In 1992 Walter Lipmann coined the term ''stereotype'' and defined it a
s ''pictures in our heads'', but not until the mid-century explosion o
f interest in social perception did the concept come into its own. The
new look in social perception virtually ignored veridical perception
and stressed that what matters is how the individual apprehends whatev
er is out there. This move focused attention on individuals; what they
perceived was considered to result from various cognitive processes a
nd the effect of motives or values on these processes. Moreover, resea
rch used impoverished stimuli to represent target persons, in order to
isolate contributions from both cognitive mechanisms and effective st
ates. In essence, the concept of stereotyping was assimilated into the
cognitive paradigm.