The Roots of Racial Categorization

Abstract

I examine the origins of ordinary racial thinking. 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 address essentialist conceptions of race. I argue that they are forged, in large part, by the mechanisms responsible for what social psychologists call “entitativity perception.” In defending this approach, I argue against the thesis, defended by some evolutionary psychologists, that racial categorization is the byproduct a misfiring module (e.g. a folk-biology module).

Shared intentionality and the representation of groups; or, how to build a socially adept robot

“…There is also evidence that applications of the folk concept GROUP are guided by attributions of shared intentionality. A number of studies have found that entitativity perception – the tendency to regard some aggregates of people as more “groupish” than others – is mediated by judgments concerning shared intentionality (for some recent discussions, see Phillips, 2021a, b). For example, people's impression that an aggregate of individuals constitutes a genuine group is enhanced when they observe these individuals moving in synchrony (Ip, Chiu, & Wan, 2006; Lakens & Stel, 2011; Wilson & Gos, 2019).…”