stereotypes by digitalsakura

the term stereotype was first coined by lippmann in 1922 (as cited in dovidio, hewstone, glick & esses, 2010) in order to describe a social group's perceived characteristics. furthermore, according to allport (1954, p. 191), a stereotype is an 'an exaggerated belief associated with a category. its function is to justify (rationalise) our conduct in relation to that category'. this definition is often quoted in a great deal of stereotype research, especially since gordon allport (1954) was a well-known psychologist in his time and author of the nature of prejudice (dovidio et al., 2010). furthermore, it was found that various social psychologists (see dividio et al., 2010) in the last five decades utilised allport's writings as a foundation for their own work. this definition provides an indication of many of the conventional aspects of stereotypes (pickering, 2001). when explaining the definition of stereotypes as mentioned by allport, it can be seen that stereotypes inflate and homogenise traits that are seen to be characteristics of specific categories; in other words, these traits are generalised or classified to all individuals forming part of this specific category (pickering, 2001).
categories (or social groups) can be defined by any number of criteria, such as race, gender, occupation and age (arnold et al., 2010; bergh & theron, 2009). once these social groups are formed, beliefs or perceptions usually exist about the characteristics, attributes or behaviours of members belonging to that particular group or category (hilton & von hippel, 1996; whitley & kite, 2006). most often, a person is stereotyped because the perceiver (the one doing the stereotyping) is only familiar with the overall category or group to which the person belongs (luthans, 2010). other research, however, has proposed that many people who stereotype do not have broad stereotypes, for example all women, or all men, but that stereotypes are often made about people belonging to a specific group such as old men or old white women (arnold et al., 2010; stangor, lynch, duan & glass, 1992). this possibly means that individuals who have more information available to them may make use of more specific stereotypes than individuals who rely on broader stereotypes because of a lack of information.
when thinking about stereotypes, individuals are inclined to believe that all stereotypes are negative in nature; however, this is untrue. stereotypic beliefs or perceptions can be positive (e.g. 'asians are good students and employees'), negative ('senior citizens are too old to be good employees') or neutral ('australians like cricket') (mullins, 2010; whitley & kite, 2006). literature provides examples of the nature of stereotypes ascribed to groups. because each individual is unique, it should not be assumed that the actual traits, characteristics or behaviours of the person being stereotyped will concur with those that are suggested by the stereotype (luthans, 2010). these stereotypes assigned to groups are usually seen to be simplistic, inflexible and inaccurate, and these stereotypes can hurt the personal and social identities of individuals (pickering, 2001). stereotypes have a damaging effect, especially since stereotypes do not recognise the differences in social groups and often lead to inaccurate perceptions and inappropriate behaviour towards people (bergh & theron, 2009). this does not mean, however, that all stereotypes are incorrect; many stereotypes have a kernel of truth (whitley & kite, 2006). mcshane and von glinow (2014) concur with this, being of the opinion that not all stereotypes are exaggerations or falsehoods, but that stereotypes often have some extent of truthfulness. therefore, when stereotyping, individuals should not fall into the trap of believing that all stereotypes are a clear representation of all members belonging to a specific group.

the sprouts of digitalsakura were planted on january 29, 2019, since then this beautiful tree, a symbol of life and death, transience and frailty of being, blooms and envelops the whole world with petals of experimental art.
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