Negative Consequences of Sterotyping - 2197 Words

If someone was to describe a person as tall and athletic, you could assume that person to be either male or female. If added to that description was that they liked to dance and wore tight clothing, one might lean more to the thought of the person being a female. If still nothing was said about their gender, but it was also stated that the person was wearing a tight pair of shorts and a hot pink crop top shirt that exposed their stomach, almost everyone would assume a female was being described. However, if you were to drive down Archer, or 13th street in Gainesville Florida at the right time you would possibly have to do a double take at the person performing on the side of the road. All of the descriptions listed above are describing a†¦show more content†¦Of course, not all rich people are cold and not all poor people have big hearts, which is the case with all stereotypes, not everyone actually falls into the group you may categorize them into. It is thought that stereot ypes are a set of group beliefs and that frequently those who socialize together tend to share the same set of stereotypes. Stereotypes can serve as a cognitive function on an interpersonal level, as well as a social function on an intergroup level. For stereotyping to work in an intergroup situation an individual must see themselves as part of a group and being a part of the group must be important to that individual. Craig McGarty, Russell Spears, and Vincent Y. Yzerbyt (2002) argued that the cognitive functions of stereotyping are best understood in relation to its social functions, and vice versa. The next question to ask ourselves is, why do stereotypes form? If how stereotypes form stems either from being a learned behavior or as a way for us to group information, why do they persist even when we know better? Research has shown that stereotypes can develop based on a cognitive mechanism known as illusory correlation, which is an erroneous inference about the relationship between two events. If two events that are statistically infrequent occur at the same time observers will overestimate the frequency at which these events occur together. EventsShow MoreRelatedThe Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Academic Achievement 2604 Words   |  11 Pagesis more likely to be headed by a parent who is single, has low educational attainment, is unemployed, has low earning potential, and is young. These parental attributes, separately or in combination, might account for some of the observed negative consequences of poverty on children. These factors have greater impact on students in relation to the timing at which students become poor, the depth of the impoverishment, and the duration of childhood. Each of these factors adds to the complexity of theRead MoreExploring Structural Change in Uk Economy and Labour Market Inequality in London6203 Words   |  25 Pagesto show preferences to achieve lower cost hiring, for example seeking to avoid maternity pay, resulting in maternal profiling (Erickson 2009). Employers show a tendency to hire from groups who typically exhibit ‘good characteristics’, a form of sterotyping that leads to prejudice. When prejudice is acted upon, unfair discrimination takes place (Erickson et al 2009). Preference is further emphasized by queuing theory where few successes allow entire ethnic groups to gain access to professions, leading