title: Motivated social categorization: fundamental motives enhance people's sensitivity to basic social categories.
abstract: This article presents an evolutionary framework for identifying the characteristics people use to categorize members of their social world. Findings suggest that fundamental social motives lead people to implicitly categorize social targets based on whether those targets display goal-relevant phenotypic traits. A mate-search prime caused participants to categorize opposite-sex targets (but not same-sex targets) based on their level of physical attractiveness (Experiment 1). A mate-guarding prime interacted with relationship investment, causing participants to categorize same-sex targets (but not opposite-sex targets) based on their physical attractiveness (Experiment 2). A self-protection prime interacted with chronic beliefs about danger, increasing participants' tendency to categorize targets based on their racial group membership (Black or White; Experiment 3). This work demonstrates that people categorize others based on whether they display goal-relevant characteristics reflecting high levels of perceived desirability or threat. Social categorization is guided by fundamental evolved motives designed to enhance adaptive social outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4301, USA. maner@psy.fsu.eduJourna
authors.forename: Jon K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Maner
authors.forename: Saul L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Justin H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Moss
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Leo
authors.forename: E Ashby
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Plant
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011287:Prejudice; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000523:psychology; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D012928:Social Desirability; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult