Pigeonholing

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Pigeon-hole messageboxes at Stanford University

Pigeonholing is a process that attempts to classify disparate entities into a limited number of categories (usually, mutually exclusive ones).

Contents

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 stereotypes. [1]

Pitfalls

Various classification schemes often suffer from pitfalls such as these:

An example of pigeonholing in everyday conversation occurs when a person making an apolitical 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. [2]

See also

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References

  1. "Pigeonhole, v.". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). March 2006. Archived from the original on 16 December 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2011. Online version March 2011. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1906.
  2. Lipset, Seymour Martin; Basu, Asoke (1976). "The Roles of the Intellectual and Political Roles" . In Gella, Aleksander (ed.). The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals: Theory, Method and Case Study. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications. pp. 111–150. ISBN   0-8039-9958-5.