Educated Guess Essay

The journal article used in reference to stereotyping was retrieved from the The Journal of Experimental Psychology. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how being exposed to social stereotypes can subconsciously affect our behavior. The article explores the theory that if the self is compared to the social stereotype of a perceived out-group, a group with which one does not identify, one will subconsciously behave differently. Therefore, there will be disparities between the similarities

First of all, stereotypes are destructive and prevent or discourage individual growth because it can cause violence and harm. For example,

Knowledge of negative stereotypes can influence people’s performance. Stereotype threat creates extra performance pressure through apprehensiveness about conforming to negative stereotypes (Woolfolk &

Furthermore, stereotypes are used to increase an individual’s self-esteem and strengthen their social identity. Social identity theory contributes largely to the formation of stereotypes, as it states that a person’s social identity is formed from being part of a group. To justify one’s own group, they often pick out real or imaginary differences and flaws in other groups and compare those to their own group (Ford & Tonander, 1998). This led Ford

Being of target of bias can affect socialization due to the negatives attitudes that it entails.

Generally we want to approach decisions with placing ourselves in another’s shoes, however, seeing past how we view ourselves within our own racial group can again lead to stereotyping behavior.

Stereotyping characteristics are associated with our past experiences of the particular group’s characterization and thus, in essence, we would have to have a certain picture of that group’s social behaviors on our minds. Eventually, such characterization leads to the generalization of the entire group’s social and cognitive behaviors that we believe are inbound or depict the true

In our lives there are many different cognitive biases that can interfere with our ability to solve problems and/or make rational decisions. One that I think is especially problematic, and has been for quite some time, is representativeness heuristic. This is defined as the tendency to make judgments about a group membership based on physical appearances or the match between a person and one’s stereotype of a group rather than on base rate information. And essentially, a stereotype is the use of concepts to make generalizations about a group of people. (pgs. 252-253) Stereotyping in this country is, and always has been, a huge problem.

In today’s society it has become a norm to make assumptions of an individual and categorize them into groups that fit them. This would be known as stereotyping, and it occurs everyday and almost everywhere. It can affect someone’s everyday life along with their emotions. A stereotype is a widely held idea or image of a a group of people and is based off of some truth, while misconceptions are based off no evidence at all. Stereotypes can either be positive or negative. Stereotypes exist because that’s how the human brain functions, they see something that repeats within a group of people and that’s how stereotyping begins. An example of a positive stereotype would be that African-Americans are very athletic. However, there can be some negative

Negative stereotypes could lead to many negative consequences. Fiske (2014), a professor of University of Massachuse refer that stereotypes are automatic responses, which have an impact on individuals’ decision

In Chapter 3, there were 12 areas of bias spread across the 3 areas of heuristics. The main theme of the text was to prove that we are predisposed to certain outcomes. As we make important decisions we rely on our memory, or a number of past events, or even ignoring facts. Overall, we are biased in many ways when it comes to making decisions, or predicting outcomes of a particular event.

Stereotypes is one of the most common causes of racism. Through radio, through television, through the internet, through music, through books, and many alike, the real potential for stereo types to arise are an inevitable possibility. Parents, willingly or not, expose and teach their children, subconsciously, by saying statements and/or watching programs that involve racism. When there is a constant source of negativity towards a certain race, then it will eventually effect the overall opinions of the populous. (The 4)

Furthermore, these processes are potentially subject to bias due to “the assimilative effects of existing knowledge on information processing” (Macrae, Stangor & Hewstone, 1996). It is essential to comprehend these concepts before delving into the importance of stereotypes when forming impressions of others. In the initial stage of developing schemas, they allow the individual to ignore what is perceived to be unimportant or unnecessary details of a situation, thus reducing the complexity of the information (Macrae, Stangor & Hewstone, 1996). Indeed, schemas guide behaviour and allow a platform for individuals to make mental shortcuts and damaging stereotypes, they can also simplify life and are useful in every day situations (Macrae, Stangor & Hewstone, 1996). For example, if one had an existing stereotype that guns are dangerous and hastily decided to move to the other side of the street after noticing a man with a gun – this would be an extremely useful and possibly life-saving use of a stereotype. However, whether stereotypes are considered to be beneficial or unconstructive – they are undeniably important when forming impressions of other

Availability heuristic can be defined as making a choice based on immediate and easy examples that comes to the mind more easily when evaluating a decision. Even though availability heuristic has many pros such as saving time when making a choice, it does come with cons. This is because the availability heuristic distorts our understanding of real threats and risks. For example, Tom is a 10-year-old boy that adores puppies and loves playing with them. One day he saw a puppy bite its owner. Due to this small incident, Tom avoids playing with puppies even though the likelihood of it happening is slim. Since this heuristic draws from immediate and easy examples, it uses system 1 to evaluate our decisions. As we already know system 1 can lead to a lot of incorrect assessments in comparison to system 2.

It has been previously proven, that in the first few moments of meeting someone, we form an opinion of them. The problem with this idea is stereotypes. One of our society's biggest mistake is that we judge people based on what they look like, or how they act.