Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryzorian
Stereotypes exist partly because enough people fit it to have it become such a thing. "Dumb Jock" for instance, there are alot of Dumb Jocks, both from my highschool days and later in colloge. That doesn't mean every person in sports is a "dumb jock" it just means there were enough of the actual ones to creat the stereotype in the first place.
Stereotype can be construed as an archtype. For instance, Stars Wars is full of "archtype" characters that fit specific "identities" or "stereotypes".
Racial stereotypes go deeper than just race. The British have stereotypes about them, so do the French, the Germans, the Japanese as well as the Americans, in fact, Americans have several, most not very flattering.
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You're right. Stereotypes do exist because enough people fit the idea. It's funny, I was JUST reading about this in a book. I'll type out some of what it says on stereotypes:
"In a cross-cultural setting, attributions result in stereotypes that may offer a false explanation for individual behavior. Stereotypes are oversimplified judgments made about people on the basis of their cultural group of physical characteristics. Cultural stereotypes may be quite strong and will not disappear easily. Tourists, in their brief contact with another country, often find confirmation of the stereotypes they hold... Though there is often some generalized truth in stereotypes, real-life situations and the people who fact them are more complex than the stereotype admits."
(From The Exchange Student Survival Kit by Bettina Hansel.)
It goes on to give the example of the stereotype that Americans are obsessed with time. There's an American exchange student who screams at her host sister because they're going to be a few minutes late for school. The host sister immediately assumes that the American exchange student is simply fitting the stereotype, when in fact the exchange student had a test that morning, and didn't want to be late. She fit the stereotype, but it was for a more complex reason than, "It's because she's an American."