Stereotypes

Stereotypes are a part of human life though they may present one sided, exaggerated and even prejudicial views of religious, racial, ethnic groups of people, as well as of classes of people. Nationality stereotypes are often described in anecdotes, humorous stories private diaries.
There are experimental ways of investigating stereotypes. One of the most obvious is to ask a group of people what traits characterize the Germans, the Italians, the Americans, and so forth. Result of such studies on the whole agree fairly well with what might have been expected; there is a considerable agreement between different people in any one nation regarding the most characteristic traits of other nations. The Germans for instance are regarded as scientifically minded and industrious by English and Americans alike; they are considered solid, intelligent, mathematical, extremely nationalistic, efficient and musical by the Americans, and arrogant, aggressive and over nationalistic by the English. Italians are regarded as artistic, impulsive, passionate, quick tempered, musical, religious, talkative, revengeful, lazy and unreliable by both.
Jews are believed to be shrewd, mercenary, industrious, intelligent loyal to family, grasping, ambitious, sly and persistent. They are also credited with being very religious. For Chinese, as one would have expected, are looked upon with more favour by English, who consider them industrious, courteous, meditative, intelligent and loyal to their families, then by the Americans, who consider them superstitious, sly, conservative, ignorant and deceitful. The French are sophisticated, talkative, artistic, passionate and witty, whereas the Russians are industrious, tough, suspicious, brave and progressive. The English consider themselves sportsmanlike, reserved, traditional loving, conventional and intelligent. Americans agree adding, however, that English are also sophisticated, courteous, honest, industrious, extremely nationalistic and humorless. The Americans consider themselves industrious, intelligent, materialistic, ambitious, progressive, pleasure loving, alert, efficient, straightforward, practical and sportsmanlike.
Stereotypes are one way in which we "define" the world in order to see it. They classify the infinite variety of human beings into a convenient handful of types towards whom we learn to act in a stereotyped fashion. Stereotypes economize on our mental effort by covering up the blooming, buzzing confusion with big recognizable cuts out. They save us the "trouble" of finding out what the world is like - they give it its accustomed look.
Thus the trouble is that stereotypes make us mental lazy.
Finally, we tend to stereotype because it helps us make sense out of a highly confusing world. It is curious fact that if we do not know what we are looking at, we are often quite literally unable to see what we are looking at. People who recover their sight after a lifetime of blindness actually cannot at first tell a triangle from a square. A visitor to a factory sees only noisy chaos where the superintendent sees a perfectly synchronized flow of work.
Stereotypes are a kind of a gossip about the world, a gossip that makes us prejudge people before we ever lay eyes on them. Hence, it is not surprising that stereotypes have something to do with the dark world of prejudice.
For it is extraordinary fact that once we have typecast of the world, we tend to see people in terms of our standardized pictures. In another demonstration of the power of stereotypes to affect our vision, a number of Columbia and Barnard students were shown 30 photographs of pretty but unidentified girls, and asked to rate each in terms of "general liking", "intelligence", "beauty" and so on. Two months later, the same group were shown the same photographs, this time with fictitious Irish, Italian, Jewish and " American names attached to the pictures. Right away, the ratings changed. Faces, which were now seen as representing a national group, went down in looks and still farther down in likability, while the "American" girls suddenly looked decidedly prettier and nicer.
Why is that we stereotype the world in such irrational and harmful fashion? In part, we begin to typecast people in our childhood years. Early in life, as every parent whose child has watched TV Western knows we learn to spot the Good Guys from the Bad Guys. Some years ago, a social psychologist showed very clearly how powerful these stereotypes of childhood vision are. He secretly asked the most popular youngsters in an elementary school to make errors in their morning exercises. Afterwards, he asked the class if anyone had noticed any mistakes during gym period. Oh, yes said the children. But it was the unpopular members of the class -the "bad guys".
We not only grow up with standardized pictures forming inside of us, but grown up, we are constantly having them thrust upon us. Some of them, like the half-joking, half-serious stereotypes of mother-in-law, or country yokels, or psychiatrists, are drummed into us by the stock jokes we hear and repeat. In fact, without such stereotypes, there would be a lot fewer jokes. Still other stereotypes are perpetrated by the advertisements we read, the movies we see, the books we read.