Introduction
The situation happened in a small city. One of the houses was robbed at night. When police were interviewing the neighbors, most of them expressed an assumption that the robbery could be carried out by the person who has recently moved into the nearby house. The assumption was based on the skin color of the new neighbor – he was African American. This situation is a typical example of stereotyping.
Historically, the American community nurtures the belief that black people are more prone to get involved in criminal activity, even though there is no evidence to support this assumption. This stereotype has led to a number of studies aimed at tracing the correlation between ethnicity, heredity, and criminal behavior. None of the studies has managed to find any positive correlation and, therefore, the assumption that African Americans are more likely to commit crimes compared to whites is based on stereotype.
Main body
Stereotypes are generalizations about certain groups of people. According to Stacy Romascavage (2005), stereotyping can be explained with the social learning theory which states that stereotypes are acquired in childhood. Cognitive psychology explains that children are taught how to generalize people from their parents. Children listen to their parents and apply the same generalities. In addition, conformity is held responsible for the creation of stereotypes. For example, when there is a group of people who share the same characteristics and values, stereotypes are easily formed to separate the group members from the rest of society.
John Stossel and Kristina Kendall (2006) covered a very interesting experiment. Children were asked to look at the pictures of two men (one Asian and the other Arab) and were asked which one they liked more. Most of the kids noted that Asian men looked nicer. Later, the same kids were asked to look at the pictures of the white man and black man. When they were asked who out of two was a criminal, all of the kids pointed out to the black man; while when asked who was a teacher, all children pointed out to the white man (Stossel & Kendall, 2006). These were the picture of a teacher (black man) and a criminal (white man). This experiment proved that children have a formed perception of qualities based on appearance only. This is the fundamental issue of stereotyping and prototyping.
It is easy to form mental prototypes because they are created in early childhood or as a result of extraordinary events. For example, as the result of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, most Americans attributed qualities of terrorists to all people of Arab origin.
Stereotypes are part of everyday life and they might be necessary. Mental prototypes help people form the perception of the world around them. Stereotypes might appear as the result of cultural differences and lack of cultural awareness or understanding. The most evident stereotypes are the beliefs that all Russians drink Vodka and all Japanese are very hardworking. There are Russians who drink vodka; however, the drinking habits cannot be attributed to all people coming from Russia.
Conclusion
Stereotypes should be avoided because it is morally wrong to judge people based on their appearance or cultural background. The most effective technique to avoid stereotyping is developing cultural awareness, learning more about different people, and understanding that people should not be categorized by physical attributes. Nevertheless, stereotypes are unconscious biases (Murphy, 1998) and, therefore, very little can be done to avoid them. “We all use stereotypes, all the time, without knowing it” (Murphy, 1998, n.p.). Psychologists note that using categorization is normal; however, in the case of stereotyping, people tend to attach a negative attribute to different categories.
References
Murphy, A. (1998). Where bias begins: The truth about stereotypes. Psychology Today. Web.
Romascavage, S. (2005). The psychology of stereotyping. The Muhlenberg Weekly. Web.
Stossel, J. & Kendall, K. (2006). The Psychology of Stereotypes. ABC News. Web.