“Don’t judge the book by its cover.” When people go to the book store and try to find some books, they usually have already had some opinions and suggestions about what books they are going to buy. Their decisions really depend on what people say about the books. Others will take a look at their outlook like the covers, pictures, colors, titles, or authors. Meanwhile, the rest will figure out what topic they find interesting and explore it by themselves without considering their covers and others’ opinion about it. Those cases similarly happen with stereotype. What is stereotype? Based on an online source, it is believed that “A stereotype is a generalization of one thing. Anything can be stereotyped.” (Chan). Why people stereotype and how people look at stereotype? Next explanation will be focused on how stereotypes affect people in daily life, whether harmfully or positively.
Negative stereotype may cause bad perceptions and the ignorance of people to accomplish new things. It can be done by two different ways; accidentally and on purpose. When it happened accidentally, sometimes the stereotypes are brought by people who know less and are not directly involved in such situations. For example, someone watches the movie about Saudi Arabia where people ride camels instead of cars, then they will create an idea that people in Saudi Arabia do not have cars. Therefore, stereotypes created on purpose mean that there are some particular groups who develop wrong ideas about something. Stangor’s argument agreed that people use stereotypes to simplify something about others and to build their own perception and groups to which they belong. (Bower)
However, some reasons may indicate that stereotypes can bring and guide people before deciding something. This is called a positive stereotype. Stereotypes can increase people’s knowledge about something and anticipate some bad things that possibly occur. For instance, if some people say that Arizona is a place where everybody brings guns, then they must be aware to not go out late at night, especially women. Besides, stereotypes are also used to mark something becomes an identity to make it easier to remember. “Such generalizations are necessary: in order to be able to interact effectively, we must have some idea of what people are likely to be like, which behaviors will be considered acceptable, which not. “ (Livetext)
Some stereotypes could be considered acceptable if it doesn’t harass human’s right and freedom. People will stereotype because people are always thinking, they like to generalize ideas and stigmatize something. As long as it is used in positive ways, then stereotypes can be an effective way to help people interact with other communities. According to a research project in multicultural education, “What can be done to deal with negative stereotypes: the key to reversing negative stereotypes is to contradict them, in direct interactions between people, in the media, and through education.” (Livetext). It means although some negative stereotypes spread among people, but still can be conquered.
To conclude, stereotypes is an interesting term to be discussed among people. It all depends to every single person on how they deal with it. Whether positive or negative, stereotypes is part of humanity culture. It is a natural way of human to express their thinking and opinions. Yet, stereotypes is also an interesting field to be studied further. Studying about stereotype makes us more creative to explore the other side of the world.
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