What are stereotypes? 4 ways they affect us

Beliefs that lead us to perceive people not for what they do but for what they are.

Stereotypes are one of the fundamental elements in understanding how we perceive others and ourselves. Part of our social life is influenced by them and, although we do not realize it, they act from the margins of our consciousness and predispose us to adopt certain attitudes and make certain decisions in our coexistence with other people.

In this article we will see what stereotypes are.and we will review some examples that help to understand the way in which they are expressed through our actions and thoughts.

What is a stereotype?

The human brain is a set of organs very difficult to understand and study, but if there is one thing clear about it, it is that one of its main functions is to simplify reality. To make easy to understand that which in reality is complex and convoluted.

This idea may be common sense, but at the same time it has very important implications for how we think and perceive reality.

Specifically, it tells us that the human mind is not made to give us access to the truth, but to give us a minimalist and simplified version of it, faithful enough to reality to allow us to survive. And stereotypes are one of the ways in which we unconsciously and involuntarily achieve this simplifying effect..

Specifically, stereotypes are beliefs that affect our perception of a particular group or collective. There are stereotypes that are based on socioeconomic criteria, such as the difference between rich and poor people; others that are based on the gender distinction between men and women; others that apply to our preconceived ideas about ethnic or racial groups, etc.

In fact, these beliefs can arise from any categorization of human groupshowever arbitrary they may seem. Stereotypes may arise about the inhabitants of a village or a wider region that does not even correspond to an administrative entity, and they may even arise from simple physical characteristics chosen almost at random.

What about prejudice?

If stereotypes are fundamentally beliefs, prejudices are attitudes attached to stereotypes; ie, they have a clear emotional component. One person may adopt a stereotype about the Scots, for example, without this making him/her position him/herself emotionally in a clear way towards this group; but another may position him/herself emotionally with respect to them, being more friendly or more hostile for this reason.

Of course, the boundaries between stereotypes and prejudice are never clear-cut, and in fact it is difficult to hold stereotypes and express no prejudice whatsoever.. This differentiation is always relative, as is the intensity and power that prejudices and stereotypes have on each person.

Examples of the expression of stereotypes.

Here are several ways in which stereotypes can manifest themselves.

1. Application of hate prejudice

This is possibly the most negative consequence of the existence of stereotypes: the possibility of building, through them, negative prejudices that lead us to hate groups of people, not because of what they do as individuals, but because they are something, because they wear a label. not because of what they do as individuals, but because they are something, because they carry a label..

The case of the racial hatred promoted by the Nazis, which was able to take root in a mass public among the inhabitants of Germany, is one of the clearest examples of this phenomenon, but it is by far not the only one. Long before Hitler, hate campaigns directed at ethical minorities have been a constant in human history.

2. Adoption of paternalistic attitudes

Stereotypes need not always predispose us to adopt a hostile attitude towards the members of the group they are trying to "summarize" in the form of generalizations. Sometimes, they can even lead us to adopt an attitude of condescension and paternalism which, although often annoying, does not arise from a desire to harm the other person, does not arise from a desire to harm the other person..

This kind of stereotypes are relatively frequent in the treatment that many men have with women, for example, among other things because historically women have not had access to higher education.

3. Emergence of undeserved admiration

As we have seen, stereotypes do not always go hand in hand with ideas that lead us to hate a particular group; sometimes they lead us to adopt a positive attitude towards it.

In some cases, they even facilitate the emergence of a kind of admiration and feeling of inferiority.The stereotypes define others, but they also define us by contrast: if we believe that the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are very good at mathematics, it is because we implicitly consider that the group to which we belong performs worse in this area.

4. Errors arise from erroneous assumptions.

Another way in which stereotypes are expressed has to do with misunderstandings and errors in contexts in which a person is treated according to erroneous patterns of behavior. following erroneous patterns of behavior based on myths or exaggerations based on myths or exaggerations of the culture or way of being of the members of a group.

Conclusion

In short, stereotypes are a practically unavoidable element in our social relationships, although that does not mean that they should be so strong as to completely determine how we deal with other people. Nor, of course, to lead us to hate individuals because of generalizations based on the collectives to which they belong.