The Reasons And Effects Of Stereotyping In Society

Stereotyping has existed for a very long time. Stereotyping is where a person is generalized due to a characteristic they have, for example their appearance or their attitude, which can negatively affect the person. An example of this is in the shooting of Tamir Rice. He was shot by a police officer, even though he was unarmed, only holding a fake pistol. Many people considered this to be a racist act by the police officer, who might’ve thought that all black people were armed and dangerous, and therefore took immediate action without observing the situation. This is a very extreme example, and stereotyping happens at smaller levels too. In schools, for instance, where students who exhibit great knowledge in “harder” subjects, such as mathematics and english, are considered very smart, while students who take the arts or music are considered less intelligible, while both require a good amount of skill. When exploring Stereotyping, it is important to note the reason for stereotyping, but why it shouldn 't be done.

Stereotyping is hard to avoid. Every person has at least stereotyped someone else, either through speech or only in thought. It is subconscious and related to intuition. The human mind enjoys to find pattern in things. So when a person learns that people who have a certain similar characteristic, a link is created that every person has the same characteristic. Another reason could be that two groups who had feud in the past create negative images of each other to