Humans are very efficient creatures and we use many tools to compress, utilize, and retain information. One of the tools that we use is termed social categorization. Social categorization describes a kind organization used by people to remember social interactions. By thinking of people as members of a group rather than as individuals one can simplify and recall information quickly. As social creatures, humans come in contact with many people of different colors, shapes, sizes, and genders so this categorization, to some degree, is useful. However, it also creates several social problems including, but not limited to: discrimination, prejudice, racism, and stereotyping.
             Social Categories, regardless of their negative aspects, serve a purpose. They are efficient. Imagine having to sift through a pile of papers, with no kind of order, to find one specific page of notes. How hard would that be? It is much better to have the papers organized so one can find what one is looking for easily (Blaine 15). In several studies subjects were asked to process traits of a made-up person while performing an unrelated cognitive task like listening to a lecture. Some of the subjects were primed with a category (priming is a procedure where word is flashed rapidly on a computer screen and a person can't consciously comprehend it). The results showed that the people who were primed did significantly better on the post-test than those who were not. This demonstrates that categorizing is not a cognitive (conscious) behavior; it simply helps us conserve resources for other cognitive activities, such as memory and attention. Thinking of a group is easier than identifying and attributing characteristics to an individual and it requires less cognition (Blaine 16).
             We use perceptual salience to create categories. Perceptual salience is a term that describes one's tendency to be drawn to the noticeable, or salient, charact
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