Stereotyping is one of the biggest single issues in social psychology, but relatively little is known about how and why stereotypes form. This is the first book to explore the process of stereotype formation, the way that people develop impressions and views of social groups. Conventional approaches to stereotyping assume that stereotypes are based on erroneous and distorted processes, but the authors of this book take a very different view, namely that stereotypes form in order to explain aspects of social groups and in particular to explain relationships between groups.

What are stereotypes and why do we use them? Are all stereotypes bad? Can we stop people from using them? Questions such as these have fascinated social psychologists for many years.Perry Hinton provides an accessible introduction to this key area, giving a critical and concise overview of the influential theories and approaches, as well as insights into recent work on the role of language and culture in stereotyping.

The first comprehensive treatment of stereotypes and stereotyping, this text synthesizes a vast body of social and cognitive research that has emerged over the past-quarter century. Provided is an unusually broad analysis of stereotypes as products both of individual cognitive activities and of social and cultural forces. While devoting careful attention to harmful aspects of stereotypes, their connections to prejudice and discrimination, and effective strategies for countering them, the volume also examines the positive functions of generalizations in helping people navigate a complex world. Unique features include four chapters addressing the content of stereotypes, which consider such topics as why certain traits are the focus of stereotyping and how they become attributed to particular groups. An outstanding text for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, the volume is highly readable and features many useful examples.

This volume addresses the role of communication in stereotype dynamics, while placing the phenomenon of social stereotypes appropriately in the socio-cultural context. Stereotype Dynamics assembles top researchers in the field to investigate stereotype formation, maintenance, and transformation through interpersonal facets of communication. Section one presents meta-theoretical perspectives, strongly informed by theories and empirical research. Subsequent parts address the following research questions in the perspectives of language-based communication: What do the signs in a language mean, and how do the meanings of the signs shape stereotypes? How do people use those signs intentionally or unintentionally? Is language use biased in some way? How do language users' identities affect the meaning of a particular language use in social context? What are the social consequences of language-based communication? Does language-based communication provide a basis for the formation, maintenance, and transformation or social stereotypes? This timely book is ideal for advanced students, scholars, and researchers in social psychology, and related disciplines such as human communications and sociolinguistics. It is also appropriate for use as a supplement in upper level courses on prejudice and stereotyping.

Stereotypes sometimes lead us to make poor judgements of other people, but they also have the potential to facilitate quick, efficient, and accurate judgements. How can we discern whether any individual act of stereotyping will have the positive or negative effect? How Stereotypes Deceive Us addresses this question. It identifies various factors that determine whether or not the application of a stereotype to an individual in a specific context will facilitate or impede correct judgements and perceptions of the individual. It challenges the thought that stereotyping only and always impedes correct judgement when the stereotypes that are applied are inaccurate, failing to reflect social realities. It argues instead that stereotypes that reflect social realities can lead to misperceptions and misjudgements, and that inaccurate but egalitarian social attitudes can therefore facilitate correct judgements and accurate perceptions. The arguments presented in this book have important implications for those who might engage in stereotyping and those who are at risk of being stereotyped. They have implications for those who work in healthcare and those who have mental health conditions. How Stereotypes Deceive Us provides a new conceptual framework-evaluative dispositionalism-that captures the epistemic faults of stereotypes and stereotyping, providing conceptual resources that can be used to improve our own thinking by avoiding the pitfalls of stereotyping, and to challenge other people's stereotyping where it is likely to lead to misperception and misjudgement.

Stereotype is a pervasive and persistent human tendency that stems from a basic cognitive need to categorize, simplify, and process the complex world. This tendency is a precondition for social bias, prejudice, and discrimination. Previous research has mainly focused on the content, psychological mechanisms, and intervention strategies of negative stereotypes, as well as the stereotype threat phenomenon induced by an evaluative context where a negative in-group stereotype could be confirmed. However, there is a lack of research examining the psychological process of forming and internalizing social stereotypes, the neurocognitive mechanisms of stereotypes, and the interventions (including potential neurocognitive interventions) addressing the consequences of negative stereotypes. Furthermore, as per the Behavioral Immune System (BIS) theory, the very presence of a pathogen is likely to increase stereotyping across various social categories, especially in those with a heightened perception of vulnerability to disease. Thus, stereotypes can be enhanced in the context of pathogen exposure such as the current outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. People exposed to the virus are more likely to suffer from personal and institutional stereotypes and discrimination, which may cause negative consequences to personal and social well-being. Therefore, in the current context of global Covid-19 pandemic, it is necessary to investigate the increasing biases (driven by stereotypes) regarding viewing pathogens as a threat, which holds across different social categories. Specifically, what constitutes and shapes stereotypes towards people living in epidemic areas? What are the consequences of these short-term shaped stereotypes? What is the relationship between the consequences of these stereotypes and traditional stereotypes (i.e., stereotypes towards race, gender, and age)? Will these short-term stereotypes interact with traditional stereotypes to exacerbate discrimination, or will the recategorization based on the short-term stereotypes during Covid-19 pandemic allow people to ignore the traditional inferior social identity, and in turn to promote social integration among different groups? And how can we prevent the increasing tendency of relying on stereotypes, and instead, increase pro-social behaviors in the Covid-19 context? The current Research Topic focuses on understanding the psychological process of forming and internalizing social stereotypes, the neurocognitive mechanisms of stereotypes, as well as interventions (including potential neurocognitive interventions) regarding the consequences of negative stereotypes. And we also aim to gather the latest research investigating the broad psychological process of social stereotyping, with an emphasis on the implications under the Covid-19 context. That is, this Research Topic is also interested in the negative stereotypes specific to Covid-19 pandemic as well as relevant preventative interventions aimed at people perceived as at higher Covid-19 exposure risk. Theoretical and empirical research from psychology, sociology and related fields is welcome. Examples of possible themes for manuscripts include but are not limited to the following topics: • The content of stereotypes; • Social categorization and discrimination based on stereotypes; • Traditional stereotypes and their consequences; • The psychological process of social stereotype formation and internalization; • The mechanisms (including neurocognitive mechanisms) of stereotypes and its consequences; • The stereotype-neutralizing interventions (including neurocognitive intervention) strategies towards negative stereotypes; • The psychological process of stereotypes during Covid-19 pandemic; • The social group categorization and social cohesion during Covid-19 pandemic; • The interactions between traditional stereotypes towards social groups seen as inferior in the dominant culture and the short-term stereotypes during Covid-19 pandemic; • The strategies of tackling stereotypes in Covid-19 pandemic.

At the same time relevant cross-cultural issues are explored. This clearly-written and engaging book will be essential reading for students and academics in social psychology and for anyone with an interest in the phenomenon of social stereotyping.

This book is the third volume in a series that provides a hands-on perspective on the evolving theories associated with Roger Schank and his students. The primary focus of this volume is on constructing explanations. All of the chapters relate to the problem of building computer programs that can develop hypotheses about what might have caused an observed event. Because most researchers in natural language processing don't really want to work on inference, memory, and learning issues, most of their sample text fragments are chosen carefully to de-emphasize the need for non text-related reasoning. The ability to come up with hypotheses about what is really going on in a story is a hallmark of human intelligence. The biggest difference between truly intelligent readers and less intelligent ones is the extent to which the reader can go beyond merely understanding the explicit statements being communicated. Achieving a creative level of understanding means developing hypotheses about questions for which there may be no conclusively correct answer at all. The focus of the lab, during the period documented in this book, was to work on getting a computer program to do that. The volume adopts a case-based approach to the construction of explanations which suggests that the main steps in the process of explaining a given anomaly are as follows: * Retrieve an explanation that might be relevant to the anomaly. * Evaluate whether the retrieved explanation makes sense when applied to the current anomaly. * Adapt the explanation to produce a new variant that fits better if the retrieved explanation doesn't fit the anomaly perfectly.