Stereotypes

I was struck by what the authors had to say about stereotyping. I’ve always viewed it as “bad” or negative, even if they may be generally true. The fear is that we are lumping together in a group and assigning characteristics to them that might or might not be true. And just as I would hate to be judged by my ethnic or cultural background, I would hate to perpetrate this on me. However, the authors do make an important point that this process of categorizing helps people to “process information,” (p.139) all the while reminding us not to be negatively prejudiced. It seems that to take advantage of the advantages of stereotypes, we need to balance the categorization function and be open to learning about a person beyond the stereotype. I know this was extremely hard to do after 9/11, when all Muslims and even those who weren't Muslims (Sikhs, for example) became victims of hate crimes. While categorizing is the first step (I take back what i said about balancing--not a good analogy), ultimately we need to see people as individuals and not judge them according to the stereotype we think they belong to.