Categories of people have a better chance of being more widely distributed and used within a social circle when:

They have functional effects for that group, for example, offering a stabilizing response to recurrent communication breakdowns or uncertainties.
The production source of the categories is significant or endowed with a high reputation of trustworthiness.
The new category bears relation to categories that are already established within the social group.
The categories are frequently used.


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Count - e.g. over time we have seen the number of autistic people increase from 1 in 57 to 1 in 36 etc. this does not necessarily mean that the prevalence of autism is increasing, but it could also be because more expanded definitions are more awareness of autism leads to more possible diagnoses. 
 
Quantity - Where do we draw the line for when someone fits into a category, e.g. at what point is someone considered by medical practitioners to be ‘overweight’ vs. ‘obese’ and how is this defined by the general weight of a given population?

Create Norms - The practice of deciding what is the normal human experience and what is pathologized as being outside the normal human experience. 

Correlate -  Trying to tie a problem to a solution e.g. attempts at correlating autism with vaccines, or Advil usage by pregnant people.

Medicalise - viewing something as a medical problem. 

Biologise - viewing a condition as biologically caused or innate, can cause things to no longer be seen as moral defects but also can blur larger societal blame e.g. viewing depression as a problem with hormonal imbalances. 

Geneticise - the push to find a genetic origin to things deemed as biological differences. 

Normalise -  the push to take individuals who are deemed to have a disorder and to create therapies as an attempt to force individuals to fit into what we deem as a neurotypical non-disabled society. 

Bureaucratise - Creating systems to diagnose individuals with a disorder and to create an objective way to determine who needs help. The process of defining not just who has a disorder but what that disorder is through a feedback loop.  

Reclaim one's identity -  The push by individuals who have been medicalized to take back control from experts and institutions often by creating new experts and new institutions e.g. the removal of homosexuality from the DSM. 


Ten Engines used by Experts for 'Discovering Types' of People

Sparti, D.(2001)Making up People: On Some Looping Effects of the Human Kind - Institutional Reflexivity or Social Control? European Journal of Social Theory, 2001(2001).

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