Answer:
In social psychology, a stereotype is an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people.[2] It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, appearance or ability. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information, but can sometimes be accurate.[3]
While such generalizations about groups of people may be useful when making quick decisions, they may be erroneous when applied to particular individuals and are among the reasons for prejudice attitudes. An explicit stereotype refers to stereotypes that one is aware that one holds, and is aware that one is using to judge people. If person A is making judgments about a particular person B from a group G, and person A has an explicit stereotype for group G, their decision bias can be partially mitigated using conscious control; however, attempts to offset bias due to conscious awareness of a stereotype often fail at being truly impartial, due to either underestimating or overestimating the amount of bias being created by the stereotype. Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination[13] are understood as related but different concepts.[14][15][16][17] Stereotypes are regarded as the most cognitive component and often occurs without conscious awareness, whereas prejudice is the affective component of stereotyping and discrimination is one of the behavioral components of prejudicial reactions.[14][15][18] In this tripartite view of intergroup attitudes, stereotypes reflect expectations and beliefs about the characteristics of members of groups perceived as different from one's own, prejudice represents the emotional response, and discrimination refers to actions.[14][15]
Although related, the three concepts can exist independently of each other.[15][19] According to Daniel Katz and Kenneth Braly, stereotyping leads to racial prejudice when people emotionally react to the name of a group, ascribe characteristics to members of that group, and then evaluate those characteristics.[16]
Possible prejudicial effects of stereotypes[7] are:
Justification of ill-founded prejudices or ignorance
Unwillingness to rethink one's attitudes and behavior
Preventing some people of stereotyped groups from entering or succeeding in activities or fields[20]Stereotype content refers to the attributes that people think characterize a group. Studies of stereotype content examine what people think of others, rather than the reasons and mechanisms involved in stereotyping.[21]
Early theories of stereotype content proposed by social psychologists such as Gordon Allport assumed that stereotypes of outgroups reflected uniform antipathy.[22][23] For instance, Katz and Braly argued in their classic 1933 study that ethnic stereotypes were uniformly negative.[21]
By contrast, a newer model of stereotype content theorizes that stereotypes are frequently ambivalent and vary along two dimensions: warmth and competence. Warmth and competence are respectively predicted by lack of competition and status. Groups that do not compete with the in-group for the same resources (e.g., college space) are perceived as warm, whereas high-status (e.g., economically or educationally successful) groups are considered competent. The groups within each of the four combinations of high and low levels of warmth and competence elicit distinct emotions.[24] The model explains the phenomenon that some out-groups are admired but disliked, whereas others are liked but disrespected. This model was empirically tested on a variety of national and international samples and was found to reliably predict stereotype content.[22][25] Stereotypes can help make sense of the world. They are a form of categorization that helps to simplify and systematize information. Thus, information is more easily identified, recalled, predicted, and reacted to.[19] Stereotypes are categories of objects or people. Between stereotypes, objects or people are as different from each other as possible.[5] Within stereotypes, objects or people are as similar to each other as possible.[5]
Gordon Allport has suggested possible answers to why people find it easier to understand categorized information.[28] First, people can consult a category to identify response patterns. Second, categorized information is more specific than non-categorized information, as categorization accentuates properties that are shared by all members of a group. Third, people can readily describe objects in a category because objects in the same category have distinct characteristics. Finally, people can take for granted the characteristics of a particular category because the category itself may be an arbitrary grouping.
