How do Stereotypes Affect Us?

Hello and welcome to another connectedminds.ai podcast. I hope all of you are doing well.
Today I will talk about stereotypes and how they have the power to affect us mentally. I think all
of us at one point in our lives have stereotyped or may have been stereotyped. Let’s begin by
understanding what the word actually means. A stereotype is a fixed-over generalized belief
about a particular group or class of people. When we stereotype we mean that the entire group
the person belongs to has the same characteristics as him or her. For example- “He is from
England and has bad teeth. All people who live in England have bad teeth.”

When we do this we are basically attributing a particular characteristic to an entire group.

Stereotypes could be made on race- i.e. “All blacks are good at sports;” gender- i.e. “Girls like
pink and boys like boy”; cultures- i.e. “All Asians are good at math”; a group of individuals- i.e.
“All blondes are dumb”; or could also be sexual like “A masculine woman is a lesbian.”
It influences our impressions of people, the judgments we make about others, and the way we
interact with others. We generally use stereotypes to get a simpler understanding of our social
world and affirm them by our interactions with other people. Many of us are aware of the
negative impact of stereotypes but still might hold unconscious bias.

How to break the habit of stereotyping?

First of all, be aware of your Behavioural pattern.
Considering situational aspects of the other person's behaviour
Start paying attention to things about someone besides the stereotypes of their group.
Surround yourself with relevant & sensitive role models from diverse groups.
Expose yourself to multiple perspectives and enhance your horizons.
Promote an inclusive environment
Spread Public awareness

Constantly putting someone down based on your preconceived perceptions affects the person
at the receiving end terribly and might affect their performance poorly.

Aren't we all afraid of affirming those negative preset assumptions?

Being present in a situation where you know that you are being subjected to
prejudice/stereotypes.
We start fearing that if we perform badly, other people will use that as evidence to reinforce their
prejudices that can cause us anxiety and make a poor performance more likely.

For example, female drive worse when they are thinking that they are being judged and driving
in front of males.
The above stated phenomenon is called "Stereotype Threat" & was coined by Claude Steele
and Joshua Aronson in 1995.

They demonstrated and experiemented upon how racial stereotypes affects intellectual ability of
an individual. It was found that black participants performed worse than white participants on
verbal ability tests. It was seen that the test was genuine and no stereotypes was shown and
portrayed. Even then the performance was impacted as the participants themselves thought
badly about their abilities when they were performing up against a white participant.

Stereotype threat affects people who are concerned about the outcome of a situation in terms
of two aspects:
1) to complete the task given
2) to disprove the Stereotypes.

Stereotype threat induces feeling of self-doubt and elevates levels of anxiety and stress while
performing.

How to cope with stereotype threat?

Be self aware of your capabilities
Value-Affirmations to Reduce Stress and Threat
Cultivate Growth Mindset
Reframe your performance anxiety
Cultivate a sense of belongingness
Remove triggers
Establish strong role models who defied societal norms.

The opposite of Stereotype threat can also be seen in some people which is "Stereotype Boost"
where the performance of an individual enhances when the said stereotype is positive in nature
for the recipient.

For example, "Girls are better at reading."

The above statement might actually affect the performance of the girl participants in a reading
competition.

There can be few stereotypes which seem "positive," but they are harmful.This is because
stereotypes label people based on assumptions and don't take the fact that everyone is a
unique individual.

It can be concluded that stereotypes are not a sound basis for making interpretations about
other individuals and in addition can have adverse effects on our interpersonal relationships and
might also devoid us of widening the horizons.
Labels are for clothing not for people. Remove all these labels and make the world a better
place to be.