on stereotypes

[That Guy]

mesoteto said:

Kasz216 said:
As my sociology teacher always said. Stereotypes exist for a reason. They're true... to a point.

Not everyone of that race is going to fall into the stereotype.

But a larger percentage of said population is likely to fall into said stereotype then others. Outside of a few instances where the streotypes were intentionally created rather then ones that formed regularly.

 

this plus five

 

 

they start for a reason

 

There is a sociological/psychological reason. The reason is that the human brain gets overloaded with information.  Its impossible for us to take in all the information and process it all in at a time. Therefore, we start making shortcuts; looking at something and then without actually going through the entire brain process, we take that brain shortcut and immediately go to the conclusion.

We do this all the time and for the most part, it benefits us. We look for cues to tell us things. I.e. if someone is making a sad face, we can assume that they're sad, or if they're smiling, we can assume that they're happy. There are countless cues and brain shortcuts that we notice and process in order to make the world a simplier place for us to comprehend.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to it and it shows up in racism and stereotypes. For example, the show COPS portrayed lots of black people as criminals, and so many people jump to the conclusion and make the stereotype that all black people are criminals.