Stereotype bias: a simple formal model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a formal model for stereotype bias based on the concepts of in-focus and out-focus, explaining how group biases emerge and relate to social psychology phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a mathematical framework linking inertia-based measures to stereotype bias and outgroup polarization.

Findings

In-focus represents a biased typical group tendency.

Out-focus acts as an anti-stereotypical position.

Bias vanishes when the outgroup has a single individual.

Abstract

Minimizing the relative inertia of a statistical group with respect to the inertia of the overall sample defines an unique point, the in-focus, which constitutes a context-dependent measure of typical group tendency, biased in comparison to the group centroid. Maximizing the relative inertia yields an unique out-focal point, polarized in the reverse direction. This mechanism evokes the relative variability reduction of the outgroup reported in Social Psychology, and the stereotypic-like behavior of the in-focus, whose bias vanishes if the outgroup is constituted of a single individual. In this picture, the out-focus plays the role of an anti-stereotypical position, identical to the in-focus of the complementary group.