Stereotyping For my motivation paper I chose to pick a topic that involves something we all do on a daily basis but that I particularly would like to work on and improve. That is stereotyping, and it is a tool that everybody uses daily to help them quickly comprehend the world around them. Stereotyping can be useful in certain situations to give a general understanding of a group of people or subject, but it also can have negative effects. I chose this internal behavior mainly so I could focus on the negative outcomes of stereotyping and how I can change my perceptions for the better, but also to understand when it can be a useful behavioral tool. Stereotyping is defined as a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group. In everyday life, we deal with many different people from various social groups and have to learn to interact with them. To help quickly make judgments on a person we meet, our brain reverts to the stereotypes that we hold of people from that particular group. It can help us when we meet someone to generally understand their background and give us an idea of their personality or beliefs. While this can be a useful tool, it can often times have negative effects or results. Every person is an individual, which is why it is only fair not to judge them until you have met and understood what they stand for and who they truly are. I know that people become frustrated and irritated when they learn that they have been stereotyped into a group, often times because it is usually negative. This causes people to become offended and insulted. That is why I am focusing on stereotyping as a negative behavior and, on a personal level, how I can improve this behavior. As I stated, stereotyping happens often multiple times daily. It occurs in all social situations, whether it is at work, at a social function, or while completing daily tasks. Whenever we meet new people, we stereotype them into a group to help comprehend who they are as a person. Since we are always meeting new people, this behavior occurs everywhere and often times throughout the day. A term closely related to stereotyping is social cognition, which is a thought process for understanding people. We generally like to understand the people we meet to help us relate and associate with that individual. We can use stereotyping to assume similarities between ourselves and that person, and to give ourselves general comprehension of their beliefs. Stereotyping is used in situations such as meeting new people when you subliminally, automatically judge them. You think that you know about them before you actually take time getting to understand them. I all too often use stereotyping in the negative sense, and it is a behavior that I need to improve. If you use negative stereotypes, you often times miscalculate who the person is and can offend them or make yourself look ignorant. Stereotyping is more of an internal cognitive action than it is behavior. It is a thought process that we all have but don’t necessarily exhibit it as a behavior. It is a perception that is gathered on an individual basis when you encounter a person or situation. You use your senses to absorb various inputs and gather sensory information about that person or situation. When a negative stereotype comes out as an action, it offends the person and can then negatively affect the way people perceive you. Ways of a negative stereotype leading to an action include people judging an individual because of race, sex or religion that is an attempt to degrade or embarrass them. Negative stereotypes make people not feel like an individual since they are being judged from a certain group perspective. To better understand why people stereotype, I looked at the article about the journey into self-awareness. It discussed how stereotypes are formed individually by external and internal factors. External factors such as the media, culture, peers and our environment are all inputs from an external perspective. Internal factors include our past experience and memories, intelligence, values, attitudes and biases. It is the combination of both external and internal factors that shape how we view stereotypes and how we perceive others from them.
External factors play a huge role in portraying stereotypes, which are then viewed by many others. In movies, television shows and music, certain characters are cast for specific roles because they fit what the director views that character to typically be. As we watch these movies or shows, it is subliminally processed into our minds that people who are similar to a certain character act or have the same mentality. A lot of negative stereotypes are formed this way when a certain type of person is continually cast into the same role, it becomes engrained that all people act that way. Culture and peers can also have a large external impact on shaping how we view stereotypes. If we constantly hear how our friends feel about a certain group of people or a certain situation, it rubs off onto our perception of that group or situation. This can largely effect our perception since we have constant contact and conversation with our peers.
Internal factors are for me, the biggest determining factor in how my perceptions of a group or situation are formed. This is due largely in part to past personal experiences and memories. In regards to stereotyping a person, we relate them to the similar person whom we’ve already met and assume that they have the same values and act in the same manner. When we stereotype how a certain situation will play out, we remember from our past experiences how it went and predict that the new situation will play out in similar fashion. These memories are stored and largely affect how we project that future scenarios will play out. Certain attitudes or biases towards a group of people or type of situation are an internal factor that can lead to negative stereotyping. If you believe that a group of people act in a certain negative way, or that a certain situation always works out the same, then your negatives perceptions will project a negative stereotype. Personal intelligence and values can help to better understand that all of these factors are not true and to not let them overwhelm you into making a false decision.
My personal motivation for this topic was to learn more about the determining factors of stereotyping and work to change this social cognition. I understand the way that external factors have been molding my perceptions and I am now fully aware of how that affects my stereotypes of people. I know that I will not be persuaded to believe all of the false stereotypes that are being portrayed in the media and discussed in our culture. The biggest external factor that I plan to attempt to change is to decrease the influence of my peers. I have some strongly opinionated friends who have previously persuaded me into their mentality of thinking and it was their perceptions that were shaping mine. I know that if I don’t let my peers effect my personal perception of groups and situations, then the amount of negative stereotyping that I do will decrease. From an internal perspective, I feel that I need to release all of my previous biases and attitudes that I have held and treat every person and situation on an individual basis. I can’t get rid of the memories or past experiences but I know that if I relieve the biases that have grown from them, it will decrease the negative perception. In terms of feedback, I have been meeting a lot of new people in school and starting a new job. This gives me the perfect opportunity to not unjustly stereotype people and apply all of the principles I have learned about perception. I have gotten some effective feedback from my peers and I plan on having my co-workers evaluate my open-mindedness and that I am being unbiased. Although stereotyping has some positives associated, a lot of the time it is associated with being negative. After learning about what shapes my perceptions I know that I will be able to use it as a benefit and not a negative.