Reframing social categorization as latent structure learning for understanding political behaviour.

Publisher: Royal Society Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 7503623 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1471-2970 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 09628436 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: London : Royal Society, 1934-

Cognition* ; Concept Formation* ; Learning* ; Politics* ; Social Behavior*; Humans

Affiliating with political parties, voting and building coalitions all contribute to the functioning of our political systems. One core component of this is social categorization-being able to recognize others as fellow in-group members or members of the out-group. Without this capacity, we would be unable to coordinate with in-group members or avoid out-group members. Past research in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience examining social categorization has suggested that one way to identify in-group members may be to directly compute the similarity between oneself and the target (dyadic similarity). This model, however, does not account for the fact that the group membership brought to bear is context-dependent. This review argues that a more comprehensive understanding of how we build representations of social categories (and the subsequent impact on our behaviours) must first expand our conceptualization of social categorization beyond simple dyadic similarity. Furthermore, a generalizable account of social categorization must also provide domain-general, quantitative predictions for us to test hypotheses about social categorization. Here, we introduce an alternative model-one in which we infer latent groups of people through latent structure learning. We examine experimental evidence for this account and discuss potential implications for understanding the political mind. This article is part of the theme issue 'The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.

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Keywords: latent structure learning; social categorization; social groups

figshare 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5303115

Date Created: 20210222 Date Completed: 20211025 Latest Revision: 20220413

20221213

PMC7935078

10.1098/rstb.2020.0136

33611992