Stress induced Categorical thinking, Judgement and the Seeds of Prejudice

Running Man Self Regulation Skills Project

Ep 17. Categorical thinking is useful too when all assumptions of safety are met and we need to organize our world and the details of a task or job. When under stress or duress our best reasoning moves toward categorical thinking as an expedient to avoid wasting time and energy, especially during a situation with escalating stress. Often we become more apt to be quickly judgmental and we become more suggestible to our immediate environment, i.e., a football or soccer game with a stadium and lots of fans. This social suggestion can also pressure to see and believe things to be the way they look, think opposing teams' jersey or color therefore the term, the seeds of prejudice.