Stereotypes In Society

We often do stereotype others just because it is more simple to refer a person to a particular group.

In a study conducted by Ford and Tonander (1998), it was hypothesized that when one’s social identity was threatened by a group who is largely different from them, that individual is likely to form stereotypes. This is based

From a societal standpoint, these stereotypes that would identify and categorize others is one of the contributing factors that make society judge and discriminate others. To name a

Being identified with a group can shape one’s thoughts on theirself, and what is expected of them within their society. Some things that in one’s mind seem so normal and expected may be far from

However, many of the group-based stereotypes are incorrect and generalizing and it promotes further misunderstandings and prejudice. Prejudice is having a false attitude toward an out-group in comparison to one’s in-group. Prejudiced individuals are prejudging without knowing any information about the “Others” (Rogers and Steinfatt).

Others. That one word distinctively separates people base on a certain trait or characteristic. Society affects us more than we realize. We are oblivious to fact that we have been categorized in a society particularly due to our race, gender, social class. It affects how we react to certain beliefs or people. Barbara Ehrenreich, Allan G. Johnson, and Austin Fuentes all wrote an essay that examines how closely one factor can lead to labeling a person. Each author has creditability in understanding social issues as they have researched social issues and earned a degree for their knowledge. Each essay from these authors focuses on a different topic relating to how as a society label each concept. The writer’s audience is any individual that

Classifying people into distinct groups plays a significant role in the establishment of social perceptions. Common problems in the society such as discrimination, prejudice, and intergroup conflicts are attributed to the categorization of individuals and groups. Portioning people into discrete units is a part of the social classification. These differences result in severe issues in society, for example, conflicts and favoritism, if the perceived differences are not addressed. People overlooking the fact that individuals can be members of a particular group even when they are not seen in the context of others is the primary cause of

In the ideal world, if we all were statisticians, had perfect data, and approached everything objectively, we would distill the portion of stereotypes that were actually real and omit the portion that are societal caricatures. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Observers of humanity like myself will continue to notice patterns in human behavior across heterogeneous groups, but I will make a conscious effort to not let that sully my daily interactions with my friends. I will approach each individual as a person, because they are just that: the politics of their identity are too complex for a feeble mind like my own to accurately discern.

They look for consistency and rational behavior to created norms in everyday social interaction. On the other side of that, there are the people who do not put much effort into figuring out the world around them. They are likely going to not put much thought into the social world around them. These people are called cognitive misers; they use generalities about people or groups in order to make inferences. I believe people are more cognitive misers because we definitely use stereotypes and the easy way out. We do not want to take more time then needed out of our day to worry about other people. We use stereotypes in order to determine who is worth our time and whom we think that we will get along with. There are many ways that people make these quick and effortless inferences, these are

From birth through death, people were given a stereotype label that they do not want but is force to accept it. Stereotypes happen everywhere, whether they are in the past or the present, some of them changed, some did not. Stereotypes passed on from one generation to another and from one’s own judgment also. There are a lot of similarities between the past stereotypes and the present ones.

One of these boundaries includes the race category. We think in terms of stereotypes, rather than finding a common ground with someone who don’t come from the same background as he or she. This results in, that most of us have very little understanding of how people form social segments on how we think, feel and organize our experiences. The term race refers to groups of people who have differences and similarities in biological traits deemed by society to be socially significant. Meaning that people treat people differently because of their ethnicity.

Even though we are composed of the same human anatomy, it is not that which we are identified by. We are identified first by gender, then by race which is followed by other factors. The continuity of the these social constructs leads to the social categories under which people are placed. The issue with social categories is that the people placed in them, for the most part, are very similar to each other. Being surrounded by individuals who are similar to us has a way of messing with our minds. An environment of similarity leads to the rejection of the qualities which make us unique, both by others and

It is important to note that stereotyping occurs within each individual in a given society,

The next question to ask ourselves is, why do stereotypes form? If how stereotypes form stems either from being a learned behavior or as a way for us to group information, why do they persist even when we know better? Research has shown that stereotypes can develop based on a cognitive mechanism known as illusory correlation, which is an erroneous inference about the relationship between two events. If two events that are statistically infrequent occur at the same time observers will overestimate the frequency at which these events occur together. Events

I think that historically culture has a stereotype for everyone, no matter what race, gender or beliefs that people have. In my own culture people tend to look down on people and judge people based on simple things such as those above. Personal