39 SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION & STEREOTYPES

Stop Judging a Person by Their Cover: How Stereotypes Limit Our Connection with Others

Abstract

Social categorization and an ensuing outcome of social categorization, stereotyping, inadvertently promote prejudice and social discord. B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two envisioned a world in which the societal structures of his authored utopia, would be governed by the scientific principles that human behavior is learned based on the environment. He postulates that if we engage in an “experimental attitude towards everything” a social process of negative value, for example stereotyping, would become obsolete (Skinner, 1948). In this essay, social categorization and stereotyping will be presented as an ongoing social challenge rooted in individual biases based on one’s learning history. This essay will discuss ways in which behavior analytic principles could be used effectively to address this socially significant limitation by using relational frame theory, stimulus equivalence, and compassion.

Keywords

stimulus equivalence

ingroup

outgroup

stereotype

beliefs

Barack Hussein Obama

prejudice

social categorization

Northern Ireland riots

outgroup homogeneity

compassion

empathy

discrimination

auto-stereotyping

self-hatred

self-identity

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

polarization

Democrats

Republicans

partisan

LGBTQ community

ageism

quality of life

RFT

bias

racial social categorization

sonder

learning history

social groups

homogeneity

empathic responding

derived stimulus relations

relational responding

transformation of function

transfer of stimulus function

weight shaming

Relational Frame Theory

John Koenig

About

Jacob Sadavoy

Jacob A. Sadavoy

MS, BCBA, LBA

Jacob A. Sadavoy (he/him/his) is a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst with over 20 years of experience applying the principles of applied behaviour analysis in home programs, clinical centre-based programs, school environments as a teacher and educational consultant, businesses, and hospitals throughout North America. To date, Jacob has travelled to fifteen different countries to collaborate with local clinicians to develop culturally-informed, socially significant, behaviour analytic strategies based on their local environment. The ethical challenges and barriers of disseminating ABA effectively domestically and throughout the world culminated in Understanding Ethics in Applied Behavior Analysis: Practical Applications (the 2nd edition of this text was released December 2021 and will feature key distinctions in the BACB’s updated Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts). Jacob also sat as the 2019 Vice President of the Ethics and Behavior Analysis Special Interest Group, current task force lead on International Dissemination for the Behavior Analyst SIG on Supervision, as well as Teamwork Healthcare’s Clinical Board. Jacob’s key areas of interest are ethics, supervision, sustainable dissemination, social justice, stakeholder engagement, and services across the lifespan. Jacob’s interest in social justice and compassionate care has culminated in this tome he co-edited with Michelle Zube titled A Scientific Framework for Compassion and Social Justice: Lessons in Applied Behavior Analysis.