Stereotype formation as trait aggregation

We propose an aggregation model which explains stereotype formation under the attribution hypothesis. We show, under very mild axioms, that an observer can be thought of perceiving a group in terms her subjective opinion about the representativeness of subgroups as well as a possible prejudice she might have. This paper is part of a project entitled “Social Perception A Social Choice Perspective”, supported by Istanbul Bilgi University Research Fund. It has been completed while Remzi Sanver was visiting Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. We are grateful to both institutions. We owe our initiation to the related social psychology literature to Joachim I. Krueger and hope that the outcome is worthy of his valuable guidance. Michael Birnbaum, Zoltan Csigas, Todd Davies, Robin Dawes, Rosemary Gosling, Kutsi Nircan, Paul Price, Michel Regenwetter and Ramon Shaban made stimulating comments on relating our theoretical …ndings to the relevant literature. The paper bene…ted a lot from comments made by Goksel Asan, Murat Ali Cengelci, Bora Erdamar, Kevin Hasker, Jean-Jacques Herrings, Doruk Iris, Emin Karagozoglu, Murat Kayi, Bettina Klaus, Semih Koray, Ugur Ozdemir, Ipek Ozkal-Sanver, Selcuk Ozyurt, Andres Perea, Hans Peters, Ozer Selcuk, Taner Yigit. We thank all contributors and acknowledge the responsibility of all possible errors. yCorresponding author: [email protected]