With the billions of individuals on this planet, how does one come to generalize?

Question

an entire group of people as one agreeing opinion?

Answer 1

Unenlightened minds.

It can make things easier if people can stereotype.
People no longer have to work out individual traits. Simpy apply a stereotype.

A stereotype is especially likely to occur where there is a small group from one ethnicity are intermingling wiith a much larger group from another ethnicity provided both grooups of people are acting differently.
The larger group can blame the difference of behaviour on ethnicity(saves thinking) and thus a stereotype is born.

Answer 2

Divide the number of members of a gender by the number of people whom You know to have caused You injury or concern, and then divide that figure by the number of times You have wanted to take a stand against what ever makes You most angry. Then add 1.
Either that or just don't be bothered to think before You speak. The result is nearly always the same, 'generally' speaking.

Answer 3

Humans naturally categorize ideas in order to more easily remember and understand things.

An unfortunate side effect of this is that generalizations are made about single categories which, in reality, are very diverse.

This is why you have to have to be skeptical of the conclusions you come to; generalizing and other such things is easy to do, if you dont pay attention.

Answer 4

Umm... well if you mean to generalize as INACCURATELY lumping a lot of people together, I don't know. I don't see it too often actually.

What I do see a lot are people recognizing true patterns in human behaviour. And the key words in that sentence are "true" and "patterns". There are entire vocations dedicated to what you call generalization: sociology is one. Statistics is another.

There are actually people (you being one apparantly) for some reason just hate generalization altogether. Read my opposing question here: http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ah72jySzlKmuES_b4lOeKVzg5gt.?qid=20070502175858AAJlPbL

Whoops. Did I just generalize you? Oh no! Did I just lump you together with all of the other people that hate allllllllll generalizations? Let me ask you, is it too much to assume that because you are human that you like food? Not satisfied with that question? Ok, then how about sex? Certainly you like sex. You know there are some people that don't. But chances are you do like it. Is it wrong to assume that you do like sex? Would it be wrong to discuss sex with you simply because you just might not like it?

You see, THAT is what generalizations are for. They are a starting point. When you meet someone, you DO make some assumptions about them. That's what getting to know someone is all about, comparing your experience about someone to your preconceived ideas about them. Generalizations are a method to start off more accurate. They give you a starting point. AND YES! I said they will start you off MORE accurately. Your preconceived ideas about someone are probably going to be wrong, but if you use a generalization, they are going to be MORE correct than if you just randomly started making odd assumptions:

"Ok, he is human so I'm going to assume that he is nice, but hates dogs, love horror flicks so I'm going to talk about them, hates George W so I'll avoid that area... He's a cuddler so I'm going to be real affectionate..."

You know, you can't just pick things at random. You have to have a starting point.

"Oh no!" you must be thinking. "You NEVER make assumptions about ANYONE!"

If you figure out how to do that, then you need to write a book explaining exactly how to do it because there isn't a single person on the planet (uh oh. "generalizing" again) who doesn't make assumptions about someone based on first impressions. Nice watch. Nice shoes. Good handshake. Smile. Eye contact. There are entire books dedicated to making a good first impression. Why would so many people spend so much time dedicated to that first impression? Do like to dress nice? Why? I guarantee (another "generalization") that part of the reason is that you want to make a good first impression for any new person you might meet.

So we use generalizations and yes even evil stereotypes because we can't read minds. But we DO recognize patterns. Humans are EXCEPTIONALLY good at recognizing patterns. (Oh no! I can't stop generalizing!!!! HELP ME!!!) We recognize patterns in human behavior. We pay close attention to dominant patterns, and we correlate those with other patterns.

What is important to be careful of are FALSE generalizations. And when you do discuss a generalization, MAKE IT CLEAR that it is a generalization. If you include a a statement saying "in general" then you are opening up the topic to THAT group of people that do that behavior. It's perfectly okay to say "why do blah blah blah in general do blah blah." You are announcing that you want to discuss the generalization, not a specific portion of the population.

So relax already please.

Thank you.

Answer 5

It is not natural to always agree. People differ as much as the sands on the beach, snowflakes that fall from the sky on a cold winters day. Generalizing is a natural thing to do, though at times we gerneralize wrong. Still we do it and we have a right to do it.

Answer 6

Because many generalization have enough basis in fact to be useful.

Answer 7

The sick feminists have waged war on 1/2 of the world population by demonizing all men. It's hard to be more general than that. The feminists blame men for everything even when it's the girl's fault. The backlash to feminism is gaining traction, and when it hits, it will be severe.

Answer 8

It's easier than independent thought.

Answer 9

It comes from having a closed mind.