Michael Pickering is a Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University who has contributed to numerous publications in the interest of social commentary. In the first chapter of his 2001 book Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation called “The Concept of the Stereotype”, Michael Pickering psychoanalyzes the “process and effects” of stereotyping (1). By posing as ways to make sense of the world, stereotypes deny flexible thinking and establishes themselves as permanent ways of thinking.
Generalizations are made by people in order to make sense of the world. Stereotypes serve as “a way of imposing a sense of order on the social world...deny[ing] any flexible thinking” (Pickering 3). Because humans have yet to find ‘true’ order to