Recategorization

Changing the category structure through which people represent an interaction, for example by replacing two opposed groups with one inclusive group. Recategorization should be assessed through perceived membership and behavior rather than inferred from labels alone.

An account of prejudice reduction in which former outgroup members become included in a common ingroup. The proposed mechanism extends favorable ingroup responses across a previous boundary. Whether the common identity recognizes or suppresses subgroup identity is a substantive boundary condition.