Research
Research Overview
Categorization is one of the most basic skills that people have for navigating their world, as grouping things by categories allows us to quickly simplify and process information. Categorizing people into different social groups, or social categorization, can likewise help us to more easily understand our social world. For example, people categorize both themselves and others using a variety of different social groups such as those based on gender identity, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, just to name a few. While a large body of research has explored the process of social categorization, it has generally focused on groups who conform more to traditional, discrete social categories (e.g., cisgender people, monoracial people). As a result, this research can only describe the experiences of majority groups. My work seeks to expand knowledge of social categorization by being inclusive of both perceptions of and the perspectives of people who do not conform as well to ideas of who fits into traditional social categories (e.g., transgender and nonbinary people, multiracial people, etc.).
Consequences of Social Categorization
While at times social categorization can help us to understand our social world, not all of the impacts of social categorization are necessarily positive. In this line of work, I examine negative consequences of social categorization for a variety of different identities. For example, we know that people hold strong beliefs about gender and gender identity, such as that men and women are different kinds of people and that they are good at different kinds of things and should each behave in certain ways. My work suggests that holding beliefs like this is linked to anti-trans prejudice. People who endorse gender norms more and those who essentialize transgender identity less are both more likely to negatively evaluate trans people (Elischberger, Glazier et al., 2016; Elischberger, Glazier et al., 2017; Glazier et al., 2021). People also hold strong beliefs about race and racial identity. For example, many people believe that racial categories are discrete and that racial identity is inflexible and cannot change over time. I am currently examining how these beliefs can negatively impact perceptions of Multiracial people, who may experience their racial identity as more fluid.
I have shown that social categorization can have negative consequences for children as well. Children who hold strong own-gender preferences (i.e., like their own gender more), are more likely to favor their own gender ingroup over children of other genders, such as through allocating more resources to children of their gender than children of other genders (Halim, Glazier et al., under rev.). Currently, I am examining how adult's beliefs about social categories impact how they perceive children's own social identities by studying when and under what context adults believe children have autonomy over their own identities.
Under this line of work, I also investigate how ideas about different social categories intersect to uniquely impact people's perceptions of others who hold intersectional identities (e.g., Black women). Within social categories (e.g., “women”), some people are seen as less prototypical (e.g., Black women; older women). For example, I explore how gender non-prototypicality impacts perceptions of sexual harassment victims. My research shows that people implicitly view Black women as less likely to be sexually harassed than White women, but explicitly view older women as less likely to be sexually harassed than younger women (Glazier et al., in prep).
Influences on Social Categorization
Social categorization is early developing, as children show the foundation for this tendency starting at a young age. For example, young children will notice and remember the gender and race of strangers without being asked to do so. While social categorization might seem quick and automatic, and perhaps almost inevitable--is it, though? In this line of work, I investigate factors that may--or may not--influence social categorization. I find that, for adults, one factor that can influence gender categorization is preexisting knowledge that someone is transgender. When asked to categorize trans and cis targets by gender, adults were more likely to misgender the exact same faces when labelled as transgender than when labelled as cisgender, showing that simply knowing that someone is transgender can influence categorization, regardless of physical appearance (Glazier et al., in prep).
Another area I investigate is whether children's own personal experiences with holding an identity that does not conform with discrete social categories (e.g., being gender diverse or multiracial) impact their tendency to use social categories. I find that holding an identity that does not conform with discrete social categories does not appear to influence either conscious or unconscious gender categorization, as I've shown transgender and gender nonconforming children encode gender (i.e., notice and remember the gender of others) to a similar degree as cis children (Glazier et al., 2020), and that transgender and multiracial children do not differ in their tendency to view gender and race categories as discrete from cisgender and monoracial children (Glazier et al., in prep.).
Self-Categorization
Not all social categorization focuses on our perceptions of others. People also categorize themselves along many lines, giving rise to many different types of identity. In this line of work, I investigate children of varying gender identities' perceptions of their own gender. Decades of research have shown that, from a young age, children categorize themselves by gender. What is less clear is whether patterns observed in past work are unique to cisgender children or extend to transgender children as well. Using both explicit and implicit measures, my colleagues and I have shown that transgender and cisgender children show similarity in their sense of gender identity and gender-typed preferences/behaviors (Gülgöz, Glazier et al., 2019). Further, regardless of gender identity, children show stability in their gender identity/preferences over time (Hässler, Glazier et al., under rev.). Together, these results suggest that children develop a strong internal sense of their gender identity that may not be defined by assigned sex or early sex-specific socialization.
