Stereotyping is a form of pre judgment that is as prevalent in today's society as it was 2000 years ago. It is a social attitude that has stood the test of time and received much attention by social psychologists and philosophers alike. Many approaches too, or theories of stereotyping have thus been raised. My paper will attempt to evaluate the cognitive process that inevitably leads to stereotyping. Hamilton (1979) calls this a 'depressing dilemma'.Brown's (1995) definition of stereotyping through prejudice is the 'holding of derogatory social attitudes or cognitive beliefs, the expression of negative affect, or the display of hostile or discriminatory behavior towards members of a group on account of their membership to that group'. This definition implies that stereotyping is primarily a group process, through the individuals psyche's within that group. A further idea of stereotyping, defined by Allport (1954) as 'thinking ill of others without warrant', is that people 'make their mind up' without any personal experience. This pre judgment about a whole group is then transferred to the stigmatization of any individuals in that group. It is these ideas that the essay aims to evaluate, through the cognitive process of categorization and the above definitions that bring about three distinct features of stereotyping, that our cognition can be demonstrated through.The first characteristic of stereotyping is over-generalization. A number of studies conducted found that different combinations of traits were associated with groups of different ethnic and national origin (Katz and Braly, 1933). However, stereotyping does not imply that all members of a group are judged in these ways, just that a typical member of a group can be categorized in such judgments, that they possess the characteristics of the group. Still, when we talk of a group, we do so by imagining a member of that group.The second feature and characteristic of stereotyping is...
