our minds, tolerance is as easy as prejudice. Our supposed necessity to simplify the world, as we are 'incapable' of taking in 'every new stimulus as unique' (Park and Rothbart, 1982), may also be balanced by a statement of the opposite: 'we would find difficulty in adapting to a world which required action, if no new stimulus could be treated as unique, but every unique stimulus had to be considered as similar to others' (Billig, 1985). This is the basis of Billig's argument of particularisation against categorisation - that gives rise to the processes of individualisation - treating and perceiving group members as individuals. Categorisation argues that, through our 'natural' pattern of thought, or cognition, our perception of stimuli is categorised by its similarities rather than its individuality. Billig suggests that this can change, through a motivational process in categorisation itself, giving flexibility to such cognitive processes.We are aware of the possibility and ability to change. However, we do not express this flexibility because it is a disruption of the norm, or, of the social group-thought. Goffman (1959) views everyday life as dramaturgical ('All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players...' Shakespeare). To disrupt this would be to change the script, and break out of the conformity of the social group, self-to-self and to others. Even so, this illustrates that through our ability to categorise, we have the ability to particularise and 'do more with the stimuli than accumulate more instances of predetermined categories' (Billig, 1985). In Billig's alternative approach to stereotyping, he also raises the point of category selection - a problem that cognitive psychologists have often overlooked. Tversky and Gati (1978) found that different stimuli are judged on their similarities and differences before categorisation and this judgement can be different depending on what way the stimuli is perceived...
