Pigeonholing is a process that attempts to classify disparate entities into a limited number of
categories (usually, mutually exclusive ones).
The term usually carries connotations of criticism, implying that the classification scheme referred to inadequately reflects the entities being sorted, or that it is based on
stereotype
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...
s.
Pitfalls
Various classification schemes often suffer from pitfalls such as these:
*The categories may be poorly defined, inadequately described, or
subjective.
**Example: A poor person and a rich person may have different ideas about what counts as "too expensive".
*A single entity may be suited to more than one category.
**Example:
Rhubarb
Rhubarb is the fleshy, edible stalks ( petioles) of species and hybrids (culinary rhubarb) of ''Rheum'' in the family Polygonaceae, which are cooked and used for food. The plant is a herbaceous perennial that grows from short, thick rhizomes. ...
is both "poisonous" (the leaves) and "safe to eat" (the stem).
*Entities may not fit into any available category.
**Example: A person who is moving from one city to another does not live in either city.
*Entities may change over time, so they no longer fit the category in which they have been placed.
**Example: Certain species of
fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...
may
change from male to female during their life.
**Example: A child who is categorized as "unable to read" may learn to read soon afterwards.
*Some properties are better viewed as a
continuum than as separate categories.
**Example: There are people of every height, so categorizing all of them as "short", "average", and "tall" can result in people of almost exactly the same height being put in different categories. The tallest "short" person and the shortest "average" person will be almost the same height.
An example of pigeonholing in everyday conversation occurs when a person making an
apolitical
Apoliticism is apathy or antipathy towards all political affiliations. A person may be described as apolitical if they are uninterested or uninvolved in politics. Being apolitical can also refer to situations in which people take an unbiased p ...
or barely political comment is assumed to have a certain political belief, without ascertaining their political stance. Such an erroneous designation is especially erroneous when assigning it to people who live in places where the
left–right dichotomy is not present.
See also
*
Archetype
The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
# a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main mo ...
*
Labelling
*
Pigeonhole principle
In mathematics, the pigeonhole principle states that if items are put into containers, with , then at least one container must contain more than one item. For example, of three gloves, at least two must be right-handed or at least two must be l ...
*
Typecasting
In film, television, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character, one or more particular roles, or characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ...
References
Stereotypes
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