Race-ethnicity has been shown to influence physician-patient communication during clinical encounters and physician decision making ( 10 , 11 ). Physicians tend to view patients from minority groups as less intelligent, less effective communicators, less compliant, more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs, and less likable than white patients ( 8 , 12 ). Although distressing, these facts are consistent with social categorization (or social cognition) theory ( 10 , 12 ). This theory, originating in the social psychology literature, posits that humans use categorization to make vast amounts of social information manageable. Characteristics are unconsciously assigned to social groups (for example, racial-ethnic groups), and those characteristics are then unconsciously applied to individuals through stereotyping ( 13 ). Physicians may be especially vulnerable to stereotyping because of time pressures and the need to make rapid assessments—that is, physicians have more social information to process, so rely more heavily on social categorization ( 14 ).

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