Why Is Stereotyping Important?

In the essay The Way We Lie, Stephanie Ericsson writes that “All the ‘isms’-racism, sexism, ageism, et al.-are founded on and fueled by the stereotype and the cliché, which are lies of exaggeration, omission, and ignorance. They are always dangerous. They take a single tree and make it a landscape.” This quote is important due to the fact that stereotypes play a major role in many aspects of our society. In American society we have a tendency to pass judgment on people just because of a pre-existing stereotype that our society has formed on particular groups over the years. American Society tends to create stereotypes because of the simplicity it adds to our lives, but stereotypes can cause us to oversimplify the characteristics

During the time I was born, in the 90’s, stereotypes were taught to children through school, family members, and media. “A stereotype is a mental category based on exaggerated and inaccurate generalizations used to describe all members of a group” (Bennett 91). As a child, I obviously did not realize I was being taught these cruel definitions based to categorize people into which racial group they should belong to. To put it another way, Bennett states, “As psychologists have pointed out, stereotyping is a natural phenomenon in that all humans develop mental categories to help make sense of their environments” (91). Provided that, I stereotyped my interviewee the same exact way numerous people stereotype me. For this reason, to better understand both the interviewee and myself racial identity, I consequently analyzed how we each portrait the world we live in.

Stereotypes are socially constructed, over-generalized views regarding a particular group of persons with certain characteristics that are widely accepted, and usually expected, in a society. The dominant group of a certain society, which in this case is probably Caucasians and men, usually creates these social constructions. Claude M. Steele, a researcher from Stanford University, performed multiple research studies on the idea and psychological effects of stereotypes on its victims. In his studies, he coins the term “stereotype threat” as the “social-psychological predicament that can arise from widely-known negative stereotypes about one's group,” which implies that “the existence of such a stereotype means that anything one does or any of one's features that conform to it make the stereotype more plausible as a self-characterization in the eyes of others, and perhaps even in one's own eyes” (Steele 797).

Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping are important topics at the cause of debating within social psychology. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits cling to all members, regardless of actual individual variation (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2010). As humans, people assign objects and individuals into categories to organize the environment. Individuals do this for not only organization, but also survival. Is stereotyping inevitable? That is the question; according to Devine (2007), it is, but Lepore and Brown (2007) have to disagree. Devine believes that “stereotyping is automatic, which makes it inevitable.” On the other hand, Lepore and Brown are not convinced that stereotyping is

Stereotyping and discrimination are very deeply ingrained in American culture. Even though there have been movements taken to combat stereotyping and discrimination such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights movement, and the Black Lives Matter Movement, it still exists. This raises the question of, how do we end it? While there is no definite answer there is a way to avoid stereotyping and discrimination. The three essayists Bharati Mukherjee, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Brent Staples and show that by learning about stereotyping, people can also learn how to change themselves to avoid discrimination based on stereotypes. By comparing and contrasting these essayists experiences as well as outside research to show the theme of why people

Stereotyping is a normal part of every one’s life. Humans, by nature, classify things. We name animals and classify them by common characteristics but stereotyping can have negative repercussions, and everyone does it. In a recent study it was proven that everyone has an unconscious need to stereotype (Paul). In Junteenth and The Invisible man, Ralph Ellison argues that stereotyping can cause mayhem by making the people become something they are not.

In life, there is a common ground on which most every person can relate. At one time or another, we have all been promoters of or victims of the unremitting nature of stereotypes. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” Most stereotypes take on a negative form and are based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, status, and personal beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest problem that arises with stereotypes is that they judge group of people by the characteristics and actions of their ancestors, rather than on an individual basis. More often than not, these assumptions will

Every day, millions of people judge others based on the stereotypes that apply to them, and some do not even know it. Most times these misjudgments are harmless, however, they can definitely be destructive. False judgments based on the stereotypes one perceives can make a total stranger seem like a menace to society. Although some say they do not act in this manner, the issue of stereotypes is large yet hardly admitted of use. In worse case scenarios the false misjudgement of a person or persons may lead to harmful actions. The most important lesson gained from reading Night, Of Mice and Men, and watching Angel of Bergen-Belsen is that one cannot use stereotypes to judge others because the victim could be the total opposite of the judgments

Many people have an oversimplified and erroneous view of a certain group of people. Stereotypes are typically associated with having negative connotations of a particular group of people. In many occasions, positive qualities of the group are overlooked and they are instead categorized by social norms created by stereotypes. Stereotyping affects everyone, whether it is through the discrimination of age, race, gender

1. Dovidio, J. F., & John, M. (2013). Stereotype. In P. L. Mason (Ed.), Encyclopedia of race and racism (2nd ed.). Farmington, MI: Gale. Retrieved from http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/galerace/stereotype/0?institutionId=4358

When social psychologist Claude Steele began writing about the problem of stereotype threats in the 1990s, many other researchers began to do the same thing. Steele offered that when members of certain groups can be stereotyped in a negative way, they will be seen “through the lens of diminishing stereotypes and low expectations” (1999, p.44). According to Kassin, Fein, and Markus, stereotype threat is defined as “The experience of concern about being evaluated based on negative stereotypes about one’s group.” Steele concluded that stereotype threat can be achieved in two ways: reactions to “threat in the

In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into

Most people find stereotypes to be obnoxious, especially when they have to do with sensitive subjects like gender or race. “Stereotyping is a generalization about a group or category of people that can have a powerful influence on how we perceive others and their communication behaviors” (Floyd, 61). Because they underestimate the differences among individuals in a group, stereotyping can lead to inaccurate and offensive perceptions of other people. Although stereotypes are prevalent in almost every society, becoming aware of our perceptions of others, as well as differentiating between both positive and negative stereotypes can help us overcome those stereotypes.

The presences of stereotypes are overwhelming and are developed by both the environment a subject is raised in and their family. Stereotypes, which are pervasive throughout different societies, become intertwined in the collective values of the society as justification for all forms of social, economic, and political inequality among groups (Devine and Elliot 2000;Kaplan 2004; Operario and Fiske 2004). As people become more exposed to stereotypes they start to become a permanent part of a person’s life, they begin to stereotype themselves almost always involuntarily.

Stereotypes have an overwhelming effect especially on the people they are directed towards. Studying stereotypes helps in understanding the factors leading to discrimination of certain people and not others. This is because stereotypes are depictive of opinions that are often passed from one generation to another within a particular culture. Mass media such as television and newspapers form a common source of opinions in the contemporary society (Kotter & Hess, 2012). The media presents messages in steady, repetitive, and compelling manner, making them believable to almost everybody. Stereotyping opinion and depictions from the media can thus have detrimental effects on the