How do stereotypes and inferences affect other’s understanding of ourselves.
Have you ever guessed anything about someone you didn’t know well? Chances are that we all have. Stereotyping, the simple act of just inferring something about somebody or having prejudice without past knowledge, is immensely common nowadays. The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton is scattered with stereotyping and inferences. When I started reading the book I didn’t notice stereotyping or anything of that sort in the book. After I started reading it, I started to note how stereotyping had crept up everywhere in the book, from the introduction straight to the conclusion. Ultimately, inferences and stereotypes cause people to think about us in another way, basing their thinking …show more content…
Instead, we act as if what we know is true no matter what and infuse that into what we think of others. If we had an experience in which someone in a group was being stingy to us, we would think that everyone who’s in that person’s group are carbon copies of that person. In The Outsiders, Greasers and Socs are always stereotyped by each other due to the experiences they’ve had. Each group thinks everyone in the other group is the exact same. Every Soc thinks a Greaser is someone that has long hair loaded with hair grease and has an empty-handed family (S.E. Hinton 1967). On the other hand, Greasers think of a Soc as somebody who has excessive money, Mustangs, Corvairs, Madras shirts, and has all the breaks in life (S.E. Hinton 1967). We simply just insert into our brains that everyone in the group is just like that one person. It’s not like if we see one red apple, we think all apples are red. Then why do we do the same thing in real life? If I meet someone for the first time and they don’t maintain eye contact or don 't talk much during a conversation with me, that impression would be imprinted into my mind. Due to that, if I ever saw that person or had to give a description of him/her, the first thing I would think of would be that first encounter. Even though I didn’t know the context of the situation, I would forevermore think of that person as somebody who shows no interest in conversations at all. In reality, who knows if that person was in a bad mood that day, or if something discouraging happened to them and they just weren’t in the mood to have a conversation. We need to base less of our thinking on experience. It can be wrong in many cases. Instead we should try to find out the real story behind the
Have you ever guessed anything about someone you didn’t know well? Chances are that we all have. Stereotyping, the simple act of just inferring something about somebody or having prejudice without past knowledge, is immensely common nowadays. The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton is scattered with stereotyping and inferences. When I started reading the book I didn’t notice stereotyping or anything of that sort in the book. After I started reading it, I started to note how stereotyping had crept up everywhere in the book, from the introduction straight to the conclusion. Ultimately, inferences and stereotypes cause people to think about us in another way, basing their thinking …show more content…
Instead, we act as if what we know is true no matter what and infuse that into what we think of others. If we had an experience in which someone in a group was being stingy to us, we would think that everyone who’s in that person’s group are carbon copies of that person. In The Outsiders, Greasers and Socs are always stereotyped by each other due to the experiences they’ve had. Each group thinks everyone in the other group is the exact same. Every Soc thinks a Greaser is someone that has long hair loaded with hair grease and has an empty-handed family (S.E. Hinton 1967). On the other hand, Greasers think of a Soc as somebody who has excessive money, Mustangs, Corvairs, Madras shirts, and has all the breaks in life (S.E. Hinton 1967). We simply just insert into our brains that everyone in the group is just like that one person. It’s not like if we see one red apple, we think all apples are red. Then why do we do the same thing in real life? If I meet someone for the first time and they don’t maintain eye contact or don 't talk much during a conversation with me, that impression would be imprinted into my mind. Due to that, if I ever saw that person or had to give a description of him/her, the first thing I would think of would be that first encounter. Even though I didn’t know the context of the situation, I would forevermore think of that person as somebody who shows no interest in conversations at all. In reality, who knows if that person was in a bad mood that day, or if something discouraging happened to them and they just weren’t in the mood to have a conversation. We need to base less of our thinking on experience. It can be wrong in many cases. Instead we should try to find out the real story behind the