No matter how much we try to deny it, discrimination and stereotypes still exist in society, despite the fact that much awareness on related topics are being spread through events or the internet. Even though most people understand that both of the above are undesirable and that everyone should be treated equally, we may still instinctively think “that man seems dangerous” or “they seem to need help” in our daily lives, effectively judging a book by its cover. Why is that, and can we avoid such thinking? New research may have given us another look at this matter.
In a world of survival-of-the-fittest, most animals have instincts to judge friend from foe already preinstalled in their brains, allowing them to quickly identify and avoid potential threats. Some fish attack others of their species because of their different individual birthplaces, and chimpanzees can attack fellow chimps as well. As for humans, that function has persisted in our brains since birth, and psychologists believe that our brains automatically categorize humans by different aspects, such as age, gender or race. Since humans are social animals that work in groups, it is necessary for us to quickly identify who are from an ally group and who are hostile outsiders. As such, no matter how much we try to control it, our subconsciousness instantaneously group people according to races and genders. This effect is even present in children. According to an experiment conducted by television newsmagazine “20/20”, kids were shown pictures of an Arab man and a Chinese man, then asked which man they preferred. Many of them chose the Chinese man, and one child even commented that the Arab man was scary despite having a smile on his face. When the experiment was repeated with a photo of a black man and a white man, they were asked which one they thought was the criminal and which was a professor. A lot of them considered the white man to be a professor and the black man to be a criminal, despite the white man in the photo was a bomber while the other was a Harvard professor.
However, not all stereotypes are bad. The human mind often makes assumptions based on previous knowledge and experiences, according to psychology professor Paul Bloom. This is shown in daily life as well, with how we don’t ask a toddler for directions nor do we ask an old man to help pick up something heavy, despite having no concrete evidence that they are not capable of those actions. This can already be considered stereotyping. Our brain automatically processes the fact that most toddlers can’t speak and most elderly shouldn’t do heavy-lifting, and applies that to new situations, which our brains are mostly good at. According to social psychologists, when we meet a new person, we usually first generalize their age, gender and race unconsciously within less than a second. We give them tags such as “teenager”, “female” or “asian”, then match those tags with our previous encounters with people of the same type, finally coming to an assumption of how they are like. This in itself is not a bad thing, as it all happens unconsciously and cannot be controlled. However, when all one can link to a certain tag are bad memories and demeaning concepts, that is when things start to become harmful.
Due to the way society has generalized gender roles and how we have been exposed to such stereotypes since childhood, concepts such as femininity and masculinity have already been engraved into our brains. This may cause our assumptions to go awry, like concluding that females should be cared for or that boys should be brave and bold. Fortunately, humans are gifted with the intelligence and logical thinking to counteract these impulses and assumptions. Though stereotyping is an automatic function of our brains, it is still nothing but a gut feeling, which is why it is important for us to understand everyone we meet thoroughly before we can consider their personal profile “case closed”. We must always keep in mind that despite our accurate guesses, there can always be contradictions between our imagination and reality. Another thing that may help is to expose yourself to more people and experiences, who may provide multiple perspectives that can change one’s mind on how a group of people acts. Not every apple in the bunch is the same – some might be good, while some might be bad. Likewise, there will always be diversity within a group of people. Through enriching ourselves in the outside world and thinking clearly before acting on our assumptions, we can defeat the autonomous stereotyping in our heads.
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Writer: Joshua Lee
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