A "stereotype" is a generalization about a person or group of persons.

It is an outgrowth of
prejudice in which label others based only on their membership in one group. People develop
stereotypes when they are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information they would need to
make fair judgments about people or situations. In the absence of the "total picture," stereotypes
in many cases allow people to "fill in the blanks." Our society often creates stereotypes, but
results are unfair discrimination & prejudice among people.

Stereotypes exist for every group or category of person. These descriptions can have good or
bad connotations, it just depends what context they are used. In order to see if a stereotype is
true, it is best to truly get to know people and places.

For example, if we are walking through a park late at night and encounter three senior citizens
wearing fur coats and walking with canes, we may not feel as threatened as if we were met by
three high school-aged boys wearing leather jackets. We have made a generalization in each
case. These generalizations have their roots in experiences we have had ourselves, read about in
books and magazines, seen in movies or television, or have had related to us by friends and
family. In many cases, these stereotypical generalizations are reasonably accurate. By
stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we have
stereotypes about persons who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand
contact.

Source of stereotypes
Television, books, comic strips, and movies are all abundant sources of stereotyped characters. .
Stereotypes also evolve out of fear of persons from minority groups. For example, many people
have the view of a person with mental illness as someone who is violence-prone. This conflicts
with statistical data, which indicate that persons with mental illness tend to be no more prone to
violence than the general population. This may be how some stereotypes developed in the first
place; a series of isolated behaviors by a member of a group which was unfairly generalized to
be viewed as a character of all members of that group.

Reasons of Stereotypes
There are many reasons of stereotypes.

 As in categorical thinking people try to link the observed things to preconceived images.
So people make a generalized view about others.
 The social learning theory is responsible for explaining how stereotypes are formed.
People learn stereotypes from their parents. The cognitive psychology on the
categorization process gives insight as to how stereotypes are formed by children. This
cognitive psychology states that when children are given a lot of things to remember,
they generalize the group in order to remember it effortlessly. Children listen to the
generalities that their parents make and they apply them when they age. At a young age,
 children's brains absorb a vast amount of information that they hear from other people
and from the media.
 The more people associate or involve themselves with others, the more they begin to
absorb and apply their newly gathered opinions.
 Conformity also leads to the creation of stereotypes. When there is a large group of
people who share the same qualities and characteristics, stereotypes will be formulated
easily because there are a lot of members in that particular group. When people see
several members of that group every day, the stereotypes become more concrete and
evident.
 People do not want to remember detailed and complex words because they might forget
them. Instead, those detailed and complex words are substituted with simple terms.

Effects of stereotyping
There can be numerous effects of stereotyping, with much dependent on the actual content of the
stereotype.

 stereotype threat

. There is also a phenomenon where an individual's academic performance is negatively affected

by the unrealistic pressure an individual feels to "not perform" like others of his or her
racial/ethnic group or gender. For example, Asians have been stereotyped as the "model
minority," meaning that they are perceived to be very intelligent, overzealous students/workers.
The problem with this particular stereotype is that individuals who do not meet such high
expectations can experience very negative feelings about themselves, even though they may be
of average, or even above average, intelligence.

 Other Impacts

In short, and though the following list is in no way exhaustive, stereotypes may: Influence an
individual's choice in friends, romantic partners, co-workers, and even neighbors; lead an
individual to feel bad about him or herself by lowering self-esteem; affect an individual's
performance in an academic setting; exacerbate tension among workgroups; give rise to divisive
relations among individuals who share a common characteristic (such as race) but differ in terms
of their class background; and in extreme circumstances, they may lead to violence.

Attribution errors
Attribution simply refers to the how people explain the cause of another ‘s or their own behavior.
Attribution errors are the mistake that people make when recognizing the mistake of other
behavior.

Two major types of attribution errors includes

  Fundamental attribution error
 Self serving bias

Fundamental attribution error

Research has found that people tend to ignore powerful situational forces when explaining others
behavior. people tend to attribute others behavior to personal factors ( for example intelligence,
ability, motivation, attitudes or personality).even when it is very clear that the situation or
circumstances caused the person to behave in a way he or she did.

Example

As if a student gets low marks in a quiz then teacher will think that he or she is not interested in
studies. In this way teacher will ignore the other factors like a student might not get time for
preparation due to illness or some other factor. As a result teacher will be indulge in a
fundamental attribution error.

Self serving bias

It has been found from studies that people readily accept credit when told they have
succeed(attributing the success to their ability & effort ). Yet often attribute error failure to the
external , situational factors as bad luck of the problems inherent “ impossibility”.

Example

in explaining their victories ,athletes commonly credit themselves but they are more likely to
attribute losses to something else –bad break, poor officiating or other team’s superior effort.

When something goes wrong in the workplace, there is tendency for the manager to blame the
problem on the inability or poor attitude of associates, but the situation is blamed as far as he or
she is personally concerned. The reserve is true for associates. They blame the situation for their
difficulties but make a personal attribution in terms of their manager. If something goes well the
manager make personal attribution for him or herself and situational attribution for associates,
and the associates make personal attribution for themselves and situational attribute for other.
Organization should take steps to reduce it to make a collective & honest work environment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------