A sociohistorical model of intersectional social category prototypes

Every person belongs to multiple social categories, such as based on race or ethnicity and gender, yet researchers have traditionally studied beliefs about each of these groups in isolation. Theoretical perspectives have emerged that aim to outline how people’s mental representations of race or ethnicity and gender are systematically intertwined. These intersectional perspectives have been generative, but there remain areas of ostensible disagreement which create conceptual confusion. In this Perspective, we suggest that a sociohistorical approach can help reconcile these differences by highlighting how previous theories offer complementary, rather than conflicting, insights into the structure of social concepts. Specifically, we propose that a sociohistorical model that integrates research across social science fields (history, anthropology, sociology, and psychology) can illuminate how people construct mental representations that align with their surrounding social and cultural systems, which reflect the goals of the dominant gender and ethnic or racial group. By encoding these cultural ideals in mental representations of what members of social categories are like, people’s prototypes reinforce social hierarchies.