How Stereotypes Affect Society Essay

A stereotype is a group of attributes given to a group of people, most often hurtful and negative and not true.

Stereotypes and generalizations have negatively depicted the image and character of individuals and groups throughout time. In making these stereotypes we forget about the true character of the individual or group. Somehow throughout time what we have gathered and decided through stereotypes has created the everlasting image we have of one another, it's been hard to change the viewpoint ever since. Through the reading of this article and attaining continuous information of the harm of stereotypes are placing in our world we can start to move away from these unfortunate depictions.

What are stereotypes? How do they form? How can we solve this issue for the greater good? There are many definitions to describe a stereotype, but the one that many people agree with, like psychologists is that stereotypes are prejudgments and gossip about the world. However, one phrase that goes perfectly with this topic will be “Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover”. This goes in hand with this topic, because we make prejudgments about how we see our world without knowing what exactly it’s going on around us. In addition, stereotypes start forming throughout our childhood years, since at that age; we learn to define what is right from wrong in our surroundings. One way to resolve this issue is to accept the world as it is. This means that instead

“A stereotype is a rigid, oversimplified, often exaggerated belief that is applied both to an entire social category of people and to each individual within it. Stereotypes form the basis for prejudice, which in turn is used to justify discrimination and attitudes. They can be positive as well as negative.” Stereotypes exist within any social group, and social group or cliques which are groups of people who share similar characteristics and interests such as the ones priorly said.

A "stereotype" is a social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes. Stereotypes are generalizations made about a group and then attributed to all members of that group.

A stereotype is “...a fixed, over generalised belief about a particular group or class of people.” (Cardwell, 1996).

In life, there is a common ground on which most every person can relate. At one time or another, we have all been promoters of or victims of the unremitting nature of stereotypes. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” Most stereotypes take on a negative form and are based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, status, and personal beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest problem that arises with stereotypes is that they judge group of people by the characteristics and actions of their ancestors, rather than on an individual basis. More often than not, these assumptions will

Stereotypes can be defined as sweeping generalizations about members of a certain race, religion, gender, nationality, or other group. They are made everyday in almost every society. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we develop these ideas about people who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand contact. Stereotyping usually leads to unfair results, such as discrimination, racial profiling, and unnecessary violence, all behaviors which need to be stopped.

Many people have an oversimplified and erroneous view of a certain group of people. Stereotypes are typically associated with having negative connotations of a particular group of people. In many occasions, positive qualities of the group are overlooked and they are instead categorized by social norms created by stereotypes. Stereotyping affects everyone, whether it is through the discrimination of age, race, gender

Individuals use stereotypes when they judge others based on their own thoughts and opinions. In today’s society, individuals show prejudice towards others based on what they have heard previously from their friends and families. With that being said, individuals tend to express negative comments against people who have different ethnicities. When people hear the word “stereotypes”, they often forget how there are both positive and negative expressions. In this essay, there will be examples of positive and negative stereotypes and how there is a resemblance of both cases.

Stereotypes are a very serious thing today. But today is very bad with countless amount of things that been done or said. Stereotypes are things about a race that the race typically does. Today there are so many stereotypes for so many different races. People don't really think about how it will affect a race before they put it on social media for the whole world to see. Race isn't the only stereotype out there there's many different stereotypes for different things. I hear them everywhere and sometimes I can hear myself using stereotypes. When someone post it online that’s how people will see that race for now on.

I live by this quote about stereotypes, “I don’t believe in stereotypes. I prefer to hate people on a more personal basis” (I don’t believe in stereotypes). This shows that you shouldn’t hate on someone for the way they look, their background. You should judge them by their personal qualities. People judge others way too quickly by the way they look. Stereotypes are labels that are unfairly placed on people, and they affect all of us.

There are many things in society today that puts pressure on girls self esteem like magazines, movies, advertisements, anything that has to do with social media but this is only the beginning of this.

According to the No Bullying website, stereotypes are ways of judging a person based on one or a few obvious characteristics that can result in unfair assumptions. Almost everybody has had a stereotype that they were told about or even have told others without asking them about it. Many people do not realize that stereotyping can offend a lot of people because of the way they look, their race, their religion, and even their style of clothing. Many people find that stereotyping other people is a form of discrimination because it talks about how society has identified the different cultures in the world. Many people even had confessed that they used some kind of stereotype towards a person without even noticing it. I myself have been one of those

The presences of stereotypes are overwhelming and are developed by both the environment a subject is raised in and their family. Stereotypes, which are pervasive throughout different societies, become intertwined in the collective values of the society as justification for all forms of social, economic, and political inequality among groups (Devine and Elliot 2000;Kaplan 2004; Operario and Fiske 2004). As people become more exposed to stereotypes they start to become a permanent part of a person’s life, they begin to stereotype themselves almost always involuntarily.