Schemus Great Expectations

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.

Stereotyping is a natural human activity that counsellors and therapists also do. The value of a stereotype is that it can provide a useful shorthand for both counsellor and client, so they do not have to rewrite getting to know a person from scratch. It is a vital function of our memory systems.

The purpose of stereotypes is to help us know how to interact with others. Each classification has associations, scripts and so on that we use to interpret what they are saying, decide if they are good or bad, and choose how to respond to them (or not).

Stereotypes have great impacts on people all over the world. One of the reasons why people believe stereotypes blindly is that they know less about the objects. In order to decline the uncertainty of this new object, people choose to believe the stereotypes to feel safer. For the purpose of understanding the world more objectively, we ought to treat stereotypes critically and at least not be convinced of stereotypes blindly anymore.

Stereotypes are present in everyday life and they affect how were perceive other groups or individuals. As most individuals are a member of one societal group or another, it would be beneficial to examine why stereotypes form, and why some are more common than others. The purpose of this study is to identify circumstances in which an illusory correlation will be formed and how that may lead to the formation of stereotypes. An illusory correlation is the existence of a relationship, when no relationship actually exists.

I do have personal experience with stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. As a Dominican I have been facing stereotypes since I was in middle school in Puerto Rico in the 80’s, people were making jokes , saying that I was an illegal immigrant even thought I migrated from my country with an legal status already established. I was a child so didn’t understand, until I begin watching the news and reading newspapers and realized that I was mistreated by others, because of the stereotype , they believe that I was just another Dominican is coming to Puerto Rico in a boat like some of them did. I was really frustrated that I just adopt the Puerto Rican accent and hide my nationality as much as I could possibly hide.

Stereotyping is a form of social categorization which affects the behavior of those who hold the stereotype and those who are labeled by a stereotype.

Schemas are mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2010). The accessibility of schemas makes them easier to retrieve in social situations. Priming is also relevant in how people apply schemas. Researchers in Germany pursued the idea that stereotypes organize as multiple, context-specific schemas that activate only by a combination of category and context information

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.

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

According to Allport, the process of categorization is the basis to develop prejudice and stereotypes. People think in categories and the mind forms groups and classes to guide our daily actions. Dahl also verifies that the predictions we make about “Others” is based on stereotypes and that this is necessary and it is a process that we cannot avoid. If categorization is a natural cognitive process and all categorization leads to generalization, then stereotype is also a natural cognitive process. Categories are necessary to give meaning to our reality and to create structure, however they are flexible and they change. On the other hand stereotypes seem to give us a feeling of order and security but they are inflexible and try to reinforce one particular image over others. Stereotypes still persist even when we know better because they help to create a positive self-image and they are to a large degree attached to ideologies (Christoffanini). Furthermore, we represent Others by using language or images, which allow us to portray Others in ways

I believe stereotype & prejudice in Romeo & Juliet should be important in society because stereotype & prejudice still happens today like the Travon Martin case. Stereotype & prejudice is part of everyday society. Stereotype is to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristics are the same. Prejudice is an unfair feeling of dislike for a person or group because of race, sex, religion, etc.: a feeling of like or dislike for someone or something especially when it is not reasonable or logical. Like the wide variety of prejudices that exist in societies around the world, the consequences of the prejudices and the behavior influenced by them are similarly varied.

Some parts of information were forgotten and others were exaggerated. Bartlett's study showed how our cultural expectations or stereotypes lead to predictable changes in memory. Stereotypes are schemas that summarize large amounts of information. Like schemas, stereotypes influence memory. He argued that schemas affect the retrieval process rather than the initial storage, but a study by Cohen (1981) suggested that schemas and stereotypes are important at both stages of memory: initial storage and retrieval.

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.

Stereotype are used to project society views on culture, simplify society to convince the society of a certain representation. According to Walter Lippman, Stereotype is highly charged with the feelings, a projection upon the world of own sense and own value. It puts labels about how a person should behave or live. Richard Dyer has discusses different stereotypes in film which is needed to portray a narrative and how it cause problems. Stereotype is a form of ordering process, a way to categorised and organised society which help to avoid chaos and confusion. Stereotype is a shortcut, allowing society to see an aspect of the world, they are characterised by traits that are easily recognizable which allow the society to define groups of people