Are stereotypes rooted in soceity or psychology ?

Factual Questions
1

Okay, help psychologists. I know stereotyping people is bad. But do people do it because it is a learned social behaviour ? Or is it inherent to the human mind to make stereotypes - thereby creating a pattern which is easier to remember and use ?

2

Well, we don’t just stereotype people - we stereotype situations, events, even natural phenomena. Most stereotypes contain a large measure of truth (or, at any rate, we discard the stereotypes which turn out to be wholly untrue, and which have no predictive value), and to that extent they are useful, so it could well be learned behaviour.

3

I agree. My mother has the stereotype that asians are bad drivers. But this is probably rooted in the fact that she’s been involved in 5 accidents in her life, all instigated by an asian driver. She’s had 2 cars totaled as a result. So I can see how its easy for her to make the generalization; maybe in her experience the only asian drivers she’s been around have been poor ones, or careening into her car.

4

Actually, no. Her experience is that all the people who’ve hit her have been Asians, which is not the same thing at all.

The logical flaw in her generalisation is obvious. This is an example of a stereotype which probably has no truth in it. But then, my earlier statement that stereotypes have a large measure of truth in them was itself a stereotype . . .

5

Actually, I heard somewhere, that humans like to categorize things, lump things together. I’m speculating here, but I think it would help people survive new situations.

6

Not sure this is a factual statement. But I guess I should not bend this discussion towards GD or IMHO…

7

In psychology stereotypes are also called “schemas.” Schemas and stereotypes are how our brain organizes complex forms of information into simplified, easier to access information.

Stereotyping isn’t “bad,” it’s what our mind does to make storing information, and accessing that stored information, easier. I think stereotyping would be “bad” if you let a stereotype be the one and only thing that affects how you think of someone.