What are the effects of stereotypes
Stereotypes can also harm you, for example, if an individual has a stereotype of himself or herself and the group to which he or she belongs, he or she may fear that he or she will validate that stereotype. For example, once an average child accepts the stereotype that "dragons give birth to dragons, phoenixes give birth to phoenixes, and mice's children make holes," he may set limits on himself, give up on his efforts, reduce his self-efficacy, or even become self-absorbed. This is essentially Stereotype Threat. Once Stereotype Threat is activated, it requires a great deal of cognitive resources to suppress the negative thoughts brought about by the stereotype, and the individual's cognitive resources are limited, which will undoubtedly affect the effectiveness of his next step.
Stereotypes are an important topic of social psychology research, which are not necessarily based on facts and do not take into account individual differences, but are simply fixed perceptions that exist in people's minds, but can have positive and negative effects on people's cognition and behavior.
3.1 Positive effects of stereotypes
The positive effects of stereotypes are also reflected in the fact that we are not Sherlock Holmes and cannot observe every aspect of a stranger. In other words, we can only select objective impressions and apply them to this unfamiliar object through first impressions or some incomplete information. In other words, people do not need to do detailed cognition on an object, which is also in a certain range of judgment for a certain type of people with many commonalities, without exploring information, directly according to the formed fixed views can be concluded, which simplifies the cognitive process and saves a lot of time and energy.
3.2. Negative effects of stereotypes
Stereotypes can lead to the problem of "over-generalization", and it is easy to "overturn a boatload of people", some people are clearly not such people but are classified as such. For example, the so-called "many liars in Henan", while some honest and kind people in Henan have to struggle to find work under the colored eyes of others. Stereotype is a simple application and generalization, but this kind of categorization is often no reliable basis, people have been simply blackmail, media reports and their own personal contact with individual people of this group to strengthen the error, and gradually formed a deep-rooted stereotype, and even think that this group of people have a specific character.
Second, stereotype is a kind of impression applied to unfamiliar things, for incomplete access to information, easy to cognitive bias, cognitive defects. In China, there is a saying that "if you know yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles", and only thorough access to information can make war win. It is impossible to estimate whether the army of a weak country is weak or not until it is fully understood. It is possible that the actual situation of the object to which the stereotype is applied may be the opposite of the stereotype, which will be a huge blow to the person who assesses the object.
Third, stereotypes can sometimes expand the problem and cause racial hatred. It can overgeneralize the impression of a certain race on every person of that race, as shown in Figure 3.2, such as prejudice, inequality, sexism, etc. For example, "black people are rude and uneducated", and this prejudice impression is imprinted on every black person, making every American have countless prejudice and discrimination against them. This prejudice is imprinted on every black person, making every American have numerous prejudices and discrimination against them. And America is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country, the impact of black and white also makes the negative impact of stereotypes exposed.
Reference.
Guo Qingguang Communication Studies Tutorial Renmin University of China Press 2011, 2nd edition