SELAM
WHY DO WE STEREOTYPE?
Knowledge Is Power
People use stereotypes to analyze and categorize others by group rather than considering their individual differences.
We are not born with prejudice attitudes, yet it is learned through socialization, association and media.
Your environment and people surrounding you, continuously shape the person you become, which can be both a good or bad thing depending on what surrounds you. We are only a mirror of our society.
Our behavior is affected by our experiences with our culture and we try to do what is needed to fit in. So stereotyping can be a part of our everyday part of life.
Culture can influence how people think about themselves as well as how they think about other people: It can unite as well as divide
The Positives and Negatives
STEREOTYPES
+’s
lets us respond to certain situations based on experience
natural behavior that benefits each group because the ethnocentrism helps with finding identity, and protection
Favorable to a certain social group (ex. asians are good at math)
-’s
we ignore differences between individuals
create/foster a “them vs. us” mentality because it is socially categorizing people
divides the world into discrete categories
lead to prejudice or negative perceived judgments
NEUROLOGICAL LEVEL
The brain responds strongly to information displaying groups with a negative connotation.
The “so-called "implicit" prejudice, where people harbor subconscious biases, of which they may not even be aware, but that come out in controlled psychology experiments.”
“our brains have evolved to see patterns in things that are complex, and to categorize the world in order to simplify it. Thus, when we encounter another person, our brains rapidly and subconsciously try to figure out if he or she is friend or foe”