The Positive And Negative Aspects Of Stereotypes

Christina Barrow had a passion for science as a child. She majored in electrical engineering when she got out of high school. Then, she went on to pursuing a degree in medical physics that combined her love for math, modern medicine, and physics. Christina works as a medical physicists. She is responsible for radiation treatments for cancer patients.

Being Hispanic is the best thing to happen to me because I get to prove people wrong. Coming from Hispanic dissent means that I constantly have to prove that I am capable of becoming someone important. Throughout my life I’ve always had situations where I was judged because of my color or the fact that my last name was Sanchez one of the most common Mexican last names. Don’t get me wrong there might be many negative stereotypes about Hispanics but there are also many positive stereotypes like having a large, close knit family.

America is a melting pot as people from different cultures make up a vast part of American society. Nevertheless, without knowing it, humans subconsciously put those around them into different categories based upon how one may act, look or speak. This action is known as stereotyping. Stereotyping has existed for centuries and even in today's modern world. Yet, the question is being raised among people regarding its existence. Despite that most people believe it is wrong to stereotype others, many still firmly hold on to the idea that stereotyping is necessary to a certain degree. Therefore, this paper will suggest not only the danger of stereotype but also the risk of never stereotyping as well, and tell a story about a time when I actually stereotyped a person.

Stereotypes both positive and negative follow all races, genders, and socioeconomic classes; we all carry preconceived ideas of others based on past experiences, the media, or what we have been told by others. Negative stereotypes that follow Hispanics are that they are 'illegals', when on the contrary, most come to the United States legally on Visa's, resident alien passes, or through the Naturalization process. Recently, the media has criminalized Hispanics, placing blame on a this group for the surge in crime in metropolitan cities across the U.S. Lastly, there is the thought that Hispanics are 'stealing jobs' from 'true Americans' (whatever that is).

Did you know that when you first meet someone it takes only 7 seconds for them to form an opinion of you. Although, stereotypes are a big factor in making people perceive you in a different way. So what are stereotypes? In simple terms, Stereotypes are an unnecessary form of categorization that helps people to simplify information and to explain and justify their inappropriate actions.

Have you ever felt belittled by a common stereotype? It has become common nature to use a stereotype as an offensive insult. To be specific, a stereotype is an adopted thought about particular types of individuals or certain ways to accomplish things. Most of the time, stereotypes do not accurately represent reality but instead opens the doors of inequality and discrimination. Stereotyping is dangerous because it often leads to school bullying attacks. This kind of outlook also makes individuals, such as the LGBT+ community, terrified to openly confess their sexual orientation. On the contrary, people who have accepted racial, gender, or sexual orientation stereotypes, are also dreadful of articulating their opinions out of dread of being called racist, sexist or homophobes. As a result of labels, I was exposed to such individuals who have subscribed to racial stereotypes.

Hello Maria, you are always on top of things, and I enjoy reading your posts. We seem to think similarly on almost all of the discussions, and this week our posts are almost a mirror image. However, in regard to part C, when you responded to my post you expressed a more positive perception than what I perceive. Although, I mostly agree with you, my thoughts, depending on the circumstances, are slightly more negative.

A stereotype is a fixed, overgeneralized belief about a particular group or class of people.” (Cardwell, 1996). We do this to protect ourselves, it is in our nature to associate what we have seen or heard and apply it to new situations. One advantage of a stereotype is that it enables us to respond rapidly to situations because we may have had a similar experience before.

Stereotypes are an official representation of a community. That’s an obvious lie, but stereotypes are a concept that is seen as the unofficial yet official view of a certain community. Stereotypes are a complex yet simple concept that can either reinforce or dismantle someone’s view on another individual. Specifically, cultural stereotypes that are broadcasted on a basis. In a sense, cultural stereotyping can negatively affect the individual experience by minimizing their value, which then leads to how they’re viewed by society, and how they’re treated.

A person with smaller eyes and more yellowish skin tone like myself will be asked the question,” Are you Chinese or Korean?” at some point of time in their live span. Now in the modern ages , especially in America , we tend to assume a widely, simplified or distorted image with the people around us which is known as stereotypes. For example, when we see people who have a white colored skin tone we tend to make the generalization that they are the typical Americans that eat burgers and fries every night; what we do not know is that they could be Bulgarian, German or British. Just because people have a certain appearance on the outside does not allow us to place a name on who they truly are. In the VOA News article,” US Public’s Labeling of Chinese Americans as ‘Asians’ Poses challenges”, an Asian American rights activist and former journalist says,” The public’s lack of consciousness about who we are, where we come from and how we are not all the same, is pretty much stuck where it’s been” (Lipin).

Stereotypes can be defined as a generalized group of people that can lead to an oversimplified image of an individual, and they impact our society in many ways (Stereotype). For example, in an interview with Guy Raz from NPR, Jamila Lyiscott says, “So it’s almost like- it’s almost like the stereotype becomes the way you start to view yourself ” (Staff). This evidence shows that Jamila’s experience proves that we are all affected by stereotypes. This tells how stereotypes impact our society by someone caring about what other people think of them. Clearly, stereotypes affect society by people’s opinions on each other.

Stereotypes are assumptions or generalizations that people think and label a particular person as belonging to a group based on how they look in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and other categories. Stereotypes are a big problem in our society because they have a negative impact and can be damaging to a person’s emotions. Thus, any stereotype on individuals can be viewed as wrong because in the end we are judging them. I was stereotyped as a thief because some people assumed I was stealing. As a result, I was affected by this because if they stopped to see what I was actually doing, they would have seen I was buying a box to give someone a present.

Barbara Kruger, an American conceptual artist, once said “All violence is the illustration of a pathetic stereotype” (All). Stereotypes are at the basis of every dispute, argument, or violence we as people are quick to judge other people even if we have never got to know the person we’re criticizing. If stereotypes continue we will become a world with separated groups of people that are at war with each other.

Martina Navratilova once said, “Labels are for clothing, labels are not for people.” Stereotypes are labels we give to people. Society thinks it’s acceptable to give others labels based on their looks, way of living, etc. We live in a world full of stereotypes, they are everywhere. We lose the opportunity to get to know someone by judging them because of a stereotype. Stereotypes are shown in many different ways, they have a negative impact on society.

Schemas are significant in society as they categorize a large number of people into small groups based on similar attributes. Research has defined stereotypes as being ‘shared schemas of social groups’ (G. Neil Martin, Neil R. Carlson, William Buskist, 2013, pp. 596). Although schemas can be positive, they can often lead to circumstances in which those who exhibit a certain stereotype may face instances of prejudice and discrimination. Vescio et al. (2005, as cited in Martin et al., 2013) showed that an example of a popular stereotype would be that women are weaker than men. Women who are presented with this stereotype are likely to fall victim to prejudices and discrimination frequently from the male gender.