Stereotypes are a way to make sweeping judgments about a person or a group based not on first-hand experience or legitimate research, but rather solely on their race, their religious beliefs, their sexual preferences, and so on. “All the ‘isms’- racism, sexism, ageism, et al. - are founded on and fueled by the stereotype and the cliché” (Ericsson, p.3). For example, people who commit racial stereotyping believe that all Asian people cannot drive, but are good at doing mathematics; and all black people commit crimes, yet are good in sports activities. To stereotype based on religious preference, one would claim that all Muslims are terrorists and that they hate Americans; or that all Jews are cheap with their money. Sexual stereotyping includes the belief that all women …show more content…
For example, a person driving down the road is cut off in traffic by an Asian driver and out of frustration, he makes the comment that all Asians do not know how to drive. In doing so, he is placing this Asian driver in a negative racial stereotype that he can demean and control as a way to get back for cutting him off in traffic. However, this driver’s stereotypical beliefs about Asians may hurt him professionally in the future if he were to ever have to either work for an Asian boss, or work with Asian coworkers. We also have a need to categorize and understand the people and things around us. As human beings, we need to feel safe and that we do not need to feel anxious about our surroundings, and stereotyping helps us to do this. When we stereotype, we take an entire group of people and place them into a nice and neat little category that we can then arrange with all of the other people and things we categorize. In doing so, we can feel a bit of relief that that part of our life, the people or thing that we stereotyped, is now in order. The end result is that we reduce our own