25.3: Stereotypes

Schemas

As we saw earlier, there is now considerable evidence that people have well-organized packets of generic knowledge about many things, including librarians, picnics, graduate student offices, visits to restaurants, first dates, and so on. These packages of information are called schemas.

For example, the picnic schema includes having a meal outdoors, eating off paper plates, taking a bottle of mustard, sitting at a picnic table, and so on. Not all these things are required for a picnic, but most of them will be true of your typical picnic. So, once we learn that Wilma and Wilbur went on a picnic, we can reasonably infer that most of these things probably occurred; e.g., they probably took a bottle of mustard and ate off paper plates.

Schemas are useful because they help us organize our knowledge; they allow us to automatically fill in many details, and they structure our expectations. A little information may activate it, and we can then use the generic knowledge in the schema to quickly draw further inferences about the situation.

For example, when we hear that Wilbur packed a bottle of mustard in a basket, this is likely to activate our picnic schema. And we can then use it to draw inferences about what Wilbur is up to; we would expect him to be eating outdoors, for example. Similarly, your schema for a graduate student office probably includes having books in it, so it is natural to expect that such an office will have books, or to remember it as having books (even if it didn’t). We couldn’t get along without schemas. They help us categorize events, objects, and people, which makes it easier to explain and predict what they do. Even schemas that are a bit inaccurate are often useful. But some schemas are so inaccurate that they can lead to bad consequences.

Stereotypes as Schemas

A stereotype is a schema about the members of a certain group. It includes the character traits, physical traits, and other features commonly associated with the group. When we think of a picnic, we are likely to think that people ate off paper plates, or to remember that they did (even if they didn’t), because this is part of our schema for a picnic.

Similarly, research shows that many prejudiced white people have a stereotype of African American males as athletic, hostile, and lazy. So, when someone who has a schema like this learns that Wilbur is an African American, they are likely to infer (virtually automatically) that he is probably hostile. A stereotype needn’t involve negative feelings about the stereotyped group, but when it does, it leads to prejudice. Stereotypes are dangerous because they are (i) typically inaccurate, (ii) attribute the same features to virtually all members of a group (even though there are usually large differences among group members), and (iii) are often very resistant to change. We will examine these features below, but first it will be useful to consider some examples of stereotypes.

Examples of Stereotypes

It can be uncomfortable to discuss stereotypes and prejudices in a classroom setting. For one thing, some of the people in the class are likely to be members of groups in question. But open and respectful discussion is necessary if we are to think about these issues in a clear way. If we want to see where a stereotype is mistaken, we must acknowledge what that stereotype is. Keeping things at a completely abstract level or, worse, pretending that there aren’t any problems, is not an effective way to think about these issues.

It may help if we begin by noting that everyone—even straight, white, cis males—is to varying degrees the victim of stereotyping. In fact, pointing this out is in part a function of stereotyping from your humble authors. There is a kneejerk defensiveness that is common enough we expect some of you reading this to be having it, and we want to cut it off at the pass. So, yes there is stereotyping in regard to all groups. We tend not to linger on the stereotyping of groups that have benefitted most from systemic injustice. It’s better to focus on those for whom the stereotyping is the most severe and harmful, because that is where we can affect the most positive change.

Stereotypes seem to be incredibly entrenched. While the world has changed dramatically in the last hundred years, our stereotypes have remained largely the same. Not everyone has the same stereotypes for various groups, but many stereotypes are widely shared. Quickly write down the traits that you think are commonly ascribed to Latino, or Jewish, or gay people. Don’t censor what you write (remember, you aren’t saying that you feel this way about the group). You will probably come up with some of the following characteristics, which research shows are widespread aspects of common stereotypes: Latinos are stereotyped as aggressive, unintelligent, and lazy. Jews as shrewd, intelligent, and materialistic. Gay men as effeminate; lesbians as masculine.