Stereotype Roles in YOUR Life
The stereotypical roles of your gender, race, and/or perceived social class often affect you in your day-to-day life without your knowledge. The amount you are paid for a service, your living conditions, and the way others treat you may be determined by factors beyond your control. Regardless of your individual characteristics, everyone around you is constantly grouping you in with others, forming a group in their mind that is usually viewed on a large scale. But does this seemingly inconsiderate cognitive function have great implications for social interaction/the human mind?
Why do Social Roles Exist?
"Stereotyping is a cognitive process that allows us to acquire and manage social information and make judgments about others quickly and effortlessly." (Dovido). In large-scale societies, it allows us to create a "norm" within our minds that defines normal behavior to expect from others (which may vary from person to person based on previously mentioned factors). Any action or behavior that strays from this is a deviant behavior or one that is "outside the acceptable range according to societal or group norms and valuesutside the acceptable range according to societal or group norms and values" (Leeder).
But stereotypes are more than this; Stereotypes allow us to create and enforce groups within a society that maintain and promote certain inter-group relationships and interactions (Dovido). In such a way they may in fact encourage discrimination against other groups. (Dovido). For example, in a society where black people are constantly and falsely perceived as prone to violence, one would expect them to have a negative reaction to police, and such a relationship between the two groups is frequently seen, and unknowingly enforced. Stereotypes allow us to maintain an order and hierarchy in the way our minds classify what we percieve in peoples' appearance and/or behavior (Dovido). The next time you look at someone, take a moment to question the cultural, racial, or gender stereotypes that affect your behavior towards them.