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’ll look at what stereotypes are , and review some examples that help us understand how they are expressed through our actions and thoughts.

What is a stereotype?

The human brain is a very difficult set of organs 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 it easy to understand what is really 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 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. Some stereotypes are based on socio-economic criteria, such as the difference between rich and poor people, others are based on the gender distinction between men and women, others are applied to our preconceived ideas about ethnic or racial groups, etc.

In fact, these beliefs can arise from any categorization of human groups , however 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 may even appear from simple physical characteristics chosen almost at random.

And a prejudice?

If stereotypes are fundamentally beliefs, prejudices are attitudes linked to stereotypes; that is, they have a clear emotional component . One person may adopt a stereotype about Scots people, for example, without that making him/her emotionally clear about this group; but another person may position himself/herself emotionally with respect to them, showing himself/herself more friendly or more hostile for this reason.

Of course, the boundaries between stereotypes and prejudices are never clear, and in fact it is difficult to sustain stereotypes and not express any kind of prejudice . Such differentiation is always relative, as is the intensity and power that prejudices and stereotypes have on each person.

Examples of the expression of stereotypes

These 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 of the fact that they are something, that they carry a label .

The case of racial hatred promoted by the Nazis, capable of taking root in a mass audience among the inhabitants of Germany, is one of the clearest examples of this phenomenon, but it is by no means the only one. Long before Hitler, hate campaigns targeting ethical minorities had been a constant in human history.

2. Adoption of paternalistic attitudes

Stereotypes need not always predispose us to adopt a hostile attitude towards members of this collective who try to “summarize” us in the form of generalizations. Sometimes, they can even lead us to adopt an attitude of condescension and paternalism that, although it is usually annoying, does not arise from the desire to harm the other .

Such stereotypes are relatively common in the way many men deal with women, for example, partly because women have historically 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 certain collective; sometimes they lead us to adopt a positive attitude towards it.

In some cases, even facilitate the emergence of a kind of admiration and feeling of inferiority , since 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 arising from erroneous assumptions

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

Conclusion

In short, stereotypes are an almost inevitable element in our social relations, although that does not mean that they should be so strong as to completely determine how we deal with other people. Nor, of course, should they lead us to hate individuals because of generalisations based on the groups to which they belong.

Bibliographic references:

  • Amossy, R., Herschberg Pierrot, A. (2001). Stereotypes and clichés. Buenos Aires: Eudeba.