Stereotypes: Based on fact or ignorance?

[Craft]

If the statement is "all stereotypes have some truth", then I don't think this absolute is likely. The common can be controlled and do vary. Perhaps stereotypes can only go from 0% to 80% reliable.

 

[Night]

No, I get what you're saying, Jock. Science is our best guess - that's all it is. It's mutable. We're going with the data we have. Certainly, our data set is incomplete.

Still, until revised professional data becomes available, what we have is what we have. If we want progress, we have to go from there.

 

[JocktheMotie]

If the statement is "all stereotypes have some truth", I don't think this absolute is likely. The common can be controlled and do vary. Perhaps stereotypes can only go from 0% to 80% reliable.

I'd say that "all stereotypes have an observational consistency." Whether that observation is based on scientific rigor, or blind hate, or ignorance, is individual to that stereotype.

 

[Craft]

Not to inject type where it may not be applicable, because it's known that it's used for far too much here, but I wonder if there's a correlation between the validity of stereotypes vs. judging orientations. For a Ti user, truth is usually axiomatic and tends to be considered as absolute. Like MLF says, the earth was always round, if something is not ALWAYS true, then it is not true. For the Te user, something is true if it can be functionally applied in a correct manner, ie, statistically. No idea. This came to me before my first cup of coffee. I might even be dreaming, there is a unicorn standing next to me.

I guess the only ultimate evidence for truth, in most, is consistency?

Anyways. I do think stereotypes can be easily misused [obviously], but they're a tool. Like Night says, how one uses the tool is extremely important and the credibility of the observation being applied to a group is paramount in the stereotype's validity. I do wonder though, is a stereotype not a fact just because it's applied to people and not to something else?

Perhaps because people aren't as consistent and/or predictable as everything else. though I might be pointing the obvious..

Is science, in a way, merely stereotype?

 

[disregard]

Stereotypes: attributing something observed in one or more instances to an entire group of people.

For example: Some green people are violent; therefor, all green people are violent.

 

[durentu]

Argumentum ad populum.
Nothing to do with truth. Earth didn't suddenly become a sphere when people stopped believing it was flat. The masses just became a little wiser.

Yes, but if you believe that the earth is indeed a sphere, you'd be falling for this fallacy as well. At the next level, the Earth is indeed an oblate spheroid. We can go further and say that space itself is warped via gravitational effects and the shape of the Earth is indeed further distorted from what we can perceive.

The line is drawn at the limits of human understanding, which is a function of human perception, with or without the aid of technology.

You also draw a contextual fallacy between the nature of sterotypes (which is a function of humans) and of nature itself (indifferent to humans).

 

[yvonne]

Not to inject type where it may not be applicable, because it's known that it's used for far too much here, but I wonder if there's a correlation between the validity of stereotypes vs. judging orientations. For a Ti user, truth is usually axiomatic and tends to be considered as absolute. Like MLF says, the earth was always round, if something is not ALWAYS true, then it is not true. For the Te user, something is true if it can be functionally applied in a correct manner, ie, statistically. No idea. This came to me before my first cup of coffee. I might even be dreaming, there is a unicorn standing next to me.

Anyways. I do think stereotypes can be easily misused [obviously], but they're a tool. Like Night says, how one uses the tool is extremely important and the credibility of the observation being applied to a group is paramount in the stereotype's validity. I do wonder though, is a stereotype not a fact just because it's applied to people and not to something else?

very interesting. there aren't that many things out there that we know are facts, but many of the evaluations made are close enough to being somewhat true (in that context)... but even the shape of the globe is changing all the time, so even that isn't ALWAYS true?

 

[yvonne]

Yes, but if you believe that the earth is indeed a sphere, you'd be falling for this fallacy as well. At the next level, the Earth is indeed an oblate spheroid. We can go further and say that space itself is warped via gravitational effects and the shape of the Earth is indeed further distorted from what we can perceive.

The line is drawn at the limits of human understanding, which is a function of human perception, with or without the aid of technology.

yes, exactly.

 

[yvonne]

lol so this is about stereotypes in general..... sorry about the little SFP crusade above..

ok, so... there's a stereotype of asian men having small dicks, for example. or being pushovers and overly "polite". not true in the slightest, because if anyone said that, i'd shove my dick up their ass. now first of all, it'd be big enough for them to feel and probably cry about - second, most people would agree that assraping someone isn't a very "polite" thing to do. on top of that, i wouldn't be the pushover in that situation.

if you don't like the vulgarity, sorry. just trying to make a point. which is "welcome to the real world. stereotypes don't exist here."

p.s. i also suck at math and ping pong.

i don't like the vulgarity, but this post was so unexpected and refreshing here that it made me laugh

 

[William K]

I'd say stereotypes occur because the human mind is unable to handle too many variables and feels a need to categorize things (or in this case people). It is just a way to make the world simpler so that we don't need to waste our energy to find out the facts for ourselves for each and every single individual.

As for whether it is based on facts, I would say it's based on assumptions made on a very small and probably incomplete sample size. Even then it might not be from direct observation. It might be like an urban legend where "I heard this and this from someone's brother's friend's colleague's ex-wife". If there is any facts at the beginning, it is so obfuscated from the word of mouth that there's probably no way of finding out how the stereotype started and whether it is valid or not.

 

[ConstantlyImagining]

Stereotypes typically involve taking what one sees as a general pattern in a demographic group- whether observed first hand or otherwise- and erroneously apply it to every member of said demographic group. All stereotypes are wrong- both logically and,in some cases, ethically. For example to say that men are stronger than women is a stereotype and thus wrong.

However, if one were to say that men are generally stronger than women, then that may be considered a proper generalisation and thus accurate and further more ethical. The nuances between a stereotype and a generalisation, produced by adding words or phrases that denote the pattern as general- in the case of a generalisation-, alters implications and connotations of the statement almost entirely as it takes into consideration the possibility of instances or variables that lie beyond what is the norm. Generalisations may also be considered more ethical as to articulate a stereotype when one is aware that it is not ubiquitously applicable can be considered as misconstruing the facts or one's observations.Also should the golden rule or the harm principle be given any weight in ethics, stereotypes may also be considered unethical; as you may be disparaging people of a demographic group and perhaps maybe in some cases hampering their individual development- as was hypothetically the case in a study when the stereotype that girls perform poorly in Mathematics generally negatively impacted some girls' performance in their Mathematics classes. It also is perhaps more coherent with " philosophical etiquette" as it takes into consideration that there may be known unknowns and unknown unknowns; I cannot recall the originator at this time but a philosopher one said that " It is precisely in knowing its limitations that philosophy exists"; in the scenario of the patterns we observe in people's characteristics we can take this a bit further and adjust the framework such that we may recognise where and to whom the pattern may apply and thus perhaps, in doing so, acquire a better understanding of ourselves and those around us.

At the same time there may be some positive benefits to negative stereotypes. Some people of a demographic may be hurt by the stereotype and thus seek to prove said stereotype- and its proponents- wrong by refraining from being able to be classed into the stereotype. Thus in doing so they may be free of the negative trait applied to their demographic. This, however, is not free of problems as such people may grow indignant with the stereotype and may develop low expectations of society or in personal relationships, perhaps going as far as to avoid many forms of closeness to others holding a "they will never understand me" paradigm.They may feel victimised.Although it should be noted that people may not fit into steroetypes regardless of if they are averse to them or not.

On a personal note, I generally view stereotypes as annoying and rather ignorant. And personally I believe that no label can ever truly describe who we are as individuals; for the most part I believe we make our choices as to who we are

 

[Craft]

Do stereotypes exclusively imply "All X is Y" or does it also allow "Most X is Y"?

 

[Aleksei]

Stereotypes are born of the inability of normal people to think probabilistically (most is not all). They're never wholly true, but they're generally mostly true, and thus useful regardless.

 

[Salomé]

No - the perspectives I offered/you quoted are not rooted in subjective experience.

Biologically, women have a higher concentration of fat cells than do men, on average between 6-11% more. To my other point, men are innately physically stronger than women. This is owed to increased production of testosterone.

It's just science, blue. Adding qualitative measurement outside of data context is a perceptual invention. There are some absolutes.

Dont patronize me, Aaron. You're getting bogged down in specifics and missing the point. I'll state it for you more plainly: stereotypes are NOT based on science.

]You also draw a contextual fallacy between the nature of sterotypes (which is a function of humans) and of nature itself

Nope. My point stands without illustration. To conclude that truth is "what most people believe" is sloppy at best, dangerous at worst.

 

[Salomé]

Stereotypes typically involve taking what one sees as a general pattern in a demographic group- whether observed first hand or otherwise- and erroneously apply it to every member of said demographic group. All stereotypes are wrong- both logically and,in some cases, ethically. For example to say that men are stronger than women is a stereotype and thus wrong.

However, if one were to say that men are generally stronger than women, then that may be considered a proper generalisation and thus accurate and further more ethical. The nuances between a stereotype and a generalisation, produced by adding words or phrases that denote the pattern as general- in the case of a generalisation-, alters implications and connotations of the statement almost entirely as it takes into consideration the possibility of instances or variables that lie beyond what is the norm. Generalisations may also be considered more ethical as to articulate a stereotype when one is aware that it is not ubiquitously applicable can be considered as misconstruing the facts or one's observations.Also should the golden rule or the harm principle be given any weight in ethics, stereotypes may also be considered unethical; as you may be disparaging people of a demographic group and perhaps maybe in some cases hampering their individual development- as was hypothetically the case in a study when the stereotype that girls perform poorly in Mathematics generally negatively impacted some girls' performance in their Mathematics classes. It also is perhaps more coherent with " philosophical etiquette" as it takes into consideration that there may be known unknowns and unknown unknowns; I cannot recall the originator at this time but a philosopher one said that " It is precisely in knowing its limitations that philosophy exists"; in the scenario of the patterns we observe in people's characteristics we can take this a bit further and adjust the framework such that we may recognise where and to whom the pattern may apply and thus perhaps, in doing so, acquire a better understanding of ourselves and those around us.

At the same time there may be some positive benefits to negative stereotypes. Some people of a demographic may be hurt by the stereotype and thus seek to prove said stereotype- and its proponents- wrong by refraining from being able to be classed into the stereotype. Thus in doing so they may be free of the negative trait applied to their demographic. This, however, is not free of problems as such people may grow indignant with the stereotype and may develop low expectations of society or in personal relationships, perhaps going as far as to avoid many forms of closeness to others holding a "they will never understand me" paradigm.They may feel victimised.Although it should be noted that people may not fit into steroetypes regardless of if they are averse to them or not.

On a personal note, I generally view stereotypes as annoying and rather ignorant. And personally I believe that no label can ever truly describe who we are as individuals; for the most part I believe we make our choices as to who we are

Excellent post.

 

[Kasper]

^ agree.

 

[Saslou]

I haven't read all the posts so i may possibly be duplicating or not.

I think stereotypes will always exist no matter how much people say they don't stereotype, as reality is only an illusion to the individual. Everyone puts meaning to their experiences be it true or not. So what is reality? As everyone has a different view of it. Sames goes with stereotyping.

 

[KDude]

I would acknowledge the experiences that might have set them on the course of stereotyping... I'd sympathize with their emotional reality. "White people did this to me, therefore they're all this way.." I might feel bad for them depending on what it was. But I wouldn't acknowledge it as reality. I'd try to introduce them to "White people" (just to carry the example further) who they'd get along with more, who didn't measure up to their stereotype. That would be more in line with reality.

 

[foolish heart]

stereotypes are ignorant generalizations about things which are usually factual

for example, its ignorant to think every black person licks their lips when they drive by KFC but it's also ignorant to insist that the supposition materialized from thin air

as usual, it's neither one or the other, once again showing that ignorance IS when you try to make reality black and white, or think you can draw any sort of conclusions from something involving an unknown quantity and variety of factors

so really, it almost seems like it's ignorant to think that stereotypes are ignorant. see what i did there?

 

[Saslou]

I would acknowledge the experiences that might have set them on the course of stereotyping... I'd sympathize with their emotional reality. "White people did this to me, therefore they're all this way.." I might feel bad for them depending on what it was. But I wouldn't acknowledge it as reality. I'd try to introduce them to "White people" (just to carry the example further) who they'd get along with more, who didn't measure up to their stereotype. That would be more in line with reality.

Got ya. You wouldn't acknowledge it as reality because it is not you illusion of reality as you may get on well with white people. You seem to be suggesting empathy/compassion to the others persons viewpoint thus changing it.
Another example then .. As a child my mother should of been there for me when i needed her the most, she wasn't. Growing up, i have looked for people to support me when i have needed them the most, they have left and i now have trust and abandonment issues (somewhat true and i could be stereotyped for this)
Now we can use many different angles here.
1 - The people i needed had more pressing issues at the time
2 - The people i choose to turn to for help were selfish, looking after their own needs
3 - My perception is warped because these people did help but not in the way i required the most support
4 - The list goes on.

The only thing that hasn't changed is i still have issues until i change my version of reality and accept something from the list above. Until then i could still be stereotyped by others and myself

We have the opportunity to go and see shrinks to get a better understanding of our barriers and beliefs (you can help/support/guide someone, you're just not getting paid for it though). It still doesn't change the fact that due to the individual's experience of life and the meanings they have attached to it. This is their reality, even if it is for a short period of time until their reality changes to another meaning.