The concept of stereotype was born in the 1920s. It was introduced into the scientific literature by the American scientist W. Lippman. He characterized the stereotype as a small “picture of the world” that a person stores in the brain in order to save the effort required to perceive more complex situations. In order not to trouble themselves with unnecessary reflection, people use commonly known stereotypes. Sometimes, they are confirmed by observing people, and then they are even more convinced that they are right. Stereotypes are a kind of substitute for the human thinking process and, therefore, have a number of negative consequences for society. False notions provoke fear, degradation of society, and distortion of the picture of the world with the help of media and films.
Stereotypes often give a generalized and external picture of the world without adjusting to a specific situation. They are mainly based on false ideas about the world due to a lack of knowledge (Berry et al., 2021). Prejudice has, at various times, led to the persecution of representatives of various professions and of people who are out of step with the general understanding of how to look and behave in various situations (Nadler & Voyles, 2020). Moreover, stereotypes do not allow society to develop because they go along with prejudices (Billings & Parrott, 2020). In the end, they always become the cause of discrimination against certain groups of people (Filimowicz, 2022). Clichés and labels are spread by all means, but the most obvious are television and the Internet. In the information age, propaganda media are so professionally constructed that many people accept what they say on TV, on the radio, and on the Internet as truth. Additionally, films have become one of the most powerful sources of spreading cultural and racial stereotypes (Myers, 2020). Without them, visual art cannot be well understandable and popular with wide audiences.
The next important and dangerous aspect of the consequences is fear because people are scared by the fact that they are different from the commonly held notions of right and wrong. From a psychological point of view, such an attitude is unnecessary and unethical because people are attracted to bright personalities, and this gives a lot of personal freedom (Jones, 2020). Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to overcome this condition since the evaluative dependence that provokes this fear is a powerful determinant of behavior.
There is an opinion that stereotypes often help a person to make a choice or a decision he or she needs to make without too much effort. Everyone in modern society is sure that it is necessary to respect elders, protect little ones, and help each other. Such stereotypes have become norms of human behavior in society rules, and no one thinks about why a person will behave in this way and not otherwise (Nadler & Voyles, 2020). Moreover, it can be quite difficult to give an adequate assessment of an event or social phenomenon about which there is no necessary information. Anyway, these positive sides are temporal since stereotypes occur by being influenced by certain circumstances, which can change at any time, and the prejudice will then persist for years to come.
Thus, the danger of stereotypes lies in the fact that they provide false information about the world, provoke fears and inhibit development. The media and films play a particularly important role in the dissemination of false information, as they qualitatively format data so that it influences all levels of the psyche in the right way. In some situations, public opinion is confirmed by personal experience, which turns out to be an even more complex and deplorable consequence. Moreover, thinking and analysis are blunted, after which there is a substitution of understandings of things, and this makes it much more difficult to promote one’s true happiness. It is the stereotypes formed by society that are the most dangerous for a person because they have a serious detrimental effect on the thinking process.
References
Berry, J. W., Grigoryev, D., Grigoryan, L., Anastassia Zabrodskaja, & Fiske, S. T. (2021). Stereotypes and intercultural relations: Interdisciplinary integration, new approaches, and new contexts. Frontiers Media SA.
Billings, A. C., & Parrott, S. (2020). Media Stereotypes. Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers.
Filimowicz, M. (2022). Systemic Bias. Routledge.
Jones, K. (2020). Challenging Gender Stereotypes in Education. Learning Matters.
Myers, D. G. (2020). Psychology In Modules. Worth Pub.
Nadler, J. T., & Voyles, E. C. (2020). Stereotypes: The incidence and impacts of bias. Praeger.