Social Stereotypes

The Effect of Social Psychology on Stereotypes The stereotyping of an individual can be detrimental to any potential relationship with someone. It is very easy to judge a person based solely on what social group they come from. Spielman refers to stereotypes as “negative beliefs,” or “Overgeneralized beliefs about people (that) may lead to prejudice.” (Spielman, 2014, p. 434) A stereotype is a belief about a specific set that is often generalized regarding those individuals in said set. (Spielman, 2014) Stereotypes can be widely believed and accepted by society, whether they have any validity or not. Various aspects of social psychology impact stereotypes, such as the fundamental attribution error, the just-world hypothesis, and social roles.

The just-world hypothesis, which could be commonly referred to as karma, is when people view whatever happens to an individual as earned or deserved. (Spielman, 2014) When a person is imprisoned for selling drugs, this is naturally a deserved outcome. The just-world hypothesis, however, takes this viewpoint slightly further, meaning that whatever a person experiences is a result of how they have lived their life. (Spielman, 2014) As mentioned before, stereotypes can be detrimental to an individual; a good illustration of this is rape. If girls dress in a revealing manner and get raped, this is naturally because they deserved it. They must have provoked the rape, and it can’t be the rapist’s fault, as the victim was inviting an assault through their apparel. The stereotype engaged here is the belief that females who dress “skimpily” are of loose morals, and therefore inviting and encouraging their rape. This situation can be incredibly painful for the victim, as a general viewpoint of society is that they deserved the repercussions of their “inappropriate

These social roles, of which there may be multiple assigned to a specific individual, predict how someone should behave. (Spielman, 2014) Spielman defines this social determinant as “A pattern of behavior that is expected of a person in a given setting or group (Hare, 2003).” (Spielman, 2014, p. 415) Social roles can result in either positive or negative stereotypes, but both of these can be considered undesirable by the individual being stereotyped by society. A clearly defined social role is that of a mother. A mother should always be nurturing and put the desires and needs of her family and offspring above her own. Mothers are expected to be highly invested and involved in their children’s lives, and can be frowned upon if they do not fulfill this stereotypical cultural norm. All mothers, however, do not appreciate these social expectations. Some mothers are far more interested in their careers and personal lives, putting their secular goals above the needs of their