Stereotype 01 What is stereotype

The term stereotype was introduced by Lippmann in his book Public Opinion in 1922, which refers to a fixed impression of a certain type of person or thing formed in society by occupation, age, etc., and is generally considered to be related to certain characteristics and behaviors; from the perspective of cognitive theory, stereotype can be defined as "a cognitive structure involving the perception From the perspective of cognitive theory, stereotype can be defined as "a cognitive structure involving perceivers' knowledge, perceptions, and expectations of human groups".

A stereotype is a fixed, incomplete view of a certain type of person or thing that often occurs when we know others or see things, or a thought stereotype (also called a stereotype in the perception stage). Thought stereotypes, also called "inertia", are a special state of mental readiness, or a tendency to activity, caused by previous activities. Stereotypes allow to solve problems quickly under constant environmental conditions, but when the situation changes, stereotypes prevent a person from adopting a new approach. Stereotypes play a large role in influencing the social information processing we perform. Stereotypes are acquired through direct experience, when individuals come into direct contact with certain people and groups and then fix those characteristics, and indirectly, when people are stereotyped based on indirect experiences with people they have never met. Since its introduction, the concept of stereotypes has attracted widespread and sustained research interest in the social psychology community. As an important operational construct to explain the process of social perception and impression formation, stereotypes have been a hot topic of research in the field of social cognition.

As shown in Figure 1.1, making generalized conclusions on the basis of the limited material given to people can cause them to ignore individual differences in perceiving others, thus leading to perceptual errors and causing preconceptions that prevent them from making correct evaluations of others. In our daily life, examples of stereotypes abound, and they often act on unfamiliar people or events, that is, people will apply stereotypes to an event or person when the information is not completely thorough and not fully understood. For example, some friends may think that yellow-skinned oranges are ripe and sweet, while green-skinned sentences are immature and sour, and buy only yellow-skinned oranges when they buy fruits, when in fact both kinds of oranges are ripe and sweet. As can be seen, stereotypes are often not based on direct experience or factual material, but are formed only on the basis of momentary prejudice or hearsay.

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Reference.
[1] Wang Pei A review of social cognitive research on stereotypes [J] Psychological Science 1999 22(4) 342-345
[2] Wang Pei Theory and Research on Stereotypes [M] Gansu Education Press 2002,5-9