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Stereotyping Stereotypes

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When we use stereotypes, we are criticizing someone, for example, when we say all police officers are corrupt, all men who aren’t into sports are gay or all blonde women are dumb. Stereotyping is a result of incompetence on distorted information accepted as a fact without question. A stereotype is simply a widely-held belief that an individual is a member of a certain group based upon characteristics. Stereotyping can be positive, for example, all Blacks are good at sports, all Asians are good at math or French people are romantic. Stereotypes can also help identify how to interact with each other, for example Canadians are exceptionally polite. Either way stereotyping is morally wrong and judgmental. If your group is positively stereotyped in an area, then you can endure a lot more frustration and difficultly before you assume or infer that you don't belong in that domain (Steele, 2010). This paper will focus on the origin of stereotyping, how stereotypes affect judgement and behavior and will explore profiling versus stereotyping.

“Stereotyping is defined as an oversimplified, usually pejorative, attitude people hold toward those outside one's own experience who are different. They are a result of incomplete or distorted information accepted as fact without question. A stereotype is simply a widely-held belief that an individual is a member of a certain group based on characteristics. Due to the process of overgeneralization within social perception, stereotyping leads to a great deal of inaccuracy in social perception” (Chandler, n.d.). ##My stance is## Stereotyping is always morally wrong and judgmental. How you reach your opinion of others makes it morally wrong, when you encounter someone for the first time you should not have a prejudged notion of that person, first impressions should always start from zero. The most ethical place to begin is to acknowledge that you have biases and stereotypes and once your interaction starts then place them accordingly. Stereotyping is a mental shortcut and this isn’t always negative although we should be aware that we all harmlessly do it and must always be conscious of it.
As humans, we want to associate quickly for instance, tiger, danger, don’t

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