Stereotypes

Stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every individual of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for instance, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, appearance or ability. Stereotypes make information processing easier by allowing the perceiver to rely on previously stored knowledge in place of incoming information. Stereotypes are often faulty, inaccurate, and resistant to new information. Even though stereotypes generally have negative implications, they are not necessarily so; they may be positive, neutral, or negative. They can be broken down into two categories: explicit stereotypes, which are conscious, and implicit stereotypes, which are subconscious. An explicit stereotype is a belief about a group that a person is consciously aware of and knowingly uses to judge others. If a person makes a judgment about a particular person from a group for which the judging person holds an explicit stereotype, their decision bias can be partially mitigated using conscious control; however, attempts to offset bias due to conscious awareness of a stereotype often fail at being truly impartial, due to either underestimating or overestimating the amount of bias being created by the stereotype. Implicit stereotypes are those that lay on individuals' subconsciousness, that they have no control or awareness of. "Implicit stereotypes are established based on two concepts: collaborative networks in semantic (knowledge) memory and automatic activation". Implicit stereotypes are automatic and involuntary associations that people make between a social group and a domain or attribute. Similarly, a person may believe that both men and women are equally capable of being great teachers, yet still associate the profession more commonly with women. In social psychology, a stereotype is any thought widely adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of behaving intended to represent the entire group of those individuals or behaviors as a whole. These thoughts or beliefs may or may not accurately reflect reality. Within psychology and across other disciplines, diverse conceptualizations and theories of stereotyping exist, at times sharing commonalities, as well as containing contradictory elements. Even in the social sciences and some sub-disciplines of psychology, stereotypes are occasionally reproduced and can be identified in certain theories, for example, in assumptions about other cultures. Stereotypes, prejudice, racism, and discrimination are understood as related but different concepts. Stereotypes are regarded as the most cognitive component and often occurs without conscious awareness, whereas prejudice is the affective component of stereotyping and discrimination is one of the behavioral components of prejudicial reactions. In this tripartite view of intergroup attitudes, stereotypes reflect expectations and beliefs about the members of groups perceived as different from one's own, prejudice represents the emotional response, and discrimination refers to actions. Despite of being related, the three concepts can exist independently of each other. Say no to stereotypes! Lets live, love. Thank you.