Positive Stereotypes Research Paper

Stereotypes are a form of prejudice everyone will once experience in their lifetime. Stereotypes are centered around an individual's race, gender, social class, religion, and age. They have been known to be elements people use to make judgments and subjectify people to one key feature. As Gordon Allport states, “ To state the matter technically, a noun abstracts from a concrete reality some one features and assembles different concrete realities only with respect to this one feature”(364). Mr.Allport’s words can be summed up to say stereotypes have been used as key fundamentals to associate one feature or aspect of a person with a group that represents it, typically in an unfavorable way.

Racial stereotypes have always been a serious issue in society. The stereotypes impact many aspects of our life. We more or less get carried away by our perceptions toward race, and judge people in a certain frame unconsciously, as Omi set forth in In Living Color: Race and American Culture. Taken by Hilary Swift, this photo presents an African American woman, waiting for a bus that can take her to the Kitchen of Love, a food pantry that located in Philadelphia aiming to feed people suffering from hunger, where she volunteers. It happens in dawn so it’s still dark outside. The surroundings give us an idea that it should take place in a black neighborhood (Stolberg “Black Voters, Aghast at Trump, Find a Place of Food and Comfort”). The woman is staring at the direction where the bus is coming, with a smile on her face. As a photojournalistic image, this photo is aiming to portrait a kind and helpful African American woman, however, does this photo really “positively” portrait an African American woman?

Stereotypes are generalizations about a group of people whereby we attribute a defined set of characteristics to this group. These classifications can be positive or negative, such as when various nationalities are stereotyped as friendly or unfriendly.

“A stereotype is a rigid, oversimplified, often exaggerated belief that is applied both to an entire social category of people and to each individual within it. Stereotypes form the basis for prejudice, which in turn is used to justify discrimination and attitudes. They can be positive as well as negative.” Stereotypes exist within any social group, and social group or cliques which are groups of people who share similar characteristics and interests such as the ones priorly said.

In certain situations, stereotypes can be negative, which in hand, can harm certain ethnicities, racial groups, religions, and other backgrounds. This often alienates certain groups from mainstream societies, as if they are an "other." This further in hand can, lead to heated friction and division among groups, which is not a good thing, and is the "cancer" of a benevolent, developed society. Certain examples of negative (falsified) stereotypes are that African-Americans are violent, Asian-Americans are bad drivers, Latin-Americans can't speak English properly, Middle Easterners are misogynic, White Americans are racist, etc. Of course, these stereotypes in all cases are NOT true, yet sadly the general population tends to seek them as true.

The use of stereotypes is a major way in which we simplify our social world; since they reduce the amount of processing, we have to do when we meet a new person.

First of all, what are stereotypes? A stereotype is a quality assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality, and sexual orientation, but there is not only one type of stereotype there are actually two types of stereotypes. There are positive and negative ones. For example, a positive stereotype about asians would be that they are smart and polite. A negative one would be something like asians have small eyes or they’re short. Some people may get offended by these and other people will not care about it at all. These are effects from the stereotypes.

All most everyone in there lifetime has stereotyped others are have been a victim of stereotypes. A stereotype is the belief about another culture, race or a person that has no logic or evidence to support there negative thoughts. Many people believe that when a person stereotypes another it is the lack of information or ignorance

A stereotype is a widely held, but fixed and oversimplified image of a person or thing. Stereotypes can drastically affect the way people view themselves and others.

Description Positive attitudes Negative attitudes Strongly Agree (SA) 4.50 - 5 .00 1 Agree (A) 3.50 - 4.49 2 Undecided (U) 2.50 - 3.49 3 Disagree (D) 1.50 - 2.49 4 Strongly Disagree (SD) 1.00 – 1.49 5

Stereotypes are oversimplified views of a person or hobby. All stereotypes fall into three categories, positive,negative, and threat stereotype. Positive stereotypes are positive assumptions based on a person’s look or race. But don’t be fooled by the word positive because positive stereotypes can have the same effect as negative stereotypes, or negative assumptions based on looks or race. The final type is threat stereotype or being

“The literature on occupational segregation in the United States has traditionally focused on segregation by gender and more recently has turned its attention to segregation by race and ethnicity. With respect to gender, much research has documented a reduction in segregation in the second half of the twentieth century and stagnation at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Segregation between African Americans and non-African Americans also decreased in the second half of the past century, but segregation between Hispanics and non-Hispanics increase. Racism is ever prevalent in society today but can it truly affect you financially?” (Rio and Alonso-Villar 967-968). Racial stereotypes are everywhere and that they can affect you in getting

Social phobias, anxieties and negative self-talk are a constant struggle since my early childhood and adult life. The nervousness, fear of rejection, insecurities and self-consciousness makes it difficult to connect with people and to form close relationships. It often feels I am the one of few people who experiences these socially anxious symptoms. Adding to the dilemma, the awkwardness to speak in public is overwhelming, to creating imaginary scenarios in my head, and the uneasiness to order food at a restaurant. The fear to schedule a phone call for an appointment, to rehearse and practice conversations in my head is a daunting daily affair. The process inevitably resorts to negative self-talk when asked to engage and contribute in social

There are many stereotypes in this world that we live in, whether they’re about race, sex, social class, etc, they are pretty much everywhere. Everyone is labeled through either negative or positive stereotypes. We are stereotyped by who we hang out with, what we look like and our actions. Stereotypes are insults that we hear everyday at school. People often as well use stereotypes as a way of humor, but how big of a toll do stereotypes take in a person’s life?

According to McLeod (2008) stereotypes on one hand enable us to respond rapidly to situations because we may have had a similar experience before but on the other hand stereotypes make us ignore differences between individuals; therefore we think things about people that might not be true (i.e. make generalisations). In addition, the use of stereotypes is a major way in which we simplify our social world; since they reduce the amount of processing (i.e. thinking) we have to do when we meet a new person. As such following the above review about stereotypes, let us see what the characteristics of stereotypes are: