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Stereotyping

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Stereotyping
Cheryl Alcala
Informal Logic
Danika Novak
January, 15th 2013

New research out of the University of Toronto Scarborough shows prejudice has a lasting negative impact on those who experience it. Kemick, A. (2010, August 12) It can cause a person to have severe psychological problems after the fact. Not to mention it causes over eating, aggression, and depression. I have found that have several times in my life t not only have I been stereotyped but I have also stereotyped others. Looking back now, I can see that not only was I affected, but also I was affecting others’ lives as well. I will never forget this one time that my family stereotyped me for engaging in a same sex relationship. For me I went through a phase it was nothing more than that, but for my family you would have thought I committed murder. Some of my family stopped talking to me altogether and that caused many problems for me. I became antisocial and depressed. Many times, I did not visit my family at all. This also affected my daughter as well. My daughter did not see the person I was with as a woman all she saw was that she was a parental figure in her life. My daughter was teased UN mercifully and talked down to by my family. I had hoped that as my daughter grew up there would be no lasting effects. Boy was I wrong. My daughter is now 17 and she still talks about that situation. I feel that she now tends to look at me sometimes in a negative way. I also see that it has had some psychological effects on her and it hurts me that she has had to go through that. My daughter and I were told often that I was going to hell for being with a woman, and that I could not consider myself a religious person. This is an Ad Hominem Fallacy which is “The ad hominem fallacy comes from the Latin term for "to the person": that is, the conclusion is to be accepted or rejected because of the person (and the characteristics of that person) involved, rather than the actual argument, or reason(s), supporting the conclusion” Moser, K (2011). This can be argued, because people believe that in order to be a Christian and to go to Heaven than you must go along with what the Bible says. You cannot consider yourself a Christian and practice homosexual relationships. These however are not valid arguments. There has always been a stereotype that people who live in mobile home parks are trashy, hence the term Trailer Park trash. I myself have been stereotyped in this way. I have lived in Mobile Home Parks all most all of my adult life. For my family and me it is just a way of life. We are not living above our means and we are comfortable. In no way, are we trash, but we are stereotyped as such. The reason I assume would be that because in some places you do see run down mobile home parks that look like they should be condemned yet people do still live in them. This is a pre-existing belief and when challenged people tend to be more upfront about these beliefs.: Pre-existing beliefs can distort logical reasoning. People are much more skeptical about information they do not want to believe than information they do. A challenge, however logical, only entrenches people in their own position”. Intelecom. (n.d.).

I have been a person to stereotype as well. I have always assumed that people with no teeth or bad teeth were drug addicts. I felt this way because television and media always portrayed it to be that way not to mention where I live you do see a lot of people who are addicted to drugs that have either no teeth or bad rotten teeth. I have come to realize though that not necessarily the case. There are many different reasons why some people have bad teeth. This falls under the Hasty Generalization fallacy. Meaning that just because one person or persons say that bad teeth come from drugs does not mean that it really does. The fallacy of hasty generalization is committed when the conclusion is based on insufficient information: a generalization is made too quickly. Moser, K, (2011) This I feel is the most popular fallacy used today without even knowing it. That is like one person saying that they do not like someone so no one else will like them either. You cannot generalize a person just because one person does. It takes getting to know the person yourself to form an opinion.

References
Mosser, K. (2011). An introduction to logic. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Kemick, A. (2010, August 12). Stereotyping has lasting negative impact: Prejudice has lingering effects, study shows. U.S. News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/08/12/stereotyping-has-lasting-negative-impact

INTELECOM. (n.d.). How pre-existing beliefs distort logical reasoning [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.intelecomonline.net

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