BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

family. In many cases, these stereotypical generalizations are reasonably
accurate. Yet, in virtually every case, we are resorting to prejudice by
ascribing characteristics about a person based on a stereotype, without
knowledge of the total facts. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or
group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we have stereotypes about
persons who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand
contact.
A stereotype can be embedded in single word or phrase (such as,
"jock" or "nerd"), an image, or a combination of words and images. The
image evoked is easily recognized and understood by others who share the
same views.
Stereotyping can be subconscious, where it subtly biases our
decisions and actions, even in people who consciously do not want to be
biased. Stereotyping often happens not so much because of aggressive or
unkind thoughts. It is more often a simplification to speed conversation on
what is not considered to be an important topic.
Stereotyping can go around in circles. Men stereotype women and
women stereotype men. In certain societies this is intensified as the
stereotyping of women pushes them together more and they create men as
more of an out-group. The same thing happens with different racial
groups, such as white/black (an artificial system of opposites, which in
origin seems to be more like European/non-European).
Television, books, comic strips, and movies are all abundant
sources of stereotyped characters. For much of its history, the movie
industry portrayed African-Americans as being unintelligent, lazy, or
violence-prone. As a result of viewing these stereotyped pictures of
African-Americans, for example, prejudice against African-Americans has
been encouraged. In the same way, physically attractive women have been
and continue to be portrayed as unintelligent or unintellectual and sexually
promiscuous.
We change our stereotypes infrequently. Even in the face of
disconfirming evidence, we often cling to our obviously-wrong beliefs.
When we do change the stereotypes, we do so in one of three ways:
Bookkeeping model: As we learn new contradictory
information, we incrementally adjust the stereotype to adapt to the new
information. We usually need quite a lot of repeated information for each
incremental change. Individual evidence is taken as the exception that
proves the rule.
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