Abstract

Unfortunately, the cognitive basis for much social stupidity is not discrimination based on ability but the human tendency to generalize behavior of differentiated members of a group into the form of a representative stereotype. This streamlines social decisions, as individual variation can be ignored, and reactions keyed to specific characteristics deemed definitive for behavioral inter-action. However, the loss to stereotyping is obvious: individuals are raised up or put down not due to their individual abilities but because they are lumped into a linguistic category. Women, for ex-ample, have been universally and eternally victimized by stereotyping [1] to the degree that 400 years ago expert on females, Cardinal de Richelieu concluded “Intellect in a woman is unbecoming” [2].