An Overview Of Stereotyping

An Overview on Stereotyping

Many people cannot avoid stereotyping. Whether it is based on race, religion, gender, class or on any other category. Annie Murphy Paul, assures this in her article “The truth about stereotypes” saying that we all use stereotypes. They are kind of mental shortcut. Dr. Ingrid a co-founder in the military spouse mental health network defines stereotyping as: judging a group of people without the benefit of knowing the individual who is the target of the stereotype. Stereotypes are a generalization – believing we know something about a person or thing we are not familiar with based on our knowledge of a similar person or thing. Oliver Burkeman also proposes in his essay “Why stereotypes are bad even when they are good” that the problem with stereotypes is not only their content. It is the stereotyping itself. The main route to overcoming the problem of stereotyping is by embracing the differences between human beings.

Nowadays mass media plays a significant role in shaping the categories we make for people. Shalita Grant discussed in an article published in the Juilliard Journal that a lot of producers think that actors of ethnicity are only believable and marketable when playing roles that help perpetuate stereotypes. The problem is that judging people based on their preassumed categories is not rational nor ethical. Studies done by University of Toronto Scarborough’s Michael Inzlicht showed that People are more likely to be aggressive after they have faced prejudice in a certain situation. They are more likely to exhibit a lack of self-control. They have trouble making good, rational decisions. And they are more likely to over-indulge on unhealthy