If you’re not a hipster, geek or jock, you’re a bro, woo-girl, or loner. The point is, you’re always something.
When labelled, people stop being people and become stereotypes. As disturbing as that information is, it reflects what really happens.
People have always been automatically assigned to a specific social group. This social concept has become so common that everyone seems to blindly accept whichever label they have been “assigned” and leave it at that.
The question isn’t so much “which group am I a part of?” rather than “why am I a part of it?”
Stereotyping is a systematic way in which people judge and categorize others based on a variety of factors. It is a way of remembering individuals based on certain traits which they share with others. People who share these traits are grouped together to help others remember them.
The word stereotype itself stems from the Greek words “stereos” and “typos,” quite literally meaning “solid impression.” Warren Thorngate, a psychology professor at Carleton argues that labelling is a trait that seems to be hard-wired into people. He says the process and mentality behind stereotyping people has very legitimate psychological reason. Thorngate relates the limitations of short-term memory to the need to stereotype others.
“We either don’t have enough information to judge people as themselves or we lack the attention span to absorb all that information and make separate pieces of information for everybody…we have to simplify,” he says.
He argues that labels are absolutely necessary in life and that stereotypes are not necessarily negative things. Stereotypes can become negative due to two common mistakes, according to Thorngate.
The first reason being error of exclusion, which is making the mistake of “labelling [an individual] as someone I’m not going to trust or give rewards to,” he said.
The second, being error of inclusion, which is making the mistake of “labelling [an individual] as a trustworthy person…and discovering later that you made a mistake,” he said.
That is the danger of labelling people: it’s possible to be wrong when making assumptions. This leads to many inaccurate judgments of character, and sometimes, inaccurate judgments of an entire group of people.
Most often, labels and stereotypes are developed by listening to other people and taking their ideas as fact. The media are the most influential sources, as they have the potential to reach out to so many people in such a short period of time, and an an immense impact on these common misconceptions, moulding the beliefs and ideas of almost everyone exposed to it, through the power of suggestion. If a certain stereotypical group of people- no matter of what size- is seen as comedic or interesting in the media, then the new stereotype is formed that is probably as distorted as the old stereotype, Thorngate said.
Whether stereotypes are legitimate or not, we cannot escape their existence or power. We can’t get through life without them, we can’t do much to manipulate them, and it seems as if being known as an individual these days is nearly impossible. It appears, at least psychologically, that stereotypes are here to stay.
