I don’t want to argue semantics, but unfortunately I believe this is what you are doing, in trying to forestall discussion of a certain position by focusing on certain words.
The notion being advocated is that stereotypes have some validity in that a higher percentage of people in the stereotyped groups fit that stereotype than do people from other groups. (As noted previously in post #21 et al.) That’s all.
Ostensibly contradicting this by observing that “most individuals don’t and never did meet it” - a point that no one in this thread has ever advocated - is not helpful.
Similarly, insisting that “effective” is a counterpoint to “valid” is also unhelpful, and obfuscatory IMO.
Even if the stereotype had no basis in the first place, or was simply a product of confirmational bias.
Does it have any predictive power on how to deal with an individual? If not, what good is it? Why do you feel it is so necessary to cling to?
And it is likely that people or society push them into those roles as well. The small guy will end up being the big guy’s boss, even though he actually brings less to the table. (Or really because he brings less to the table.)
Look at wrestlers, or actors like Vin Deisel. Some of these are pretty damn smart guys, but they go out and parade in their underwear and grunt to fulfill our expectations of their stereotype. I am pretty sure that this is a pretty long standing stereotype.
People are often surprised when someone with a neck the size of my waist is actually erudite.
This is the part that I am skeptical on, in most instances.
I do not believe that all, or even many stereotypes are based on actual research, and are based instead on people’s feelings, which are often times totally wrong.
Some few stereotypes may be valid, and if that is the case, we should look at ways of changing that fact, rather than punishing everyone who shares a trait with someone who perpetuates a negative stereotype. For instance, if a stereotype is that black people are not going to college as much as white people, this could very well be a valid stereotype. But it is not one from which we should draw conclusions about the mental capabilities or other inherent properties of a black man, but instead use that to draw conclusions on how society is failing that demographic.
Do you think the stereotyper sees the same thing as the stereotypee?
Would you expect a black person to cling to the same stereotypes of black people that a white person would?
Are there stereotypes that everyone universally accepts? Or do most stereotypes tend to be disproportionately accepted by the folks who aren’t negatively affected by those stereotypes and who get an ego-boost from those stereotypes, while the “stereotypees” are more likely to reject those stereotypes because they are offensive to their egos?
Shoudn’t there should be a “small smart guy” stereotype to go along with the “big dumb brute”, if what you are describing was the cause of the “dumb brute” stereotype?
There is a nerd stereotype, but nerds can be any height and size.
Shrimpy guys have their own stereotype. Napolean. But their intelligence isn’t caricatured in any particular way.
So bump and I are just imagining that this stereotype exists, even though we share little in common and don’t usually agree on much? Um, ok. I guess that convinces me.
I actually had a classmate in high school come up to me immediately after graduation and say “I had no idea you were smart! I just assumed you were a big dumb jock! Congratulations on the scholarships!”
As part of the graduation, they’d read out all the academic honors and scholarship offers we’d all been awarded- I happened to be a National Merit Semifinalist and had quite a few scholarship offers to fairly highly regarded schools.
This one guy just assumed since I was 6’1" and 240 lbs and played center on the football team that I was a big dumb jock. That’s the big dumb brute stereotype in action.
Hell, we see it on this very board all the time in reference to football players and athletes in general.
All else being equal, a person is less likely to accept/believe anything which reflects badly on their group. So you won’t find the same level of acceptance of the stereotype among the group being stereotyped.
But it’s generally the case that the stereotypes do have some level of acceptance among the groups being stereotyped as well. (In certain circles it’s common to ascribe this to the group members absorbing the negative attitudes from the larger culture, but it’s also consistent with the notion that there’s some truth to the stereotype.)
Yes, that would follow.
If you think that proves something that’s fine with me. Not going to argue about it, though.
I don’t think this is what we’re discussing. I agree there’s a trope of a “big dumb guy”. The question is whether people tend to assume random big guys are dumb.
Similarly, there’s a trope of a mustachioed villain. It doesn’t follow that people assume guys with mustaches are likely to be villains.
People who are bullied for long enough eventually start to internalize the messages they hear.
That doesn’t mean those messages are true, though. It just means that it’s hard to ignore cultural conditioning.
In my experience, people who are targeted by a negative stereotype but who also believe that stereotype usually rationalize the dissonance by making themselves an exception. Like the woman who hates other women because she thinks all women are petty and catty…except for her, of course.
There are a ton of tropes that are rooted in stereotypes. Why do you think “big dumb guy” is any different than “ditzy blonde”, “Asian geek”, or “hot-tempered, finger-waving Latina”? These are TV and movie tropes because writers are heavily influenced by stereotypes.
I think this will lead to an incomplete answer, but as I posted above it is entirely aligned with the liberal project and confirmation bias that because **they **value equality in so many arenas, nature is obliged to distribute aptitude in na egalitarian manner as well.
And so, if we notice there is a differential rate of college attendance from certain groups, and we assume a priori that all groups must necessarily have identical average aptitudes (because… equality), then there must be a deficiency in society that is causing the differential, either externally, or in the case of the conservative bias, internally, typically related to cultural matters.
Perfectly fine slant to look at the world, however… If the a priori assumption that all groups have roughly identical average aptitudes is incorrect, then there is no level of leveling of the playing field or alteration of society that could level the results you see in the real world aside from trying to deny or damp the prospects of other groups.
If you are a real liberal, that truly cares about equality and giving more and more people a more equal footing in life and future prospects, then the denial of such a possibility is counter productive, because the end goal is to actually help people. Now currently it’s depressing because we do not know how to alter peoples aptitude in any meaningful way in the positive direction, but that is not something I think will remain constant.
I posted this in other threads, but my wild eyed hope for the future is that we embark on the massive project of cataloging the vast undiscovered country of traits and combinations of traits and environment that are statistically tied to things like… greater aptitude. And as we gain that knowledge, employ neural engineering and genetic engineering with crispr to lift people up who rolled snake eyes in life stats higher. Prometheus unbound is what crispr is, but we need people doing the hard and time consuming work of figuring out what contributes to what, or at least having computers do that work.
If physics and biology has an impact on humans than some stereotypes will be true and some won’t. I’m not sure where this anti science stance towards determinism originates with regard to human biology.
What does the “gets nervous around men” bit have to do with her sexual preferences? And, have you ever encountered the expression “lipstick lesbians”?
Seeing a person who looks like they might be “not from around here” and thinking “that person might be from [Wherever]” is an informed stereotype. Giselle Bundchen does look more like a stereotypical German hottie than like a stereotypical Brazillian hottie. Assuming that you can tell where they’re from, how smart they are, whether they are good professionals, or what they like for lunch, based on their looks, is stupid and harms both of you.
That’s a bit different. The DK is when you know very little about a subject, and therefore, do not estimate your grasp of the subject accurately, and usually overestimate your understanding, or underestimate the difficulty in the subject.
Treating people like they are smart is a different thing.
First, if someone is smart, but is treated like they are stupid, then they will act like they are stupid, especially if part of your treatment is to deny them quality education.
Second, if someone is not so smart, but is treated as though they were smart, then they have something to work toward, and people to help them get there, rather than everyone just giving up on someone because they aren’t a genius.
Yes! That makes a lot of sense. The real failures of a lot of what I’d call fact-based stereotypes, meaning ones that are derived from valid statistics or observations, is when they’re taken from the general to the specific, and inferences are made as to the reasons for the stereotype, like black men are dumb, for example.
The difference comes in with expectations and the consequent treatment of these individuals. If everyone treats you like they don’t expect you to be worth much, and tells you that since you’re a black man, you can’t succeed, you’re likely to live up/down to those expectations, regardless of your inherent intelligence, drive, etc… And the same’s true in reverse; if everyone tells you that success is possible, and not only that, expect you to achieve it, you’ll probably do so in large part, even if you’re not necessarily the most driven person or sharpest tool in the shed.
I always wondered how much “internal” stereotypes hurt/help various groups. By that, I mean stereotypes about one’s own group.
It works for more than intelligence. If you treat people like they are tall then they will grow. If you treat people like they are thin they will lose weight. If you treated jail inmates like law abiding citizens instead of criminals they would become law abiding citizens. We should close all prisons and instead open hotels to house criminals so that they will no longer commit crimes.
The only difference between Shaquille O’Neal and Webster is how they were treated as children.