sychologist Yueh-Ting Lee received P an electronic mail message several years ago that included some barbed observations about the quality of life in several countries. Heaven is a place with an American house, Chinese food, British police, a German car, and French Lee's correspondent wrote. Hell is a place with a Japanese house, Chinese police, British food, German art, and a French car. While these national stereotypes fall short of absolute truths, asserts Lee of Westfield (Mass.) State College, they are accurate enough to give the aphorism its humorous punch. Houses in the United States indeed boast more space, on average, than Japanese dwellings. A Chinese inn probably holds greater culinary potential than a British pub. In this respect, stereotypes, rather than representing unjustified prejudices, typically function as thought-efficient starting points for understanding other cultures and social groups, as well as the individuals who belong to them, Lee holds. Stereotypes are probabilistic beliefs we use to categorize people, objects, and events, Lee proposes. We have to have stereotypes to deal with so much information in a world with which we are often uncertain and unfamiliar. Many psychologists find this opinion about as welcome as a cut in their research grants. They view stereotyping as a breeding ground for errant generalizations about others that easily congeal into racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry. In the squalid realm of stereotypes, mental acumen goes begging, while misjudgment reigns, maintains Charles Stangor of the University of Maryland at College Park. People employ stereotypes mainly to simplify how they think about others and to enhance their views of themselves and the groups to which they belong, Stangor holds. In the hands of politically powerful folks, stereotypes abet efforts to stigmatize and exploit selected groups, he adds. Stangor's argument fails to give stereotypes their due as often helpful, if not absolutely precise, probes of the social world, Lee responds. He contends that a growing body of research suggests that in many real-life situations, stereotypes accurately capture cultural or group differences. Much of this evidence appears in Stereotype Accuracy: Toward Appreciating Group Differences (1995, American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C.), a book edited by Lee and two other psychologists, Lee J. Jussim of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and Clark McCauley of Bryn Mawr (Pa.) College.