If you recall the movie Bambi, there is that wonderful scene where he is learning words and goes through bird, butterfly, flower…and Flower the Skunk.  It is an excellent example of categorization because it demonstrates how categories allow us to quickly organize our experiences and choose responses based on that categorization.  We respond differently to birds than we do to skunks.  It also demonstrates the flexibility of categorization and how items can shift from one category to another.  A skunk is suddenly a flower and we start to wonder if a skunk can be more than a potential smelly danger.

The importance of categorization is one of my favorite topics in psychology.  I love engaging with my students as we discuss the importance of prototypes (the best example of a category) and how they provide the basis for inclusion and exclusion in a category. 

For example, if you show your child a penguin and say “bird,” you are correct (because penguins are birds); however, your child will not find other birds to add to the category (because penguins don’t fly, for example).  If you show them a Great Dane and say “dog”, they won’t find many dogs to add to the category because a Great Dane is a very unusual dog.  It is better to show them a mutt (a combination of many dogs) as the prototype because it allows them to compare many breeds to the prototype and include them in the category.  It also allows them to correctly exclude ponies from the dog category. 

Categories are also quite flexible; we can shift items within categories and among categories.  For example, take the category of chairs.  There are many different kinds of chairs within the category: kitchen chair, dining room chair, lawn chair, beach chair, office chair, rocking chair, and so on.  Although a chair is something we sit in, we can shift it to other categories. When we use it to climb on, we shift it a stepstool or ladder category.  When we sleep in a chair, we shift it to the category of bed.  When I consider how we do this all day long, paying very little attention to how we shift our thinking and the behaviors allowed by that thinking, it never ceases to amaze me how much babies and children are absorbing about the world as they learn each new word and the ideas those words represent.

While categories are important when teaching babies and children about their world, they also play an important role in how adults shape their thinking.

Let us start with the category of dog – a great example of a category which has shifted over time.  Dogs belong in the category of animal and the subcategory of domesticated animals.  Most domesticated animals sleep outside; years ago a doghouse, a shelter outside for a dog, was a common feature.  If a dog slept inside, it slept in a room alone on the floor, with a towel or blanket as bedding.  Today, though, dogs wear clothes.  Dogs have special bakeries.  There are restaurants that have dog amenities included.  Dogs sleep in bed with their owners.  Dogs have carriages so they don’t have to walk. We put dogs in foster homes. We adopt dogs. Dogs are referred to as family members.  In other words, we have shifted dogs to the human category of family.  This reveals a shift in our thinking and behavior.

Strikingly, we have also shifted some humans to the category of animals over the past several years.  By doing so, it also allows certain behaviors from society to be considered acceptable.  For example, politicians have called some immigrant groups animals; this allows us to put these people in cages and separate them from their young.  We call people who have committed crimes “animals”, allowing us to focus on punishment without considering the need for rehabilitation or treatment of any kind.  It allows us to keep them in cages.  The homeless are often invisible to us while they sleep on the street, in the cold, the heat, the rain, without any shelter.  It is not the shift from dog as animal to dog as family that troubles me.  However, it is important to consider the consequence of shifting a human to the category of animal.

We cannot eliminate categorization, nor can we eliminate the shifting of categories.  In fact, we are doing these shifts hundreds of times a day.  Under certain conditions, a table can shift from the category of something to place our food on to a category of something to sit on.  The assumptions satisfying that movement might include that the table is sturdy enough to support someone’s weight.  Assumptions that would prevent the shift might include the fact that the table would collapse if someone sat on it.  We don’t need to reflect on these category shifts because the consequences of the movement are minimal.  However, when we shift people into different categories, the consequences, as we have seen can be significant.