[Blog]Why Do People Group “Foreigners” Together? — Social Categorization and Outgroup Homogeneity —

2026-09-17

1. Learning from Experience Is Not Enough

In Part IX, we examined how people form perceptions of foreign residents and society through experience. People do not judge the world only through news reports or reputation. They understand society through institutional experiences with government and other systems, interpersonal experiences in workplaces and communities, and the accumulation of small successes and failures. By reflecting on those experiences, correcting problems, and incorporating lessons into institutions and organizations, society itself can learn.

Yet another important problem remains. Even when people have the same experience, they do not necessarily learn the same lesson from it.

When a foreign resident violates a rule, one person may understand it as “that individual’s behavior,” while another may conclude that “foreigners do not follow rules.” By contrast, when a Japanese person engages in the same behavior, it may simply be treated as a problem with that particular individual.

Between experience and social perception, therefore, lies another process: cognition. Experienced facts do not automatically become social understanding. People classify experiences, assign meaning to them, and place them within categories they already possess.

Part X examines these cognitive processes. If the Balanced Coexistence Model seeks to reduce distrust, it must look not only at institutions and experiences, but also at the cognitive structures through which people understand the world.

2. Categorization Is a Necessary Human Ability

People do not understand every object and person in the world entirely as an individual case. To process enormous amounts of information efficiently, we group similar things into categories.

“Employees,” “students,” “older people,” “tourists,” “foreigners,” and “Japanese” are examples of such classifications. Categorization allows us to simplify a complex society and make some predictions about what may happen next.

Categorization itself should therefore not be regarded as inherently harmful. It is an essential function of human cognition.

The problem arises when categories are mistaken for reality itself. The category “foreigner” may be necessary for administrative, statistical, legal, or everyday purposes. Yet within that category are people who differ greatly in nationality, status of residence, purpose of coming to Japan, length of stay, occupation, age, language ability, family circumstances, and values.

A category is a tool for understanding reality. It is not reality itself.

3. “Foreigner” Is an Extremely Broad Category

Few social categories bring together as diverse a range of people as the word “foreigner.”

A permanent resident born and raised in Japan, a tourist who arrived yesterday, an international student, a Specified Skilled Worker, a business owner, a researcher, a diplomat, and an applicant for refugee recognition may all be described, legally or in everyday language, as “foreigners.”

Yet their relationships with Japanese society are fundamentally different. Their purposes of stay, rights and obligations, social connections, and expectations for the future are not the same.

Nevertheless, expressions such as “foreign resident problems,” “foreign resident policy,” “foreign crime,” or “coexistence with foreigners” can sometimes obscure these differences.

There are, of course, situations in which “foreign nationals” is a necessary policy category. But the scope of the category should be narrowed according to the question being discussed. Are we discussing tourism policy, foreign labor policy, permanent residence, or refugee policy? These issues may be related, but they are not identical.

The Balanced Coexistence Model does not seek to eliminate the word “foreigner.” Rather, it asks us to remain conscious of what the category brings together and what differences it may conceal.

4. People Tend to See “Them” as More Similar Than They Really Are

Social psychology has long examined the tendency for people to perceive members of groups to which they do not belong as more similar to one another than they actually are. This tendency is commonly described as the “outgroup homogeneity effect.”

Within our own group, individual differences are easy to see. When Japanese people think about other Japanese people, they know that some are kind and others are not, some follow rules and others do not, and people differ greatly in their personalities, lifestyles, and beliefs.

When people have little everyday contact with another group, however, they have fewer opportunities to observe differences within it. As a result, simplified perceptions such as “those people are like this” can develop more easily.

This phenomenon is not limited to Japanese perceptions of foreign residents. The same cognitive process may operate when foreign residents generalize that “Japanese people all think alike” or that “Japanese people never say what they really think.”

For the Balanced Coexistence Model, it is important not to explain this phenomenon solely through malice or prejudice. Human cognition itself has a tendency to simplify groups perceived as external to one’s own.

5. When One Person’s Behavior Becomes a Judgment About “Foreigners”

When categorization and outgroup homogeneity operate together, there is a risk that the behavior of one individual will be interpreted as a characteristic of an entire group.

Suppose a foreign resident fails to follow local garbage disposal rules. The fact that can actually be established is limited: one individual, in one particular situation, failed to follow a rule.

But if that person is strongly perceived through the category “foreigner,” the event may be generalized into the conclusion that “foreigners do not follow garbage disposal rules.”

If a Japanese resident engaged in the same behavior, it might instead be interpreted simply as “that person has bad manners.” Because people are familiar with the diversity within their own group, they are less likely to generalize one individual’s conduct to the entire group.

The point is not to minimize misconduct. When a rule is violated, the conduct itself should be addressed appropriately. The question is whether an individual’s responsibility should be transformed into an attribute of an entire group.

It is entirely possible to hold individuals accountable while avoiding unjustified generalizations about groups.

6. News Can Reinforce Categories

Chapter 48 examined how news, reputation, and experience contribute to social perception. Categorization also plays an important role here.

When an incident is reported, the nationality of a person involved may sometimes be mentioned. In some cases, nationality may be relevant to understanding the event; in others, it may not be. But when nationality is repeatedly emphasized, individual incidents may become associated in memory with the broader category of “foreigners.”

By contrast, similar incidents involving Japanese nationals are often not perceived through a category such as “incidents committed by Japanese people.” Because the majority identity usually remains in the background, the incident is more easily understood as the conduct of an individual.

This does not mean that the media should avoid reporting information about nationality. What matters is distinguishing between information that is relevant to understanding an event and conclusions that can legitimately be generalized from that information.

One incident is one incident. What, if anything, it tells us about a larger group must be examined separately.

7. Statistics Also Depend on How Categories Are Defined

The problem of categorization arises not only in everyday impressions but also in the interpretation of statistics.

If figures are presented for “foreigners” as a single group, major differences within that population may disappear from view. Length of residence, age distribution, employment status, status of residence, and geographic location can all affect the phenomena being observed.

The meaning of statistics also changes depending on the population used for comparison. Comparing absolute numbers is different from comparing population rates, and the picture may change again when factors such as age or employment status are taken into account.

Statistics can be a powerful tool for correcting cognitive bias. But if categories are defined too broadly, statistics themselves can reinforce excessive generalization.

The Balanced Coexistence Model does not call for selecting numbers that support a preferred conclusion. It requires us to explain what population is being measured, what comparison is being made, and how far the available evidence actually allows us to draw conclusions.

8. Breaking Categories Down Can Reveal Reality

One way to reduce the risk of cognitive distortion is to subdivide categories when the purpose of the discussion requires it.

Instead of speaking simply about “foreigners,” we can distinguish among tourists, international students, workers, permanent residents, and other groups. If those categories remain too broad, they can be further divided according to status of residence, length of stay, occupation, region, or other relevant factors.

Once this is done, what initially appeared to be a general “foreigner problem” may turn out to be concentrated in a particular institution, industry, region, or stage of life.

When causes are identified more precisely, responses can also become more precise. If the issue concerns explaining local rules to tourists, it can be addressed through tourism policy. If it concerns working conditions for foreign employees, labor administration and employment management may be more relevant. If it concerns education or aging among long-term residents, the appropriate framework may increasingly be ordinary resident or social policy rather than “foreigner policy.”

Breaking categories down does not conceal problems. It helps identify where problems actually exist.

9. But Categories Cannot Be Eliminated

At the same time, we should not conclude that thinking in categories is itself wrong.

Public policy cannot be designed without categories. Statuses of residence are categories. Workers, students, minors, and older people are also categories that may be necessary for different policies. Classification is essential when different circumstances require different institutional responses.

The goal is therefore not to eliminate categories, but to understand their limits.

For what purpose was a category created? How much diversity exists within it? Can a classification that is useful in one context legitimately be applied in another?

The same questions apply to the category “foreigner.” It may be legally significant in immigration administration, but nationality alone does not provide sufficient information for judging someone’s ability, personality, reliability, or conduct as a neighbor or colleague.

We need categories, but we should not allow categories to become absolute.

10. Interpersonal Experience Turns “Them” Back into Individuals

The interpersonal experiences discussed in Part IX can play an important role in correcting excessive categorization.

Without direct relationships, “foreigners” can remain an abstract group. But when people work together, talk, solve problems, and sometimes disagree, the other person gradually becomes visible as a specific individual rather than merely as a category.

A person who was initially seen simply as “a foreign colleague” may come to be understood as “a colleague who works quickly,” “someone who explains things carefully,” “someone who is sometimes late,” or “someone who loves football.” The individual becomes visible through multiple characteristics.

This does not require ignoring the fact that the person is a foreign national. Nationality or cultural background may be relevant in some contexts. But it ceases to be the single characteristic through which the entire person is understood.

High-quality interpersonal experience matters not merely because it may increase positive feelings. It also makes visible the individual differences that exist within abstract social categories.

11. Creating “Them” Also Creates “Us”

Categorizing an outgroup has another important effect. Creating “them” simultaneously creates “us.”

When people say, “foreigners are like this,” there is often an implicit comparison behind the statement: “Japanese people are not like that.”

Yet Japanese people are no more uniform than any other large population. Some follow rules and others do not. Some participate actively in their communities while others rarely do. Some understand tax and social insurance systems well, while others have limited knowledge of them.

When an outgroup is simplified, the ingroup may also appear more orderly and consistent than it actually is.

This leads to the next question in Part X. Why do people not only simplify outside groups, but sometimes evaluate their own group more favorably?

The next chapter examines what happens to our perception of “us” when a category of “them” emerges. Through the concepts of ingroup bias and collective self-enhancement, we will consider how judgments about foreign residents are also deeply connected to the way Japanese people perceive their own group.

12. Balanced Coexistence Requires Us to Keep Questioning Categories

The Balanced Coexistence Model does not reject the category of “foreigner.” States have legal distinctions based on nationality, immigration systems classify statuses of residence, and public policy must define the populations to which particular rules apply.

But categories that are necessary for institutional purposes should not automatically become judgments about human beings themselves.

One person’s behavior should not automatically become a characteristic of an entire group. Group statistics should not be directly applied to the evaluation of an individual. When a problem occurs, we should ask as specifically as possible which person, institution, condition, or combination of factors produced it.

This principle is not intended only to protect foreign residents. The same principle applies when foreign residents generalize about Japanese people.

Human beings cannot understand the world without categories. But if we attempt to understand the world only through categories, we risk misunderstanding reality.

Instead of asking, “What is this person like because they are a foreigner?” we should ask, “What is this individual actually like?” Instead of assuming something because a person is Japanese, we should again ask about the individual. And when individual behavior alone cannot explain a problem, we should ask, “What institutional or environmental conditions may be producing this behavior?”

By adding awareness of cognition to the experiential learning examined in Part IX, the Balanced Coexistence Model moves one step deeper. Society must learn not only about foreign residents. It must also learn to examine the cognition through which “we” perceive them.