If stereotypes are usually wrong, how do they come about?

Question

For example, the "stereotypical" blonde woman is dumb and will do anything if she is drunk enough. Another stereotype is that Jewish people are cheap, and that all black people have guns and will shoot you. Polish people are dumb, lawyers are heartless, Irish people are drunks, and gay men use "fabulous" in every sentence*.

If these stereotypes are so wrong, how were they determined in the first place?

*disclaimer: None of these statements reflect my true beliefs.

Answer 1

Actually, stereotypes are often correct; that's how they came about.

What is wrong about it is to assume that EVERYONE in a given group shares the same trait, or to approach individuals with the expectation that they automatically have a certain quality attributed to their group.

...And I don't think I've ever used the word "fabulous" in my life...

Answer 2

Stereotypes are not "wrong" so to speak. They are generalized statements about a whole race, gender, ethnicity, etc. that obviously do not apply to the entire group. What happens is that one or more members DO enact one or more of the aforementioned stereotypes, someone in a different group sees it and then spreads it. The biggest culprit of this is the media. The media will take something that an individual does, broadcast it throughout the world and then people sitting home on their couch watching tv thinks that this is what that group is like. If you notice, the people who are well traveled, educated and have been exposed to many different groups of people are typically the LAST people to ever perpetuate a stereotype. It is the people who have remained in one place all their lives and have never experienced any other cultures and get their "culture" from watching tv that are usually the ones that say these hurtful things. Education is the key. I personally am blonde and Polish and I can assure you that I am not in the least bit "dumb". It just goes to show you that stereotypes are just that and not fact.

Answer 3

I think that some stereotypes do represent some truth, but only to an extent. Some are just racist and not correct at all. Like, Hispanics being lazy is a bad stereotype. PEOPLE are lazy, regardless of race. Many farmers in Mexico actually farm by hand without the use of machines. Just oxen. Some are based on people's fears such the one you said about black people and guns. I don't know where Jewish people being cheap came from. Irish people being drunks is much like the stereotype that all Native people are drunks here. It is kind of true. But it doesn't have anything to do with race, it is the area where they were raised and the atmosphere around them. The reservations in SD are just rampant with alcohol and drugs. Children are raised seeing it every day, and they don't know anything else. I wish that stereotypes could just dissapear along with racism and bigotry, but as long as there is still ignorance it can't happen. And unfortunately there is a lot of that.

Answer 4

I think that the human brain just has to classify everything, perhaps as a way to store input.

If you grew up in a mining town in Pennsylvania a couple of centuries ago, its possible that the place may have been populated by predomintately Irish workers. If these men, as a way of relaxing at the end of shift, chose to get drunk every night, it would be natural for you to eventually see this as a trait of Irishmen, and stands to reason that your brain would permanently put those two things together. In later days you might have mentioned this to someone in a conversation, found that they'd come to the same conclusion, and a stereotype is born. All it takes at that point is spreading the word, and it will eventually be taken as fact by a lot of people.

Same with drunken Indians. Same with the Jews - many found that they had great skill in handling money. Most folks that are really good with that tend to be labeled cheapskates by those that spend their money with less care. Scots have the same label.

Brains need to classify, and I believe that the less education a person has, the more likely they are to take these observations by other people seriously.

It's sad, but its a fact of life. All we can do is fight against it.

Answer 5

Though stereotypes are usually wrong, there is usually
some event or events that lead up to them.

Lets take homosexual men using the word "Fabulous"
frequently.

The context here is simple: Most heterosexual men think
that using the word "fabulous" will make them look homosexual.
There are a lot of words that fall into that category - most guys
who know what taffeta is probably keeps it to themselves.

So, one guy who gets a lot of exposure is homosexual and
gets mimicked. He uses the word "Fabulous", and probably
many others.

The people making fun of him chose that word randomly
in their imitations (perhaps with a gesture) and all of a sudden
it becomes a stereotype.

The original guy who used the word and the guy who
did the originally imitation get lost in the mists of time.

Similarly, an Irish guy shows up at work after having had too
many. Somebody else there imitates him, along with a good
Irish brogue and the two behaviors get glued together.

These associations happen usually because the imitation is
very funny - and humor can frequently be very memorable.

Consider our beloved and exhalted leader (Bush): He has
maybe twice in his taped career hunched down, held his
hands together and gone "He he he", but because various
comedians have picked up on the gesture, it has become
a great tag for him. Do the gesture and instant presto, you
have a Bush imitation.

That, and mispronounce "nuclear".

Answer 6

Great question. The issue of stereotypes is very complex, but basically as soon as we develop an "us" group and a "them" group, we start looking for differences. Then, if we see a behavior we don't like in a single individual from that other group, we'll use it against the whole group. Then any time we see any other person from that group act that way, we'll notice it, and it will reinforce our belief in the stereotype. Trust me, there are just as many dumb brunettes as dumb blondes, but when a brunette acts dumb, we don't notice it so much, because we expect to see that in a blonde. Then when the blonde acts dumb, we say "See? Told you! Blondes are dumb!"

That's a simplification of the stereotype phenomenon, but suffice it to say that we tend to notice things that back up what we already believe. That means that stereotypes are self-reinforcing, because we're more likely to notice a heartless lawyer, drunk Irish, etc.

*disclaimer, too - I don't believe in these stereotypes, either.

Answer 7

I think that there are a certain number who do fit a stereotype, but not completely.
Think of a stereotype as a template, and most of a person fits inside the stencil, but parts of the person don't. While many people in a group share some traits, each person is an individual.

Answer 8

No one said that stereotypes don't have an element of truth. They become stereotypes when a blanket statement is applied to all similarly situated consistently.

Sometimes some of those statements can truthfully be applied to SOME people, SOMETIMES. It's when it becomes a generalization that it becomes a dangerous stereotype applying to ALL, ALL the time.

Answer 9

Stereo types are not usually wrong. They are based in truth.

What is wrong about stereotypes is that they are very general and often all encompassing.

There is an exception to every rule and that is why stereotypes, although based in fact for some people, are 'wrong'.

Personally, I don't think they're wrong though.

Answer 10

sterotypes come from ignorance and stupidity, people who fear things that they don't understand make up crap like this and then go tell their ignorant friends the way they feel and the way they think and it spreads like a disease,I can say I have heard some of those but not all of those, and I can say that looking at them they seem like pretty ignorant statements, except I think the one about lawyers may have some truth to it, lol