Stereotypes

Stereotypes are generalizations, judgements, or assumptions of certain social groups based on their similarities with each other and their differences from the majority or group the in “power.” They are not whole explanations of what the world really is, but they represent the pictures in our heads of what we can handle believing the world is.

As Walter Lippman said in Chapter 7 of “Public Opinion”, stereotypes “are an ordered, more or less consistent picture of the world, to which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our hopes have adjusted themselves.” Lippman is saying that we adapt to these “pictures” and become so comfortable with them that we’re often blind to any other way. We feel as though we belong to our stereotypical groups, and this provides comfort. It keeps us from having to think too hard or understand different people. In a more positive way, it's helpful because without such generalizations, we would have no organized, systematic way of learning what others are like.