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.

What are stereotypes? How do they form? How can we solve this issue for the greater good? There are many definitions to describe a stereotype, but the one that many people agree with, like psychologists is that stereotypes are prejudgments and gossip about the world. However, one phrase that goes perfectly with this topic will be “Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover”. This goes in hand with this topic, because we make prejudgments about how we see our world without knowing what exactly it’s going on around us. In addition, stereotypes start forming throughout our childhood years, since at that age; we learn to define what is right from wrong in our surroundings. One way to resolve this issue is to accept the world as it is. This means that instead

“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.

A "stereotype" is a social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes. Stereotypes are generalizations made about a group and then attributed to all members of that group.

A stereotype is “...a fixed, over generalised belief about a particular group or class of people.” (Cardwell, 1996).

What is a stereotype? In my definition it can be a term used to classify an object or thing, maybe even a person. A stereotype can be a person who has little knowledge of something or none at all. There are a lot of different stereotypes out there. For example, “White men can’t jump” is one used in sports such as basketball. This can be a stereotype to people who have never witnessed a white man dunk a basketball. Larry Bird was arguably one of the best basketball players in the history of the NBA with many awards and achievements to prove it. He was indeed a white man therefore, counterpointing the stereotypical phrase, “white men can't jump.” Just like this one, there are many stereotypes out there with a broad range of phrases or

A “stereotype” is a shortcut for a human’s brain to make a snap judgment based on immediately visible characteristics like gender, race, or age. This is when people become biased. For example, the stereotype that girls can’t play baseball made Timmy Oglethorpe and his friends ignore Hazel and not let her join their game. However, in reality, girls are just as capable as boys.

Clint Smith presents the view of racial stereotypes that plague the lives of many people and how they negatively affect the freedom of choice and activity, of children and adults of race through figurative language and tone. His father sheds light on the boundaries created by society, and struggles to get the truth through to the naive Clint Smith. Clint Smith was unaware of the weight he would be burdened with through his life, and as a kid, he was only worried about having friends and fun. Clint Smith tries to get the point across that, the line between something being viewed as having good and malicious intent, can be skewed, by something as basic and inconsequential as race. Clint Smith sees and calls out all the stereotypes, and their effects on society in his works.

The main population accused of stereotyping is teenagers; they are seen as rude and judgmental. For example, in high school the people are divided into groups by how they dress and whom they hang out with. There are the skaters, freaks, preps, snobs, cheerleaders, jocks and nerds. No one person set up

Stereotypes are deeply embedded in every society in numerous ways. The dictionary definition of a stereotype is “one that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.” Stereotyping or Labeling is a technique that “attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign

A stereotype is a way to easily categorize a group of people. For example, the media portraying black people as gangsters and thugs. When the media portrays certain groups of people as unrealistic stereotypes in an abundance people will train their brain to think that way. A stereotype is something was taught to people, we weren't inherently born to think that different groups of people act a certain type of way without some form of influence. Stereotyping usually happens with minority groups especially in the media that's being constantly shoved down our throats.

A stereotype is a generalized characterization for a group of people in a particular category. A majority of the time people stereotype by the manner they express information to one another. A teacher states a fact in class about how children with a high socioeconomic status are more likely to send their children to college than children of low socioeconomic status. Later on the student goes home and misrelated the fact by stating “Bob our neighbor isn’t going to get a good job because his family is poor.” As a society people relay information incorrectly all the time by twisting the story around and putting a negative spin on facts in turn forming a stereotype for a particular group of people.

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.

Stereotyping enables individuals to understand their general surroundings, enables individuals to react rapidly to circumstances around them, and furthermore enables individuals to pick up a thought of who will function admirably in group ventures. The three principle weaknesses of stereotyping. Stereotyping can make individuals make out of line judgments towards others. It likewise does not enable individuals to consider others to be people which can cause major lawful issues.

Aside from arising from mental shortcuts, it has also been proposed that stereotypes are a result of group conflict (Sherif, 1966). Regularly, individuals behave in a way that is expected of them in order to uphold the impressions others have of them. Thus, individuals act accordingly and embody the stereotype which is projected upon them (Baumeister & Bushman). The degree to which we rely on stereotypes when establishing judgements of others has been widely investigated in the field of social psychology. Frequently, the harmful consequences of relying on stereotypes is noted with the potential of this tendency to lead to prejudice and discrimination. Furthermore, the variation in the significance of stereotypes has been explored to determine