Stereotypes? WHY? Why do people expect people to act a certain way because of thier nationalities?

Answer 1

Because of ignorance, plain and simple. Most people of the world are ignorant and it is evident in some of the answers to your question. I know I'm not illiterate and nowhere in your question did you specify you were speaking of black people yet one ignorant inferior answers "if black people knew how to act" (not a verbatim quote) and others followed suit. So since your question specifies nationalities you want to know why people automatically think someone who looks Chinese speaks the language, owns a Chinese restaurant or a hair store? Why people see a person who looks Arabic and automatically assume that person is a terrorist? Why a Hispanic person is automatically pegged as Mexican and thought to be illegal? Questions like that and the answer is still ignorance. Ignorance is almost as incurable as AIDS because most people are happy and content in their complacency.

Answer 2

Classifying people is not necessarily an evil thing. It helps us to understand people and where they are coming from. If I was going to introduce you to a person who lives in the Village in New York that person would most likely be a certain way. If you were going to meet a black woman from Jamaica she would probably be different than a black woman who grew up in Brooklyn.

Stereotyping becomes problematic if we use it to dismiss people or degrade them in some way. If I was going to be meeting a Baptist Minister I would have a certain picture in my head. I would then start preparing my thinking for the meeting based on that. If, instead, I dismiss the person as some reactionary Bible thumping psycho, that would be very wrong to do.

By expecting people to act or think or behave in a certain way helps us sort and store information. That's all. If you are the sort of person who assumes only negative things that is a personal shortcoming that should be avoided.

If I was going to meet a young black man who grew up in an urban environment, I don't think I would be preparing to discuss Shakespeare with him. Of course I could be wrong and find out that he is a literary scholar. But that would be the exception not the rule.

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Answer 3

Simple - people ARE different.

I live in a busy city, and most of my family live in rural England. Are our day-to-day lives different? YES. Could I get around the city in a Tractor? No. Could they get around their farm in a taxi? No. Do I eat a cooked breakfast every morning at 6am before I go out to feed my livestock? No. Would they be happy grabbing a Starbucks while running to catch a train to Uni? No.

Depending on where you live, you are DIFFERENT. That doesn't mean worse, it just means not the same - if you have to live very different lives it's gonna call for very different behaviour, that's just the way it works. And people from different countries just DO live different lives - if you're in Iceland it's gonna be a very different lifestyle than in New York, and people in Spain live rather differently than people in Budapest - we're all different, that's something to be proud of, stereotypes, for the most part, are just over-dramatisations of quirks, they're cute and funny, and no-one with half a brain takes them seriously as a total reality anyway!

Answer 4

Because there ignorant.


Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Ignorance is sometimes misinterpreted as a synonym of stupidity, and is as thus often taken as an insult.

Answer 5

Ignorance, hate, jealousy, and many other factors.

Answer 6

if i answer this question the way i want, people will hate me. ha, i did it anyway!

Answer 7

MEDIA TV made them and they keep it going