How do life experiences effect stereotyping?

Everything that happens in a persons life effects how they stereotype people and things. Life experiences can make both positive and negative stereotypes. This topic made me think about my grandpa. From his life experiences he thinks of a lot of things a lot different that I do. I realized how different we are just by the way we stereotype. An example is how he thinks of African Americans. Due to his life experiences he often assumes negative images of Afrian Americans rather than positive. My experiences are the complete opposite from his. I've had more positive life experiences with African Americans, so i don't have that stereotype against them at all. I find it interesting that our stereotypes are so different considering we've lived together for twelve years. Usually opinions rub off from your parents but this is all life experiences, so it's completely different.

How do peers influence stereotyping?

One way a person stereotypes others is by influence brought by their peers. This is especially true during the teenage years when everyone's just trying to fit in. Fitting in means everyone in a certain group shares some of the same qualities. The members of that group all consider themselves to be "normal". They think they are superior to people in other groups. In order to keep their feeling of superiority, the members of the group stereotype other groups. When students have peers around them they tend to do or say things they usually wouldn't in an effort to fit in. An example of this would be, a boy showing off in gym class because he sees girls watching him. Peers are a big influence on stereotpying because of the desire for teens to fit in.

How do parents affect childrens stereotypes?

I mentioned in my last blog that parents have an effect on their childrens' stereotyping. An example of this might be the parents saying to the children that anyone who drives a new or fancy car is rich. In this day of car loans, it should be obvious to anyone that a person doesn't have to be rich to have a new or fancy car. I read about a study done to see if and how children stereotyped people. The study was based on the person's appearance and the products they had with them. It showed children as young as five years old could stereotype. The older the children were, the more acurate their assumptions were that the stereotypes were true to their original impressions. There's no way children came up with those stereotypes on their own. Most of this comes from the parents. Even without thinking, parents stereotype a lot too. The children hear their parents opinions and learn to think the same thing. They agree with their parent's thinking without even having had a personal experience to form an opinion of their own. From then on, children's stereotypes keep growing.

What is a stereotype?

The dictionary definition of a stereotype is a “fixed, generalized image of a person or thing shared by many people.” In other words you look at someone and judge them by your ideas and your reaction to what they're wearing or who they're hanging out with, without even talking to the person. This all usually starts during childhood. Parents talk about their opinions and the children hear this and are basically taught to think the same things. When people make stereotypes it's usually based on one person or group of people they've known in their life. Say one of those parents knew somebody that was rich and they happened to be stuck up, so now they think anyone rich is stuck up.

Not only parents influence stereotypes, peers do also. Peers tend to think alike about a lot of things. An example of this would be the group of students at school known as "emo". This stereotype has been made about people that wear a lot of black and are upset a lot. Most kids at school don't really understand them, so they don't accept them.

Life experiences can also produce stereotypes. One experience in my life that I think produced a stereotype is being so close to my great grandma when I was young. That has caused a really poitive stereotype when I see old people, as I think of them as really sweet and caring.

Not all steroetypes are bad, but most tend to unfairly judge people.