Stereotypes

Our society of today is one that is essentially a melting pot of many different cultures, ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations, an due to this abundance of different people it has led to the formation of many positive and negative stereotypes. According to lecture material, a stereotype is a special type of role schema in which we hold a broad set of beliefs about the characteristics that members of a particular social category, in this case such as gender, age, race or sexuality, are most likely to portray. Such generalizations can be positive and negative as well, as they do give information about certain people or groups but these generalizations don’t represent the entire group and are not completely accurate or applicable to the person or group. I feel that more should be taught about the effects that stereotypes and stereotyping could have on one’s mind, as unfortunately stereotypes are commonly acknowledged and referred to in our society, even if they are blatantly false and/or offensive.
    I believe that it is important to learn more about the effects of stereotyping because it can have a serious effect and impact upon one’s social behavior, and since stereotypes tend to incorporate information that is both offensive and false using them can lead to undesirable social interactions. According to the Journal of Social Issues, there is a consensus about the differing characteristics of men and women that exists across groups that are differing in sex, age, marital status, and education, and that masculine characteristics are positively valued more often than feminine characteristics. Positive masculine traits form a cluster entailing competence, whereas feminine traits reflect warmth-expressiveness, and these sex-role definitions are incorporated into the self-concepts of both men and women, as they are considered desirable by college students and healthy by mental health professionals (Journal of Social Issues 2010). It is important to take...