Why Do People Make An Initial Judgement About A Person They Have Only Seen Or Heard About?

Why do people make an initial judgement about a person they have only seen or heard about? Without any information at all, the brain formulates an answer to the question they were pondering: who is that person? One of our greatest sins is to place people into boxes, defining them into one shape, into one dimension. Stereotypes are a very predominant part of reality as well as fictional works. In the novels The Hangman’s Daughter and The Dark Monk , by Oliver Pötzsch, one of the most prevalent themes presented is the idea that people do not necessarily reflect what society expects from them, either because of their role or position within the community. Characters and people in reality may possess some characteristics that reflect the presumptions that society holds about them. However, the complexity of a person and his/her life outside of the occupied role proves that stereotypical attributes are not always accurate. The term stereotype was coined by Walter Lippmann in 1922. At that time, it was associated with the tendency to generalize instead of observing specific details. It was seen as a more efficient way to how the brain processes the information it gathers from the environment (Ramirez-Berg). Over the years, stereotyping has received a negative connotation, with its most common association referring to the grouping of people into a generalized group based off of one physical or internal characteristic. Because of such a negative association, many people generally