Answer:
In the essay “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp your Judgement” by Robert C. Heilbroner, the author discusses how stereotypes cause us to prejudge the different types of people in the world before actually getting to know them. He writes about the types of stereotyping, and how we do it without recognizing it, when we begin, and what we should do to try to prevent it. He gives clear examples of many types of stereotyping. Every point that the author makes in this essay is valid. Especially the points about childhood stereotyping, how we try to make sense of the world, and what we should try to do to prevent ourselves from stereotyping so much.
Heilbroner writes, “We begin to type-cast people in our early childhood.” This statement is true. Not only do we begin to typecast at an early age, our peers greatly influence how we are to typecast another peer. Kids can be cruel and hurtful even when it comes to a simple kickball game. When it comes to choosing teams, stereotyping is used sometimes. Some children who are fit and in shape might exclude an overweight child because they are thought to be slow or not athletic. Even if a child receives good grades, he or she might be typecast as a teacher’s pet. This child may not be liked by his peers just because he does well in school and he can be called names, such as dork or geek. Things like this can scar a child mentally and even cause a low feeling of self-worth. What is more, these situations may also have negative consequences for this or that kid in the future, when he or she is an adult. In other words, it may affect child development and health through multiple pathways. It takes us a while to realize that these simple assumptions aren’t always correct.
“Sometimes stereotyping can be used to help us make sense of this complicated world,” Heilbroner also mentions in his essay. Sometimes it can be hard for us to comprehend all the complexities of the world. There are so many different types of people that we actually put them into categories to try to help us understand them. Actually, putting people into categories kind of blinds us from seeing the true person. We categorize by race, occupation, physical appearance, and a variety of other things. Something that we most often put into a category is race. Out of all the things we have to offer, the color of our skin and culture background we have seems to stick out the most. In the past, there were certain hate groups, such as the KKK that showed extreme hatred towards any other race than the white race. The KKK would do violent things to them, such as brutal beatings or even hangings. Nowadays, stuff like this is very rare although hatred towards some other races is still among us. We have come to more of an expectance that the only thing different was the color of skin. It is a known fact that race has nothing to do with our personalities.All in all, stereotypes are known for their negative reputation. The reasons are pretty logical and reasonable. According to the results of the most recent researches, stereotypes of any kind can make intergroup hostility more extensive, as well as facilitate different prejudices around age, sex, race, and various other distinctions. As it has already been mentioned, stereotypes are usually used in order to justify any sort of discrimination and injustice, to give some good reason to violence, to enable exploitation, as well as enable various corrupt power structures. All possible interpretations and expectations that are based on stereotypes tend to actively ruin the most intimate relationships, become fatal to individual freedom, contaminate laws, and stymie individual achievements.
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