the Tbox of ontologies (through the FCE patterns); their ‘meaningfulness’ was assessed by different groups of users, yielding a ‘quality ordering’ of the concept expression patterns. The complementary analyses are then compared and summarized. To allow for further experimentation, a web-based prototype was also implemented, which covers the whole process of ontology reuse from keyword-based ontology search through the FCP computation to the selection of ontologies and their enrichment with new concepts built from compound expressions. (shrink)

Categorization and decision making are combined in a task with photorealistic faces. Two different types of face stimuli were assigned probabilistically into one of two fictitious groups; based on the category, faces were further probabilistically assigned to be hostile or friendly. In Part I, participants are asked to categorize a face into one of two categories, and to make a decision concerning interaction. A Markov model of categorization followed by decision making provides reasonable fits to Part I data. (...) A Markov model predicting decision making followed by categorization is rejected. In Part II, a no-parameter model predicts decisions using categorization and decision responses collected in separate trials, suggesting that Part 1 results are not an artifact of the presentation of categorization and decision questions within a single trial. Decisions concerning interaction (defensive/friendly) appear to be based on information from the category decision, and not from the face stimuli alone. (shrink)

This study examines the relation of language use to a person’s ability to perform categorization tasks and to assess their own abilities in those categorization tasks. A silent rhyming task was used to confirm that a group of people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA) had corresponding covert language production (or “inner speech”) impairments. The performance of the PWA was then compared to that of age- and education-matched healthy controls on three kinds of categorization tasks and on metacognitive (...) self-assessments of their performance on those tasks. The PWA showed no deficits in their ability to categorize objects for any of the three trial types (visual, thematic, and categorial). However, on the categorial trials, their metacognitive assessments of whether they had categorized correctly were less reliable than those of the control group. The categorial trials were distinguished from the others by the fact that the categorization could not be based on some immediately perceptible feature or on the objects’ being found together in a type of scenario or setting. This result offers preliminary evidence for a link between covert language use and a specific form of metacognition. (shrink)

Language has been shown to influence the ability to form categories. Nevertheless, in most prior work, the effects of language could have been bolstered by the fact that linguistic labels were introduced by the experimenter prior to the categorization task in ways that could have highlighted their relevance for the task. Here, we compared the potency of labels to that of other non‐linguistic cues on how people categorized novel, perceptually ambiguous natural kinds (e.g., flowers or birds). Importantly, we varied (...) whether these cues were explicitly presented as relevant to the categorization task. In Experiment 1, we compared labels, numbers, and symbols: One group of participants was told to pay attention to these cues because they would be helpful (Relevant condition), a second group was told that the cues were irrelevant and should be ignored (Irrelevant condition), and a third group was told nothing about the cues (Neutral condition). Even though task relevance affected overall reliance on cues during categorization, participants were more likely to use labels to determine category boundaries, compared to numbers or symbols. In Experiments 2 and 3, we replicated and fine‐tuned the advantage of labels in more stringent categorization tasks. These results offer novel evidence for the position that labels offer unique indications of category membership, compared to non‐linguistic cues. (shrink)

I examine the origins of ordinary racial thinking. In doing so, I argue against the thesis that it is the byproduct of a unique module. Instead, I defend a pluralistic thesis according to which different forms of racial thinking are driven by distinct mechanisms, each with their own etiology. I begin with the belief that visible features are diagnostic of race. I argue that the mechanisms responsible for face recognition have an important, albeit delimited, role to play in sustaining this (...) belief. I then argue that essentialist beliefs about race are driven by some of the mechanisms responsible for “entitativity perception”: the tendency to perceive some aggregates of people as more genuine groups than others. Finally, I argue that coalitional thinking about race is driven by a distinctive form of entitativity perception. However, I suggest that more data is needed to determine the prevalence of this form of racial thinking. (shrink)

Subfocal Color Categorization and Naming: The Role of Exposure to Language and Professional Experience The current state of the debate on the linguistic factors in color perception and categorization is reviewed. Developmental and learning studies were hitherto almost ignored in this debate. A simple experiment is reported in which 20 Academy of Fine Arts, Faculty of Painting students' performance in color discrimination and naming tasks was compared to the performance of 20 Technical University students. Subfocal colors were used. (...) While there was no difference in overall discrimination ability, AFA students had a much richer and specialized color vocabulary. Both groups also applied different strategies of discrimination and naming. However, naming system in neither group was coherent. This suggests that naming played primarily the role of markers for control processes rather than names for categories. It is concluded that up-to-date debate is too simplified and a complex model of interrelations between perceptual categorization and naming framed in the developmental context is needed rather than the search for a simple answer "language", "environment", or "perceptual universals". (shrink)

Many psychological studies of categorization and reasoning use undergraduates to make claims about human conceptualization. Generalizability of findings to other populations is often assumed but rarely tested. Even when comparative studies are conducted, it may be challenging to interpret differences. As a partial remedy, in the present studies we adopt a 'triangulation strategy' to evaluate the ways expertise and culturally different belief systems can lead to different ways of conceptualizing the biological world. We use three groups (US bird experts, (...) US undergraduates, and ordinary Itza' Maya) and two sets of birds (North American and Central American). Categorization tasks show considerable similarity among the three groups' taxonomic sorts, but also systematic differences. Notably, US expert categorization is more similar to Itza' than to US novice categorization. The differences are magnified on inductive reasoning tasks where only undergraduates show patterns of judgment that are largely consistent with current models of category-based taxonomic inference. The Maya commonly employ causal and ecological reasoning rather than taxonomic reasoning. Experts use a mixture of strategies (including causal and ecological reasoning), only some of which current models explain. US and Itza' informants differed markedly when reasoning about passerines (songbirds), reflecting the somewhat different role that songbirds play in the two cultures. The results call into question the importance of similarity-based notions of typicality and central tendency in natural categorization and reasoning. These findings also show that relative expertise leads to a convergence of thought that transcends cultural boundaries and shared experiences. (shrink)

Many existing defenses of group rights seem to rely on the notion of group freedom. To date, however, no adequate analysis of this notion has been offered. Group freedom is best understood in terms of processes of social categorization that are embedded in social mechanisms. Such processes often give rise to group-specific constraints and enablements. On the proposed social mechanism account, group rights are demands for group freedom. Even so, group rights often (...) serve to eradicate individual unfreedom. Furthermore, generic measures sometimes provide the most appropriate solution to a problem of group unfreedom. (shrink)

Generally, online support groups are viewed as low-threshold services. We challenge this assumption with an investigation, based on Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, of contributions to an online support group on eating disorders. In this analysis we show how a new member interacts with existing members in order to display legitimacy for membership of the group. The group operates as a Community of Practice, since membership is organized as joined participation in a writing practice. It (...) becomes clear that becoming a member involves subscribing to normative requirements, centrally, displaying the insight that you are ill. In the case we focus on, this involves the requirement to leave pro-anorexia as a membership category behind. The novice does not yet seem ready to subscribe to this norm and thus the threshold for seeking support is heightened. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that social categorization can induce an own-group face recognition bias. However, similar and better other-group face recognition emerged recently. In this research, we aimed to examine whether competitive cues and group status accompanied by social categorization can modulate the inter-group face recognition bias. Moreover, we investigated how the group identification of individuals with different statuses affected the inter-group face recognition bias. The results indicated that an own-group face (...) recognition bias emerged for targets with in-group labels compared to out-group labels. Moreover, when the group labels signaled competitive cues, the own-group face recognition bias was reversed. Furthermore, low-status and similar-status individuals exhibited out-group face recognition bias, but high-status individuals did not. In addition, the higher the in-group identification scores of participants from the low-status group, the stronger the out-group face recognition bias. These results suggested that competitive cues would reverse the own-group face recognition bias and the group status would play a modulating role in face recognition bias. (shrink)

Capacities for abstract thinking and problem‐solving are central to human cognition. Processes of abstraction allow the transfer of experiences and knowledge between contexts helping us make informed decisions in new or changing contexts. While we are often inclined to relate such reasoning capacities to individual minds and brains, they may in fact be contingent on human‐specific modes of collaboration, dialogue, and shared attention. In an experimental study, we test the hypothesis that social interaction enhances cognitive processes of rule‐induction, which in (...) turn improves problem‐solving performance. Through three sessions of increasing complexity, individuals and groups were presented with a problem‐solving task requiring them to categorize a set of visual stimuli. To assess the character of participants’ problem representations, after each training session, they were presented with a transfer task involving stimuli that differed in appearance, but shared relations among features with the training set. Besides, we compared participants’ categorization behaviors to simulated agents relying on exemplar learning. We found that groups performed superior to individuals and agents in the training sessions and were more likely to correctly generalize their observations in the transfer phase, especially in the high complexity session, suggesting that groups more effectively induced underlying categorization rules from the stimuli than individuals and agents. Crucially, variation in performance among groups was predicted by semantic diversity in members’ dialogical contributions, suggesting a link between social interaction, cognitive diversity, and abstraction. (shrink)

One way to theorize about we-identities—the identities that individual subjects have as ‘one of us’—is in terms of the uniformity, interchangeability, and prototypicality of group members. The social-psychological theory of self-categorization epitomizes this approach, which has strongly influenced contemporary phenomenological research on the we. This paper argues that this approach has one important and largely overlooked limitation: the we-identities tied to close personal relationships—exemplified by long-term friendships and romantic partnerships—are based on patterns of interpersonal interaction and integration through (...) which individuals tend to grasp their non-substitutability and complementarity. This limitation suggests that another approach is needed to tackle the we-identities characteristic of close personal relationships. I outline such an approach, by combining resources from classical phenomenology and ongoing research on the socially extended mind. (shrink)

This study investigated the relative contribution of perception/cognition and language-specific semantics in nonverbal categorization of spatial relations. English and Korean speakers completed a video-based similarity judgment task involving containment, support, tight fit, and loose fit. Both perception/cognition and language served as resources for categorization, and allocation between the two depended on the target relation and the features contrasted in the choices. Whereas perceptual/cognitive salience for containment and tight-fit features guided categorization in many contexts, language-specific semantics influenced (...) class='Hi'>categorization where the two features competed for similarity judgment and when the target relation was tight support, a domain where spatial relations are perceptually diverse. In the latter contexts, each group categorized more in line with semantics of their language, that is, containment/support for English and tight/loose fit for Korean. We conclude that language guides spatial categorization when perception/cognition alone is not sufficient. In this way, language is an integral part of our cognitive domain of space. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to categorize the available fly ashes in different parts of the world into distinct groups based on its compositional attributes. Kohonen's self-organizing feature map and radial basis function networks are applied in a cascading fashion for the classification of fly ashes in terms of its chemical parameters. The basic procedure of the methodology consists of three stages: apply self-organizing neural net to ascertain possible number of groups, delineate them and identify the group sensitive (...) attributes; find mean values of sensitive attributes of the elicited groups and augment them as start-up prototypes in k-means algorithm and find the refined centroids of these groups; incorporate the centroids in a two layer radial basis function network and fine-tune the delineated groups and develop an indexing equation using the weights of the stabilized network. Further, to demonstrate the utility of this classification scheme, the so formed groups were correlated with their performance in High Volume Fly Ash Concrete System [HVFAC]. The categorization was found to be excellent and compares well with Canadian Standard Association's [CSA A 3000] classification scheme. (shrink)

The article considers conceptual ideas of color categorization as a cultural practice. Color categorization is the process of dividing the color continuum into discrete color groups (color categories) and fixing them in the human mind through the cutural sign system. In modern color studies, this process is viewed from the ecocentric perspective. According to ecocentrism, humans and other living being are equal parts of nature, and they should coexist in harmony and peace. In this regard, it becomes important (...) to search for ecological motivation not only in the human body, but also in human activity, especially in cultural practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze conceptual ideas of color categorization from the ecocentric perspective. The systematization of the indicated conceptual ideas allowed us to identify three key directions based on ecological motivation: (1) nature-centered, (2) body-oriented and (3) socio-cultural. The mentioned directions are formed on the basis of such concepts as "environment", "corporeality" and "sociality", respectively. Acting as the main factors that determine the content and structure of color categories, environment, human body and culture form the main vector of color categorization. The environment comprises a set of objects with chromatic characteristics. They are the material for color categorization, and their configuration sets examples of color combinations. The physiological and biological features of the human body determine the process of color perception and its cognitive processing resulting into color categories. As the color categories become a part of human activity, their cultural semantics is created in the form of cultural meanings and connotations. (shrink)

We address the problem of predicting how people will spontaneously divide into groups a set of novel items. This is a process akin to perceptual organization. We therefore employ the simplicity principle from perceptual organization to propose a simplicity model of unconstrained spontaneous grouping. The simplicity model predicts that people would prefer the categories for a set of novel items that provide the simplest encoding of these items. Classification predictions are derived from the model without information either about the number (...) of categories sought or information about the distributional properties of the objects to be classified. These features of the simplicity model distinguish it from other models in unsupervised categorization (where, for example, the number of categories sought is determined via a free parameter), and we discuss how these computational differences are related to differences in modeling objectives. The predictions of the simplicity model are validated in four experiments. We also discuss the significance of simplicity in cognitive modeling more generally. (shrink)

We investigated the understanding of causal systems categories—categories defined by common causal structure rather than by common domain content—among college students. We asked students who were either novices or experts in the physical sciences to sort descriptions of real-world phenomena that varied in their causal structure (e.g., negative feedback vs. causal chain) and in their content domain (e.g., economics vs. biology). Our hypothesis was that there would be a shift from domain-based sorting to causal sorting with increasing expertise in the (...) relevant domains. This prediction was borne out: The novice groups sorted primarily by domain and the expert group sorted by causal category. These results suggest that science training facilitates insight about causal structures. (shrink)

The commentary is in general agreement with Roger Shepard's view of evolutionary internalization of certain procedural memories, but advocates the use of Lie groups to express the invariances of motion and color perception involved. For categorization, the dialectical pair is suggested. [Barlow; Hecht; Kubovy & Epstein; Schwartz; Shepard; Todorovic].

The aim of this article is to present a conceptualization of cultural groups and cultural difference that provides a middle course between the Scylla of essentialism and the Charybdis of reductionism. The method I employ is the social mechanism approach. I argue that cultural groups and cultural difference should be understood as the result of cognitive and social processes of categorization. I describe two such processes in particular: categorization by others and self- categorization. Categorization by others (...) is caused by processes of ascription: the attribution by outsiders of certain characteristics, beliefs, and practices to indi- viduals who share a specific attribute. Self-categorization is caused by processes of inscription and community-building: the adoption of certain beliefs and practices as a result of socialization and enculturation. I therefore shift the focus from groups to categories, and from categories to processes of categorization. I show that this analytical distinction between categorization by others and self-categorization can clarify an ambiguity in dominant debates in contemporary multiculturalism. I conclude by indicating how injustices, commonly associated with multiculturalism, can better be understood as socially generated injustices, and how government should deal with these injustices. (shrink)

I argue that different argumentative practices require participants to categorize themselves in different modes. Accordingly, I distinguish four types of argumentation: rational argumentation, intergroup argumentation, intragroup argumentation, and, finally, personal argumentation. An inescapable implication of my approach to deliberation is that deliberation presupposes the self-categorization of participants in the same ingroup. Deliberation does not require, however, the group to antecede the deliberation process, and a distinctive feature of successful public deliberation is its capacity to produce social identification with (...) the deliberative group. Thus, identity negotiation is an important part of deliberative processes. (shrink)

In this paper we present the results of two experiments. The first is on the categorization of texture words in the English language. The goal was to determine whether there is a common basis for subjects' groupings of words related to visual texture, and if so, to identify the underlying dimensions used to categorize those words.Eleven major clusters were identified through hierarchical cluster analysis, ranging from “random” to “repetitive”. These clusters remained intact in a multidimensional scaling solution. The stress (...) for a three‐dimensional solution obtained through multidimensional scaling was 0.18, meaning that 82% of the variance in the data is explained through the use of three dimensions. It appears that the major dimensions of texture descriptors are repetitive versus nonrepetitive; linearly oriented versus circularly oriented; and simple versus complex.In the second experiment we measured the strength of association between texture words and texture images. The goal was to determine whether there is any systematic correspondence between the domains of texture words and texture images. Pearson's coefficient of contingency, a measure of the strength of association, was found to be 0.63 for words corresponding to given images and 0.56 for images corresponding to given words. Thus the texture categories in the verbal space and those in the visual space are strongly tied.In sum, our two experiments show (a) that despite the tremendous variety in the words we have to describe textures, there is an underlying structure to the lexical space which can be derived from the experimental data; and (b) that the association between a category of words and a category of images was strongest when both categories represent the same underlying property. This suggests that subjects' organizations of texture terms are systematically tied to their organization of texture images. (shrink)

This paper complicates, extends, and modifies Pinch and Bijker's original social construction of technology, specifically their concepts of relevant social groups, closure, and stabilization, in order to gain insight into long-term processes of how we use and understand technology. First, this paper identifies four broad categories of relevant social groups in the social construction of technology based on stake holdings and compares them according to their activities, resources, and directionality. Second, the paper discusses the distinctions between closure and stabilization of (...) technological artifacts, introducing temporary closure and structural flexibility as a means of understanding how different technologies can relate to each other. Third, using Rosch's cognitive approach to categorization, the paper suggests structural flexibility as a means of operationalizing stabilization. These reconceptualizations offer researchers a broader scale with which to understand the social construction of technology. (shrink)

During the course of this article we examine data gathered from two research meetings in which coding issues and data organization are being discussed in relation to the use of the software package Atlas.ti. The meetings were concerned with the organization and coding of semi-structured interviews carried out by three different groups as part of a wider collaborative research project. A number of papers have considered aspects of coding practice in teams or small groups; however, little work exists on the (...) analysis of first order collaborative CAQDAS coding interaction. In doing so, this article re-specifies formal coding and collaboration models through the examination of practical methods of situated interaction and data sense-making in the course of producing social scientific facts and explanation. In this sense, the analysis reveals the way in which the professional argot of social science codes can be understood to rely on everyday methods of sense-making within team based contexts. These methods can be understood to be realized through the fine-detailed ‘granular’ categorical and sequential specifics of talk-in-meetings where matters relating to social scientific reasoning, accountability, stakeholders’ interests, defeasible and defensible reasoning protocols, disciplinary rights and the ‘search for underlying patterns’ are salient features and recognizable and accountable concerns for team members as a routine aspect of doing qualitative social science. (shrink)

Focusing on one of the most studied dimensions of Social Psychology, i.e., intergroup relations, this study analyzes its discursive accomplishment in a specific group-based intervention, i.e., the talk and work of an Italian group home, i.e., a small alternative care facility hosting a group of out-of-home children. Particularly, we focused on the fictionally called “Nuns’ Home,” a group home previously investigated for its ethnocentric bias, and its intergroup relations with “inside” and “outside” groups, such as schools, (...) biological families, and social services. By combining a qualitative and quantitative approach in analyzing one audio-recorded ethnographic interview with the whole team of professionals, we aimed at accounting for the multitude of internal and external stakeholders that participants refer to, analyzing the discursive accomplishment of ingroup and outgroup in talk-in-interaction and investigating ingroup bias and group qualification. To do so, we detected social categorization markers and qualifying devices that participants rely on when referring to groups. Results show that, among the numerous groups recognized, participants co-construct intergroup relations and ingroup bias implying negative assessment over external groups. Being different from traditional laboratory studies illustrating substantial contraposition between ingroup and outgroup, our qualitative analysis reveals the multitude of groups by which the ingroup is formed and their internal fragmentation. To conclude, we discussed the implications of qualitatively studying intergroup relations in group homes and indicated future lines of research. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the typicality structure of contrasting political categories. In Experiment 1, two separate groups of participants rated the typicality of 15 individuals, including political figures and media personalities, with respect to the categories Democrat or Republican. The relation between the two sets of ratings was negative, linear, and extremely strong, r = −.9957. Essentially, one category was treated as a mirror image of the other. Experiment 2 replicated this result, showing some boundary conditions, and extending the result to (...) liberal and conservative categories. The same method was applied to two other pairs of contrasting categories, healthy and junk foods, and male and female jobs. For those categories, the relation between contrasting pairs was weaker and there was less of a direct trade-off between typicality in one category versus typicality in its opposite. The results are discussed in terms of implications for political decision making and reasoning, and conceptual representation. (shrink)

In approaching the question of whether groups of people can have cognitive capacities that are fundamentally different than the cognitive capacities of the individuals within the group, we lay out a Multiple, Interactive Levels of Cognitive Systems (MILCS) framework. The goal of MILCS is to explain the kinds of cognitive processes typically studied by cognitive scientists, such as perception, attention, memory, categorization, decision making, problem solving, and judgment. Rather than focusing on high-level constructs such as modules in an (...) information processing flow diagram or internal representations, MILCS focuses on mechanisms that allow systems to engage in flexible, adaptive behavior. Examples of these mechanisms are network structure-process pairs that: combine data from perception with top-down theories, achieve consistency and consensus through information exchange, selectively attend to information globally assessed as relevant, and develop specialized units from originally homogeneous networks through competition among the units. Two such systems are considered in some detail -- lateral inhibition within a network for selecting from a candidate set the option that is most attractive, and a diffusion process for accumulating evidence to reach a generally rapid and accurate decision. These system descriptions are aptly applied at multiple levels, including within and across people. These systems provide accounts that unify cognitive processes across multiple levels, can be expressed in a common vocabulary provided by network science, are inductively powerful yet appropriately constrained, and are applicable to a large number of superficially diverse cognitive systems. Given that people are typically highly motivated to participate in strong groups, cognitively resourceful people will tend to form groups that effectively employ cognitive systems at higher levels than the individuals. The impressive cognitive capacities of individual people do not eliminate the need to talk about group cognition. Instead, smart people generally form smart groups. (shrink)

Past research has found that mere in‐group/out‐group categorizations are sufficient to elicit biases in face memory. The current research yields novel evidence that mere social categorization is also sufficient to modulate processes underlying face perception, even for faces for which we have strong perceptual expertise: same‐race (SR) faces. Using the composite face paradigm, we find that SR faces categorized as in‐group members (i.e., fellow university students) are processed more holistically than are SR faces categorized as out‐ (...) class='Hi'>group members (i.e., students at another university). Hence, holding perceptual expertise with faces constant, categorizing an SR target as an out‐group member debilitates the strong holistic processing typically observed for SR faces. (shrink)

Kymlicka believes that it is Walzer's idiosyncratic approach to categorization—more than his controversial theory of justice-as-common-meanings—which explains his relatively marginal role in the multiculturalism debate.

The study of social inequality and stratification has long been at the core of sociology and the social sciences. In this article, I argue that certain tendencies have become entrenched in our dominant paradigm that leave many researchers pursuing coarse-grained analyses of how difference relates to inequality. Centrally, despite the importance of categories and categorization for how researchers study social inequality, contemporary theories of categories are poorly integrated into conventional research. I contend that the widespread and often unquestioned use (...) of state categories as categories of analysis reinforces these tendencies. Using research on colorism as an inspiration, I highlight several components of what I call the infracategorical model of inequality, which urges researchers to disaggregate difference by shifting our focus from membership in categories to the cues of categories, membership in subcategories, and perceived typicality. (shrink)

Normal 0 0 2 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:????; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Amis, one of the Austronesian languages, is spoken by the largest indigenous minority on the island of Taiwan. The population is estimated to be 140,000. The Amis language is spoken mainly in Hualien and Taitung, the eastern part of Taiwan. In 1990s, a Japanese linguist Tsuchida (1989) provided a set of categorization for the Amis language: 1. Sakizaya dialect 2. Northern dialect (Nansi Amis) 3. TavaLong-Vataan dialect 4. Central dialect (Coastal and other Soukuzun Amis) 5. Southern Amis (Puyuma Amis and Hanchan Amis) From the categorization above, Sakizaya belonged to a subcategory of Amis. At the same time, this categorization also reflected that from the “Takobowan Incident” in 1878 the exiled Sakizaya, in order to escape the ethnic cleansing by Qing government, living among the Amis, were simply a subgroup of the larger ethnic group, and so Sakizaya were classified as Amis from then on. The Sakizaya, as a distinct ethnic group, officially did not exist. However, not only historical materials show the term Sakizaya were known to the Spanish and to the Dutch East India Company during the 17th century (Hsu, Liao and Wu, 2001), but also the language data collected in this paper show there are differences between Sakizaya and Amis. (Both Nansi Amis and Sakizaya are spoken mainly in northern Hualien. This paper will further make examples of the phonological, morphological and syntactic differences between Sakizaya and Nansi Amis.) However, it is still difficult to define whether Sakizaya is not a dialect of Amis, but a language. In January of 2007, Sakizaya was officially recognized as Taiwan’s 13 th Indigenous Group in Taiwan and one of the most important claims used by the Sakizaya elite s in the process of ethnic reconstruction was the language. It seems to me that this ethnic reconstruction is motivated rather by the current Taiwan political environment than the ethnic group itself. It follows that it may occur that the language has been only an instrument to achieve political ends, but - no matter whether true or not - a much more in-depth study is still necessary to determine the status of the language and its relation to other languages, such as Amis, to make a final judgment on the whole process of ethnic reconstruction – Sakizaya case. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine how different types of sports rules place unique demands upon athletes with regard to their weight and how these demands condition different strategies of weight management. We categorized sports rules into three main categories according to their relationship to weight: 1) sports with weight-prescribing rules; 2) sports rules that advantage lean light bodied athletes; and 3) sports rules that advantage lean robust muscular athletes. This enabled us to provide a more complex view (...) than has been presented by authors in sports sciences, whose emphasis is usually on researching athletes’ body composition, sometimes establishing the ‘desired body’, or addressing the problematic aspects of athletes’ weight-controlling practices within ‘weight-sensitive sports’. We advocate a change of focus from ‘weight-sensitive sports’ to risk groups, since not all athletes in a sport are equally affected by weight issues raised by the sporting test. Thus, this approach offers an athlete-centred approach to weight management in sport, rather than an emphasis on certain types of sports. (shrink)

This paper extends studies on intertextuality into a more explicitly interactional context. I examine the actual process of intertextuality where comedy audiences construct recombinant selves through making sense of various membership categories as well as through making sense of a certain kind of comedy. The examination of this process requires receptive research; however, most studies leave the interpretive process unanalyzed. Conducting both a sequential analysis and a membership categorization analysis will reveal that categories are not “pre-formed” but “per-formed” in (...) situ. To illustrate these points, I report on a receptive study of Local comedy in Hawai‘i. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to propose a taxonomy of speakers from a socio-pragmatic perspective by taking an original approach to the study of single-turn political discourse, that is, political speeches, rather than debates, interviews or press conferences. This limitation on the scope of the study stems from the fact that the categorisation advanced is not concerned with turn-taking, but concentrates on the speaker’s use of other voices in his/her representation of reality. Thus, a clear distinction is made between (...) the speaker and the sayer, namely the original speaker whose words are reported, or rather creatively reconstructed, by the current speaker ‘here and now’. The taxomony comprises a number of categories employed strategically by the current speaker in the service of different objectives. The speaker categories are inherently limited due to a single principle of categorisation: the form of the report. The singular speaker is the default type which enables the speaker to present himself/herself as an individual as well as his/her attitudes, values and beliefs, while the collective speaker enhances the speaker’s belonging to a group and allows him/her to speak on behalf of its members. The sayer categories, by contrast, are more varied due to three independent principles of categorisation: the form of the report, the genuineness of the sayer’s utterance and the number of accounts embedded in the narrating event. The approach taken to the analysis of the narrative passages that involve the proposed speaker types owes much to Chilton’s Discourse Space Theory and is concerned with conceptualisation of the speaker’s representation of events from chosen perspective. The corpus of speeches selected to investigate and illustrate individual categories consists of over 80 political speeches delivered by three Democratic American Presidents: John Kennedy, William Clinton and Barack Obama. (shrink)

'Risquons-Tout' is an ambitious, thematic group exhibition that explores the potential of transgression and unpredictability. It examines how art challenges the homogenisation of thought in the now infamous echo chambers of our overcrowded info-sphere. 'Risquons-Tout' presents some of the most innovative and influential artists and authors from the Eurocore region, which extends between Amsterdam, Paris, Cologne, Düsseldorf and London, with Brussels at its centre. The title is borrowed from a place located on the Belgian-French border, a real yet liminal (...) space of transition, passage and informal exchanges, notably smuggling. The invited artists negotiate different dynamics of bridging, passing, translating and transgressing. In doing so they burst the safe bubbles generated by prediction algorithms, designed to avoid any risk, whether intellectual, financial, emotional or physical. The exhibition's geographic and political scope addresses today's global connectivity, trans-national circulation and diasporic movements. 'Risquons-Tout' will occupy the entire WIELS building and range out into neighbouring exhibition and performance spaces. It will present the works of 38 internationally recognised or emerging artists. The exhibition proposes a rich array of practices that defy easy categorisation. 'Risquons-Tout' will also include a performative section and an Open School that will serve as a laboratory for artists and scholars to draw upon questions of risk, unpredictability and borders through a range of alternative methods for the transmission of knowledge. Exhibition: WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (12.09.2020 - 10.01.2021). (shrink)

This chapter conducts a structural epistemic injustice investigation, inquiring into institutionalised frames of intelligibility, to identify pathological patterns of recognition in administrative categorisation. This allows me to discern a form of misrecognition, where I understand ‘misrecognition’ as obtaining whenever administrative systems prevent people from participating in and benefiting from such systems due to institutionalised frames of intelligibility. One way such misrecognition operates is through categorisation-related administrative violence. I suggest that one particular form of this violence is recognition bluffs. Recognition bluffs (...) are a form of misrecognition where administrative systems enable new categories of legibility promising recognition for certain populations while, at the same time, they limit that category in ways that harm those populations as well. As an example, I look into how ‘gender’ was recognised and administered through the social group category in asylum administration in the U.S.A. (shrink)

The ability to group perceptual objects into functionally relevant categories is vital to our comprehension of the world. Such categorisation aids in how we search for objects in familiar scenes and how we identify an object and its likely uses despite never having seen that specific object before. The systems that mediate this process are only now coming to be understood through considerable research efforts combining neurological, psychological and behavioural studies. What is much less well understood are the differences (...) between the categories, how they are formed and how they are used by experts and non-experts in a complex task that can take decades to master. In a quite different direction to previous studies, this work infers the different categorical structures that might be used by amateurs and professionals in the oriental game of Go. This is achieved by using a newly developed combination of artificial neural networks (Self-organising Maps) and perceptual inference to show that categories of strategic scenes can be learned while playing games using a model of ‘conditional perceptual learning’. Applying this technique to two databases of games, one of amateurs and one of professionals, shows that a structural hierarchy of scene information develops that can be readily incorporated into traditional psychological models of decisions and readily implemented in computational systems. The results are discussed in terms of the heuristics and biases literature, emphasising where the significant similarities and differences lie between this work and previous work. (shrink)

Tamar Gendler argues that, for those living in a society in which race is a salient sociological feature, it is impossible to be fully rational: members of such a society must either fail to encode relevant information containing race, or suffer epistemic costs by being implicitly racist. However, I argue that, although Gendler calls attention to a pitfall worthy of study, she fails to conclusively demonstrate that there are epistemic (or cognitive) costs of being racist. Gendler offers three supporting phenomena. (...) First, implicit racists expend cognitive energy repressing their implicit biases. I reply, citing Ellen Bialystok’s research, that constant use of executive functioning can be beneficial. Second, Gendler argues that awareness of a negative stereotype of one’s own race with regard to a given task negatively affects one’s performance of that task. This phenomenon, I argue, demonstrates that those against whom the stigma is directed suffer costs, but it fails to demonstrate that the stigmatizers suffer cognitively. Finally, Gendler argues that racists are less competent when recognizing faces of other races than when recognizing faces of their own race because, in the first instance, they encode the race of the face (taking up cognitive space that could have been used to encode fine-grained distinctions), whereas in the second instance they encode no race. I argue that in-group/out-group categorization rather than racism is the cognitive cost. I conclude that Gendler has failed to demonstrate that there are cognitive costs associated with being a racist. (shrink)

Based on an ethnographic fieldwork the article analyses the experiences of 8-10 year old children in three different institutions. It is shown how the children create and maintain different social landscapes in each setting. This means that children's experiences are related to the position they have in the landscape. The notion social identity is used to discuss and explain these findings. With this notion identity is explained as an interplay between internal and external factors: between group-identification and categorisation. Children's (...) different identities in different settings are not created by children themselves, but must bee seen in relation to the categorisation used by the adults to classify children. The professional categorisations of children are a central part of the social space in relation to which children act, talk, and play. (shrink)