Each person has his own stereotype regarding religion, gender, and race. Culture, family, and schools could be sources of stereotypes. Children learn most of their knowledge either from their experience with their families or from their schools. The society is understood according to the way parents characterize it although some of these ideas might be wrong, and of course interaction with people in the society can affect people’s stereotypes.. Not to forget the media, peculiarly the Internet, which, nowadays, provides the biggest amount of information to the people. At a click of a button, any type of information will be available. People use stereotypes for several reasons; according to the Absolutism theory “the belief in absolute truths [we think we are right, so they must be wrong”, and according to Relativism “It all depends on one’s perspective. There is not one truth. Cultures create different ideas of morality and reality. People are constantly moving somewhere along the absolutism/relativism continuum in their thinking – if a person is a bigot, a fundamentalist etc, they believe absolutely in their view.” Well Cialdini suggests that cognitive shortcuts give a person a certain generalization …show more content…
The term “out of the box” means that people, again, see others as people and not as objects. Just like us, other people have responsibilities, fears, beliefs, and obligations. When one is out of the box, he thinks rationally, objectively and can identify situations of manipulation or being outsmarted. Being out of the box can’t necessarily mean the inability of delivering tough messages. Empathy is just like putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Or understanding what they are talking about because you experienced it while sympathy is the caring, understanding, and sharing emotions of others. So in other words empathy goes beyond sympathy in having the ability to participate in the experience. Empathy could be a process through which one gets out of the box. Empathy versus sympathy can be explained through the following scenario. Imagine a guy walking down the street and suddenly five men attack him and start hitting him. A seven-footer man, apparently a fighter, passes by, so this guy shouts help. The fighter responds by telling him: “you have be fast and kick them between the legs to win” and he keeps walking. Another person passes by, seemingly a priest, so the guy shouts: ” help! ” The priest responds by: “ pray for god, he’s your only savior” and continues walking. Then suddenly he finds his short physically incapable friend running from the end of the street and jumping into the fight. The same guy