stop stereotyping essay

The terrifying power of stereotypes – and how to deal with them

Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University

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From “girls suck at maths” and “men are so insensitive” to “he is getting a bit senile with age” or “black people struggle at university”, there’s no shortage of common cultural stereotypes about social groups. Chances are you have heard most of these examples at some point. In fact, stereotypes are a bit like air: invisible but always present.

We all have multiple identities and some of them are likely to be stigmatised. While it may seem like we should just stop paying attention to stereotypes, it often isn’t that easy. False beliefs about our abilities easily turn into a voice of self doubt in our heads that can be hard to ignore. And in the last couple of decades, scientists have started to discover that this can have damaging effects on our actual performance.

This mechanism is due to what psychologists call “ stereotype threat ” – referring to a fear of doing something that would confirm negative perceptions of a stigmatised group that we are members of. The phenomenon was first uncovered by American social psychologists in the 1990s.

In a seminal paper, they experimentally demonstrated how racial stereotypes can affect intellectual ability. In their study, black participants performed worse than white participants on verbal ability tests when they were told that the test was “diagnostic” – a “genuine test of your verbal abilities and limitations”. However, when this description was excluded, no such effect was seen. Clearly these individuals had negative thoughts about their verbal ability that affected their performance.

Black participants also underperformed when racial stereotypes were activated much more subtly. Just asking participants to identify their race on a preceding demographic questionnaire was enough. What’s more, under the threatening conditions (diagnostic test), black participants reported higher levels of self doubt than white participants.

Nobody’s safe

Stereotype threat effects are very robust and affect all stigmatised groups. A recent analysis of several previous studies on the topic revealed that stereotype threat related to the intellectual domain exists across various experimental manipulations, test types and ethnic groups – ranging from black and Latino Americans to Turkish Germans. A wealth of research also links stereotype threat with women’s underperformance in maths and leadership aspirations .

Men are vulnerable, too. A study showed that men performed worse when decoding non-verbal cues if the test was described as designed to measure “social sensitivity” – a stereotypically feminine skill. However, when the task was introduced as an “information processing test”, they did much better. In a similar vein, when children from poorer families are reminded of their lower socioeconomic status, they underperform on tests described as diagnostic of intellectual abilities – but not otherwise. Stereotype threat has also been shown to affect educational underachievement in immigrants and memory performance of the elderly .

It is important to remember that the triggering cues can be very subtle. One study demonstrated that when women viewed only two advertisements based on gender stereotypes among six commercials, they tended to avoid leadership roles in a subsequent task. This was the case even though the commercials had nothing to do with leadership.

Mental mechanisms

Stereotype threat leads to a vicious circle . Stigmatised individuals experience anxiety which depletes their cognitive resources and leads to underperformance, confirmation of the negative stereotype and reinforcement of the fear.

Researchers have identified a number of interrelated mechanisms responsible for this effect, with the key being deficits in working memory capacity – the ability to concentrate on the task at hand and ignore distraction. Working memory under stereotype threat conditions is affected by physiological stress, performance monitoring and suppression processes (of anxiety and the stereotype).

Neuroscientists have even measured these effects in the brain. When we are affected by stereotype threat, brain regions responsible for emotional self-regulation and social feedback are activated while activity in the regions responsible for task performance are inhibited.

In our recent study, published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience , we demonstrated this effect for ageism. We used electroencephalography (EEG), a device which places electrodes on the scalp to track and record brainwave patterns, to show that older adults, having read a report about memory declining with age, experienced neural activation corresponding to having negative thoughts about oneself. They also underperformed in a subsequent, timed categorisation task.

Coping strategies

There is hope, however. Emerging studies on how to reduce stereotype threat identify a range of methods – the most obvious being changing the stereotype. Ultimately, this is the way to eliminate the problem once and for all.

But changing stereotypes sadly often takes time. While we are working on it, there are techniques to help us cope. For example, visible, accessible and relevant role models are important. One study reported a positive “Obama effect” on African Americans. Whenever Obama drew press attention for positive, stereotype-defying reasons, stereotype threat effects were markedly reduced in black Americans’ exam performance.

Another method is to buffer the threat through shifting self perceptions to positive group identity or self affirmation. For example, Asian women underperformed on maths tests when reminded of their gender identity but not when reminded of their Asian identity . This is because Asian individuals are stereotypically seen as good at maths. In the same way, many of us belong to a few different groups – it is sometimes worth shifting the focus towards the one which gives us strength.

Gaining confidence by practising the otherwise threatening task is also beneficial, as seen with female chess players . One way to do this could be by reframing the task as a challenge .

Finally, merely being aware of the damaging effects that stereotypes can have can help us reinterpret the anxiety and makes us more likely to perform better. We may not be able to avoid stereotypes completely and immediately, but we can try to clear the air of them.

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How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do: An Introduction to Stereotype Threat

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"Stereotypes are one way by which history affects present life," social psychologist Claude Steele says in this video about the history of stereotypes and how negative stereotypes impact us today.

[JONATHON LYKES] I remember when I felt like I had no voice. Before I faced history, before college was a choice. It was my freshman year of high school when I took my first Facing History course. They taught me about identity, community and choosing to participate. Now I'm involved in my community because I chose to participate. Because I used to feel like my words were like the crooked figures hidden under the barcodes that are pasted on the beaten backs of books that I was never supposed to read.

My words, numbered. Because I used to wonder, how do they see me, how do I see them. For I noticed that there's this thing called perception that gives people the opportunity for exception or on the flip side, to be in the circle of rejection, or different type of sections in groups of cliques making fun of that person and talking bad about this person. So I ask you, what is your outlook on things? All these different stereotypes and all types of legal rights being violated because you look this way and you act that way and you're telling me it's OK to give a blind eye to the less fortunate simply because they're beneath you. Test.

[CLAUDE STEELE] You know, I often say that people experience stereotype threat several times a day. And the reason is that we have a lot of identities. Our gender, our race, our age. And about each one of those identities that I mentioned, there are negative stereotypes. And when people are in a situation for which a negative stereotype about one of their identities is relevant to the situation, relevant to what they're doing, they know they could be possibly judged or treated in terms of that stereotype. They don't know whether they are or not, but they know they could be.

And if the situation is important, that prospect starts to threaten them and upset them and distract them and can affect performance right there in the situation. And so you could find yourself kind of adjusting and deflecting, doing things that would deflect being seen by the stereotype. And it can affect their willingness or their interest in staying in that area of life where that kind of stereotype is relevant.

[JONATHON LYKES] Test. You, in a dark suburban alley alone see a Black man, looks like he's far away from home. Fear runs down your spine and your thoughts roam as you say in your mind, this little Black boy is up to no good and should be picked up by the police. But would you believe that that boy was me and what they didn't see was I was coming home from youth group. So tell me why the mode of pre-determined thought towards me. I'm not in that percentile. We're trying to be all that we can be. And they still stone me with their misconceptions about Black men.

They tend to understand and assume I'm into to misconjugated verbs, oversized pants, and hip hop.

[SONJA SOHN] The year the schools were integrated I was bussed uptown 20 miles. I was in a school with white kids. And on the first day of school they sectioned us all off and they called out groups one, two, three, and four and you went and stood in lines. And I'm seeing all the white kids in one line. And I knew that I had tested pretty high on tests before because I used to study by myself in my school the year before.

And so I knew what line I was going in. And I went into that line filled with the white kids. And that year things changed for me. I lost a lot of confidence. And I was under stereotype threat. I was scared to raise my hand because I couldn't be wrong. Not the Black girl who lived downtown.

[CLAUDE STEELE] I'm a social psychologist and experimentalist and so we've done experiments to test whether or not stereotype threat can have effect on something that we tend to think of as pretty hard-wired like your performance on a cognitive exam or a standardized test. So one simple experiment was to bring women and men into the laboratory one at a time and give them a very difficult math test, a math test that we knew would cause frustration.

And even though everything was the same for the men and for the woman-- the room, the items on the test, the experimenter-- for men, as they went along doing the test and experienced frustration, they could worry that they're not as good at math as they maybe thought they were. But they wouldn't be worried that they were confirming some group-based limitation of ability. But for women, in the same situation, as they start to experience frustration, some part of their brain might worry, am I confirming the stereotype about women having limited math ability? Is that what's going on here?

And that worry, since these are women who we-- women and men-- who we selected for being very committed to math and very good at it, that worry for that kind of person can be upsetting and distracting and can interfere with their performance right there in the testing situation. And that's exactly what happened. Women did considerably worse than the men. However, and here's the good news, we eventually came up with an idea that would take stereotype threat out of that situation.

We simply told them the following: Look, you may have heard that women are not as good at difficult standardized tests. But that's not true for this particular standardized test. The test that you're taking today is a test on which women always do as well as men. So the subtext of that little statement is, look, the frustration you're having on this test has nothing to do with your being a woman. Now we've taken this extra pressure that women might have in this situation out of the situation. They're no longer under the pressure of confirming or being seen to confirm something, some limitation, that's out there in the stereotypes of our society about women lacking math ability.

And if that's what's been depressing their performance earlier, now their performance should go up to match that of equally skilled men. And that is exactly what happened. With that little sentence, women's performance matched that of men.

So some forms of this threat are pretty minor and almost humorful, and other forms of this threat are really poignant. One thing to say in a Facing History context is that stereotypes is one way by which history affects present life, because stereotypes are built up over the history of a society. And they can have an impact on people's functioning in the immediate, present situations, and are big factors in the way our society functions. Who goes into what kinds of fields. Who enjoys what kinds of work. These things are driven, in big part, by these by these kinds of threats.

"I often say that people experience stereotype threat several times a day," Steele goes on to say. "The reason is that we have a lot of identities – our gender, our race, our age. And about each one of those identities…there are negative stereotypes. And when people are in a situation for which a negative stereotype about one of their identities is relevant to the situation, relevant to what they’re doing, they know they could be possibly judged or treated in terms of that stereotype."

Facing History educators explore the impact of stereotypes in many of the histories we study. In personal stories, we can see how stereotypes impact the decisions individuals and communities make, and the effects those decisions have.

Studies show  that 94 % of Facing History students are more likely to recognize the dangers of stereotyping. Here are some resources that might help you discuss stereotyping in American or world history classes, or in electives that look at identity and difference:

A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism  explores the roots of antisemitism and includes case studies from different chapters in world history.

Becoming American: The Chinese Experience  looks at the history of Chinese immigration to America, and the ways in which stereotypes impact our understanding of national identity.

Common Core Writing Prompts and Strategies: A Supplement to Civil Rights Historical Investigations  contains teaching strategies that meet the Common Core State Standards and require that students “do” history – gather evidence from primary documents, use evidence to make claims about the past, and apply what they learn to their own lives today – as they explore the history of stereotypes against different races in American society.

Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians  takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Armenian Genocide during World War I, when the Armenian people were persecuted for their religion, identity, and culture.

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do  is Dr. Steele’s book exploring the power of stereotyping in shaping the behavior of individuals.

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Where Bias Begins: The Truth About Stereotypes

Stereotyping is not limited to those who are biased. we all use stereotypes all the time. they are a kind of mental shortcut..

By Annie Murphy Paul published May 1, 1998 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016

Psychologists once believed that only bigoted people used stereotypes. Now the study of unconscious bias is revealing the unsettling truth: We all use stereotypes, all the time, without knowing it. We have met the enemy of equality, and the enemy is us.

Mahzarin Banaji doesn't fit anybody's ideal of a racist. A psychology professor at Yale University, she studies stereotypes for a living. And as a woman and a member of a minority ethnic group, she has felt firsthand the sting of discrimination . Yet when she took one of her own tests of unconscious bias. "I showed very strong prejudices," she says. "It was truly a disconcerting experience." And an illuminating one. When Banaji was in graduate school in the early 1980s, theories about stereotypes were concerned only with their explicit expression: outright and unabashed racism, sexism, anti-Semitism. But in the years since, a new approach to stereotypes has shattered that simple notion. The bias Banaji and her colleagues are studying is something far more subtle, and more insidious: what's known as automatic or implicit stereotyping, which, they find, we do all the time without knowing it. Though out-and-out bigotry may be on the decline, says Banaji, "if anything, stereotyping is a bigger problem than we ever imagined."

Previously, researchers who studied stereotyping had simply asked people to record their feelings about minority groups and had used their answers as an index of their attitudes. Psychologists now understand that these conscious replies are only half the story. How progressive a person seems to be on the surface bears little or no relation to how prejudiced he or she is on an unconscious level—so that a bleeding-heart liberal might harbor just as many biases as a neo-Nazi skinhead.

As surprising as these findings are, they confirmed the hunches of many students of human behavior. "Twenty years ago, we hypothesized that there were people who said they were not prejudiced but who really did have unconscious negative stereotypes and beliefs," says psychologist lack Dovidio, Ph.D., of Colgate University "It was like theorizing about the existence of a virus, and then one day seeing it under a microscope."

The test that exposed Banaji's hidden biases—and that this writer took as well, with equally dismaying results—is typical of the ones used by automatic stereotype researchers. It presents the subject with a series of positive or negative adjectives, each paired with a characteristically "white" or "black" name. As the name and word appear together on a computer screen, the person taking the test presses a key, indicating whether the word is good or bad. Meanwhile, the computer records the speed of each response.

A glance at subjects' response times reveals a startling phenomenon: Most people who participate in the experiment—even some African-Americans—respond more quickly when a positive word is paired with a white name or a negative word with a black name. Because our minds are more accustomed to making these associations, says Banaji, they process them more rapidly. Though the words and names aren't subliminal, they are presented so quickly that a subject's ability to make deliberate choices is diminished—allowing his or her underlying assumptions to show through. The same technique can be used to measure stereotypes about many different social groups, such as homosexuals, women, and the elderly.

THE UNCONSCIOUS COMES INTO FOCUS

From these tiny differences in reaction speed—a matter of a few hundred milliseconds—the study of automatic stereotyping was born. Its immediate ancestor was the cognitive revolution of the 1970s, an explosion of psychological research into the way people think. After decades dominated by the study of observable behavior, scientists wanted a closer look at the more mysterious operation of the human brain. And the development of computers—which enabled scientists to display information very quickly and to measure minute discrepancies in reaction time—permitted a peek into the unconscious.

At the same time, the study of cognition was also illuminating the nature of stereotypes themselves. Research done after World War II—mostly by European emigres struggling to understand how the Holocaust had happened—concluded that stereotypes were used only by a particular type of person: rigid, repressed, authoritarian. Borrowing from the psychoanalytic perspective then in vogue, these theorists suggested that biased behavior emerged out of internal conflicts caused by inadequate parenting .

The cognitive approach refused to let the rest of us off the hook. It made the simple but profound point that we all use categories—of people, places, things—to make sense of the world around us. "Our ability to categorize and evaluate is an important part of human intelligence ," says Banaji. "Without it, we couldn't survive." But stereotypes are too much of a good thing. In the course of stereotyping, a useful category—say, women—becomes freighted with additional associations, usually negative. "Stereotypes are categories that have gone too far," says John Bargh, Ph.D., of New York University. "When we use stereotypes, we take in the gender , the age, the color of the skin of the person before us, and our minds respond with messages that say hostile, stupid, slow, weak. Those qualities aren't out there in the environment . They don't reflect reality."

Bargh thinks that stereotypes may emerge from what social psychologists call in-group/out-group dynamics. Humans, like other species, need to feel that they are part of a group, and as villages, clans, and other traditional groupings have broken down, our identities have attached themselves to more ambiguous classifications, such as race and class. We want to feel good about the group we belong to—and one way of doing so is to denigrate all those who who aren't in it. And while we tend to see members of our own group as individuals, we view those in out-groups as an undifferentiated—stereotyped—mass. The categories we use have changed, but it seems that stereotyping itself is bred in the bone.

Though a small minority of scientists argues that stereotypes are usually accurate and can be relied upon without reservations, most disagree—and vehemently. "Even if there is a kernel of truth in the stereotype, you're still applying a generalization about a group to an individual, which is always incorrect," says Bargh. Accuracy aside, some believe that the use of stereotypes is simply unjust. "In a democratic society, people should be judged as individuals and not as members of a group," Banaji argues. "Stereotyping flies in the face of that ideal."

PREDISPOSED TO PREJUDICE

The problem, as Banaji's own research shows, is that people can't seem to help it. A recent experiment provides a good illustration. Banaji and her colleague, Anthony Greenwald, Ph.D., showed people a list of names—some famous, some not. The next day, the subjects returned to the lab and were shown a second list, which mixed names from the first list with new ones. Asked to identify which were famous, they picked out the Margaret Meads and the Miles Davises—but they also chose some of the names on the first list, which retained a lingering familiarity that they mistook for fame. (Psychologists call this the "famous overnight-effect.") By a margin of two-to-one, these suddenly "famous" people were male.

Participants weren't aware that they were preferring male names to female names, Banaji stresses. They were simply drawing on an unconscious stereotype of men as more important and influential than women. Something similar happened when she showed subjects a list of people who might be criminals: without knowing they were doing so, participants picked out an overwhelming number of African-American names. Banaji calls this kind of stereotyping implicit, because people know they are making a judgment—but just aren't aware of the basis upon which they are making it.

Even further below awareness is something that psychologists call automatic processing, in which stereotypes are triggered by the slightest interaction or encounter. An experiment conducted by Bargh required a group of white participants to perform a tedious computer task. While performing the task, some of the participants were subliminally exposed to pictures of African-Americans with neutral expressions. When the subjects were then asked to do the task over again, the ones who had been exposed to the faces reacted with more hostility to the request—because, Bargh believes, they were responding in kind to the hostility which is part of the African-American stereotype. Bargh calls this the "immediate hostile reaction," which he believes can have a realeffect on race relations. When African-Americans accurately perceive the hostile expressions that their white counterparts are unaware of, they may respond with hostility of their own—thereby perpetuating the stereotype.

Of course, we aren't completely under the sway of our unconscious. Scientists think that the automatic activation of a stereotype is immediately followed by a conscious check on unacceptable thoughts—at least in people who think that they are not prejudiced. This internal censor successfully restrains overtly biased responses. But there's still the danger of leakage, which often shows up in non-verbal behavior: our expressions, our stance, how far away we stand, how much eye contact we make.

The gap between what we say and what we do can lead African-Americans and whites to come away with very different impressions of the same encounter, says Jack Dovidio. "If I'm a white person talking to an African-American, I'm probably monitoring my conscious beliefs very carefully and making sure everything I say agrees with all the positive things I want to express," he says. "And I usually believe I'm pretty successful because I hear the right words coming out of my mouth." The listener who is paying attention to non-verbal behavior, however, may be getting quite the opposite message. An African-American student of Dovidio's recently told him that when she was growing up, her mother had taught her to observe how white people moved to gauge their true feelings toward blacks. "Her mother was a very astute amateur psychologist—and about 20 years ahead of me." he remarks.

WHERE DOES BIAS BEGIN?

So where exactly do these stealth stereotypes come from? Though automatic-stereotype researchers often refer to the unconscious, they don't mean the Freudian notion of a seething mass of thoughts and desires, only some of which are deemed presentable enough to be admitted to the conscious mind. In fact, the cognitive model holds that information flows in exactly the opposite direction: connections made often enough in the conscious mind eventually become unconscious. Says Bargh: "If conscious choice and decision making are not needed, they go away. Ideas recede from consciousness into the unconscious over time."

Much of what enters our consciousness, of course, comes from the culture around us. And like the culture, it seems that our minds are split on the subjects of race, gender, class, sexual orientation . "We not only mirror the ambivalence we see in society, but also mirror it in precisely the same way," says Dovidio. Our society talks out loud about justice, equality, and egalitarianism, and most Americans accept these values as their own. At the same time, such equality exists only as an ideal, and that fact is not lost on our unconscious. Images of women as sexobjects, footage of African-American criminals on the six o'clock news,—"this is knowledge we cannot escape," explains Banaji. "We didn't choose to know it, but it still affects our behavior."

We learn the subtext of our culture's messages early. By five years of age, says Margo Monteith, Ph.D., many children have definite and entrenched stereotypes about blacks, women, and other social groups. Adds Monteith, professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky: "Children don't have a choice about accepting or rejecting these conceptions, since they're acquired well before they have the cognitive abilities or experiences to form their own beliefs." And no matter how progressive the parents, they must compete with all the forces that would promote and perpetuate these stereotypes: peer pressure , mass media, the actual balance of power in society. In fact, prejudice may be as much a result as a cause of this imbalance. We create stereotypes--African-Americans are lazy, women are emotional—to explain why things are the way they are. As Dovidio notes, "Stereotypes don't have to be true to serve a purpose."

WHY CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG?

The idea of unconscious bias does clear up some nettlesome contradictions. "It accounts for a lot of people's ambivalence toward others who are different, a lot of their inconsistencies in behavior," says Dovidio. "It helps explain how good people can do bad things." But it also prompts some uncomfortable realizations. Because our conscious and unconscious beliefs may be very different—and because behavior often follows the lead of the latter—"good intentions aren't enough," as John Bargh puts it. In fact, he believes that they count for very little. "I don't think free will exists," he says, bluntly—because what feels like the exercise of free will may be only the application of unconscious assumptions.

Not only may we be unable to control our biased responses, we may not even be aware that we have them. "We have to rely on our memories and our awareness of what we're doing to have a connection to reality," says Bargh. "But when it comes to automatic processing, those cues can be deceptive." Likewise, we can't always be sure how biased others are. "We all have this belief that the important thing about prejudice is the external expression of it," says Banaji. "That's going to be hard to give up."

One thing is certain: We can't claim that we've eradicated prejudice just because its outright expression has waned. What's more, the strategies that were so effective in reducing that sort of bias won't work on unconscious beliefs. "What this research is saying is that we are going to have to change dramatically the way we think we can influence people's behaviors," says Banaji. "It would be naive to think that exhortation is enough." Exhortation, education , political protest—all of these hammer away at our conscious beliefs while leaving the bedrock below untouched. Banaji notes, however, that one traditional remedy for discrimination—affirmative action—may still be effective since it bypasses our unconsciously compromised judgment.

But some stereotype researchers think that the solution to automatic stereotyping lies in the process itself. Through practice, they say, people can weaken the mental links that connect minorities to negative stereotypes and strengthen the ones that connect them to positive conscious beliefs. Margo Monteith explains how it might work. "Suppose you're at a party and someone tells a racist joke—and you laugh," she says. "Then you realize that you shouldn't have laughed at the joke. You feel guilty and become focused on your thought processes. Also, all sorts of cues become associated with laughing at the racist joke: the person who told the joke, the act of telling jokes, being at a party, drinking." The next time you encounter these cues, "a warning signal of sorts should go off—`wait, didn't you mess up in this situation before?'—and your responses will be slowed and executed with greater restraint."

That slight pause in the processing of a stereotype gives conscious, unprejudiced beliefs a chance to take over. With time, the tendency to prevent automatic stereotyping may itself become automatic. Monteith's research suggests that, given enough motivation , people may be able to teach themselves to inhibit prejudice so well that even their tests of implicit bias come clean.

The success of this process of "de-automatization" comes with a few caveats, however. First, even its proponents concede that it works only for people disturbed by the discrepancy between their conscious and unconscious beliefs since unapologetic racists or sexists have no motivation to change. Second, some studies have shown that attempts to suppress stereotypes may actually cause them to return later, stronger than ever. And finally, the results that Monteith and other researchers have achieved in the laboratory may not stick in the real world, where people must struggle to maintain their commitment to equality under less-than-ideal conditions.

Challenging though that task might be, it is not as daunting as the alternative researchers suggest: changing society itself. Bargh, who likens de-automatization to closing the barn door once the horses have escaped, says that "it's clear that the way to get rid of stereotypes is by the roots, by where they come from in the first place." The study of culture may someday tell us where the seeds of prejudice originated; for now, the study of the unconscious shows us just how deeply they're planted.

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July 8, 2020

Stereotypes Harm Black Lives and Livelihoods, but Research Suggests Ways to Improve Things

Management researcher Modupe Akinola explains on how stereotypes hurt Black Americans and what we can do to counter them

By Katy Milkman & Kassie Brabaw

Modupe Akinola speaks on stage at the New York Times 2015 DealBook Conference at the Whitney Museum of American Art on November 3, 2015, in New York City.

Neilson Barnard Getty Images

The Black Lives Matter protests shaking the world have thankfully brought renewed attention not just to police brutality but to the broader role of racism in our society. Research suggests some roots of racism lie in the stereotypes we hold about different groups. And those stereotypes can affect everything from the way police diagnose danger to who gets interviewed for jobs to which students get attention from professors. Negative stereotypes harm Black Americans at every turn. To reduce their pernicious effects, it’s important to first understand how stereotypes work and just how pervasive they are.

Modupe Akinola , an associate professor at Columbia Business School, studies racial bias, workforce diversity and stress. Recently, Katy Milkman , a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, got to chat with Akinola about how stereotypes are formed, how they affect consequential decisions and how we can combat negative stereotypes .

[ An edited transcript of the interview follows. ]

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Let’s start at the beginning. What is a stereotype?

A stereotype is a snap judgment we make about a person or about a thing that can influence our decision-making. Every day we get millions and millions of bits of information in our head that associate good and bad with certain people or groups or things. And anytime we then see those people, groups or things, that association comes immediately to our mind.

Why do you think we do this?

We’re processing so much information all the time; we need these mental shortcuts to allow us to navigate the world. If not, we wouldn’t be able to function, quite frankly. We have to make quick judgments to make life easier and to simplify. But any type of shortcut can have its pros and cons.

Could you talk about some of the research connecting stereotyping with racism?

One of my favorite sets of studies examines stereotyping as it relates to policing. I grew up in New York City. And we heard a lot about Amadou Diallo, who was an unarmed Black man who was shot by police, because they thought he was carrying a gun—when in actuality, he raised his hand, and he had a wallet.

Joshua Correll, [now at the University of Colorado Boulder], and his colleagues wanted to look at whether the stereotypes associating Black people with danger could play a role in how a mistake like that could be made. The news we see regularly shows crime rates being higher for certain populations, mostly minority populations,. And so this creates an automatic stereotype that a Black man would be more linked to danger than a white man, because you don’t see those same associations for white people.

Correll came up with a computerized shooter bias exercise that showed pictures of targets, Black and white men, carrying objects, either weapons or regular objects like a Coke can or a wallet. When you saw a person and the object, you had to click on whether or not to shoot. He found that civilians were more likely to shoot unarmed Black men, relative to unarmed white men and even armed white men, which was attributed to the stereotypes associating Black people with danger.

I found that study fascinating, because it showed just how powerful these associations can be. I did some follow-up research, because I wanted to see if stress affects that decision-making process. I stressed out police officers and had them engage in the shooting exercise.

The interesting thing is: I saw that under stress, officers were more accurate. They were able to discern whether to shoot an armed Black man and did that better in terms of not shooting unarmed Black men. However, they were less likely to shoot armed white men, which I think demonstrates the power of stereotypes, because there isn’t a stereotype of white and danger.

Stereotypes work in two ways: they can harm some groups, and they can protect others.

Are there any other studies about stereotyping that you think people might find illuminating?

My favorite are audit studies, where you observe real-world behavior. There have been audit studies where people go to car dealerships to see if people are treated differently and about who gets mortgages and things like that.

One audit study was testing ads in the newspaper, which were advertising entry-level positions. [The researchers] sent candidate résumés to these job ads, which were identical, and changed the names on the résumés to signal race. “Lakisha” and “Jamal” were Black-sounding names that were tested and pretested to ensure they would signal race versus a name like “Catherine,” which would be a more white-sounding name. They waited to see who called back for which candidates. The Lakishas and Jamals received fewer callbacks for an interview than the white-sounding names.

Again, this behavior is attributed to stereotypes. We make presumptions and snap judgments about who might be more qualified for a job, who might do well in a job, even in the context of identical information.

Would you be willing to describe a little bit of the work we’ve done together on the role of stereotyping in academia?

Certainly. We—you, I and Dolly Chugh [of the Stern School of Business at New York University]—wanted to see if racial or gender stereotypes impact the pathway to academia. As you’re applying or thinking about getting a Ph.D., often you’ll reach out to a professor and ask, “Are you taking graduate students?” or “Can I learn more about your research?” We get these e-mails, all the time, asking for time on our schedule. And we wanted to see if professors would differentially respond to these requests, depending on the race and gender of the requester.

We sent e-mails to around 6,500 professors across the country, at both private and public universities. We sent these e-mails that were identical, except we varied the race and gender of the name of the applicant.

These e-mails said, “Dear professor so-and-so, I’ll be on campus on XYZ day, on a Monday or Tuesday, and was wondering if I could take some time to learn about your research.” The names on these e-mails were Chinese names, Indian names, African-American-, Latino- and white-sounding names. We pretested all these names to ensure that they did signal the race and gender we thought they would.

We expected to see more stereotyping or discrimination (i.e., fewer responses) to nonwhite males when asked to meet next week versus today. Why? Today everyone’s pretty busy, and so there’s no time for the stereotypes or snap judgments to come into your mind about who might be a more qualified student, who you might want to respond to and meet with.

However, in a meeting request for next week, you might go through more scrutiny about whether the candidate is worthy of your time. We thought that’s when stereotypes would set in. Maybe for some categories, it’s “Do they have English-language proficiency?” For other categories, given the lack of minorities in academia in general, there might be the question of “Can they cut it?”

As we predicted, we did find fewer responses for all of the other categories, relative to the responses to white males, for a meeting request for next week. The question then was whether we’d see this when we matched the race and the gender of the professor with the race and the gender of the student. We still found that requests for next week, regardless of the race of the professor, are lower for candidates other than white males.

As an African-American professor, in the early days of my teaching, I’d often find myself setting up to teach a class, and somebody, usually a prospective student, would come in and say, “I’d like to sit in and learn more about this class. Where’s the professor?” They would say that to me as I was setting up, looking like the professor—on the computer, getting everything ready. That, for me, was a perfect example of how stereotypes can play a role.

The stereotype of what a professor looks like—an older white man with gray hair—is one of the factors that might make somebody come in, see a person at the podium preparing for work and wearing a suit, and ask who the professor is. I love those moments, in some ways, because one of the ways in which you change people’s stereotypes is by having counter-stereotypical exemplars.

Let’s talk more about that. How can we combat stereotypes or try to reduce the harm they cause?

I think one of the ways we can reduce the harm of stereotypes is just being aware. Sometimes you’ll be walking down the street, and you’ll make a snap judgment and not even realize it. But I think one of the critical aspects is noticing, “Oh wow, that came up for me. That’s interesting,” and thinking, “Where did that come from?” We can change our behavior when we’re more aware that our behavior is being influenced by stereotypes.

The other way is by being exposed to counter-stereotypical exemplars. As an African-American, female professor, a student’s mere exposure to me means that the next time they go into a classroom with an African-American woman setting up, or someone else who might defy the stereotype of what a professor looks like, they won’t automatically say, “Where’s the professor?”

I often tell my students they have a beautiful opportunity to be the walking, breathing and living counter-stereotypical exemplars in their work environments. I ask them to think about the stereotypes that exist about them, the stereotypes that exist about people around them, the stereotypes that exist about people on their teams— and to realize that, every day, they have the opportunity to defy those stereotypes.

Katy Milkman is a behavioral scientist and James G. Dinan Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School . She is co-director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative .

Kassie Brabaw is a journalist writing about health, relationships and astronomy. Find her work at Health, SELF.com, Women’s Health, VICE.com and Space.com.

• Literary Terms

When & How to Avoid Stereotypes

• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Avoid Stereotypes

How to Avoid Stereotypes

• Check your assumptions . Most stereotypes are not supported by statistical evidence. If you have a belief about some group, check into it! Figure out if it’s really accurate. Nine times out of ten, you’ll discover that it’s not.
• Don’t generalize . Even if there is statistical evidence behind a stereotype, it’s still a mistake to assume that it’s always true. As we saw with the example about the elderly lady, a stereotype can be true in the majority of cases and still have counter-examples. Just because someone is older doesn’t mean that they have grandchildren; just because someone has light skin and red hair doesn’t mean that they’re Irish; just because someone comes from a foreign country doesn’t mean they speak bad English, etc.
• If possible, discuss your work with a member of the group you’re talking about . In general, it’s best to write in dialogue with the people you’re writing about. If you want to write about Irish culture, your research process should include at least a couple of conversations with people who grew up Irish. If you want to write about the Jewish faith, consider speaking to as many Jews as possible before drawing conclusions.
• But don’t put too much stock in inside views . Just because somebody belongs to a certain group doesn’t mean they know everything about that group. Their perspective is still just one person’s perspective, after all. In addition, people can easily self-stereotype: just like anyone else, they’re exposed to stereotypes of their own group, and this can influence their perceptions.

When to Avoid Stereotypes

Stereotypes are never a good thing – they’re equally bad in both creative writing and formal essays . The one acceptable place for a stereotype is in satire (though even here you have to be careful). Satire is all about challenging expectations, and in order to do that you have to play with people’s expectations. In satire, for example, you might have a character who fulfills a certain stereotype, but is aware of it and comments on it as a stereotype (Dave Chapelle’s joke in Examples of Stereotypes in Popular Culture is a good non-fiction example of this). Alternatively, you might have a character who initially appears to fulfill a stereotype, but actually doesn’t. If written carefully, a story like that could show readers how “gullible” they are when it comes to stereotypes.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

113 Stereotype Essay Topics & Examples

Looking for good stereotypes to write about? Look no further! This list contains only the best themes about stereotypes in society for your college essay or project. Whether you need research questions about stereotypes, essay writing tips, or free samples, you will find them here.

❓ How to Write a Stereotype Essay: Do’s and Don’ts

🏆 best stereotype topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay themes about stereotypes, 📌 most interesting stereotype topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about stereotype, ❓ research questions about stereotypes.

All people are different, which makes living without some ingrained assumptions difficult. From discrimination to mere harmless expectations, stereotyping plays a prevalent part in people’s interactions, often imposing particular behavior on them.

Thus, writing a stereotype essay is only as simple as recognizing both the every-day and the society-wide patterns of thinking, finding the connections between them, and writing them down.

• Think of a specific topic before you begin writing or outlining your paper. Do so by penning a thesis statement, which will not only help you stick to your central theme but also remove any irrelevant ideas. Since there are multitudes of stereotype essay topics, this action will help you focus your thoughts on a single issue.
• Brainstorm your problem beforehand by drafting an outline. Whether you are writing a stereotype threat essay or creating a comprehensive list of anti-female education beliefs, you should create a smooth narrative that flows with ease from one point to another. Furthermore, an outline saves you time, which you would have spent on rewriting those parts of your stereotype essay that are lacking in information or structure.
• Read sample essays. An outstanding stereotypes essay example can act as an excellent incentive to begin writing by demonstrating writing tactics and ways of presenting information to the audience. You may even uplift some of those techniques to your own work to increase the quality of your paper.
• Give your essay an eye-catching title. Stereotype essay titles should not only give the audience a glimpse of what the central theme is but also invite them to read further. The more hooks you have at the beginning of your paper, the higher the possibility of a reader going beyond the first paragraph.
• Generate a comprehensive bibliography. With the number of studies on this topic, there exists a vast amount of book and journal titles that can help you find plenty of interesting themes about stereotypes.
• Pick a broad problem. An essay has a specified word count, and your instructor will not reward writing over the set limit. Choose an issue that you are sure you can adequately cover in the specified pages, and remember to adhere to your received instructions. There is nothing worse than writing an excellent essay and losing marks for not following directions.
• Plagiarize from others’ essay examples. Copying and pasting sentences is an academic offense, as is merely rewording them, and you should avoid discrediting your hard work. Getting your paper disqualified is not worth a small increase in marks.
• Attempt to subvert every stereotype you come across. While deconstructing some issues is a noble endeavor, this work may be extensive and exhausting, as well as not the main point of your paper. Remember your thesis statement, and work in those facts that relate to it.
• Make light of your chosen problem. Just as with your title, your writing should remain respectful and academic, using only credible information and referencing trusted sources. Remember that, as with any humanities issue, stereotypes are a societal byproduct that affects living people, who deserve fair treatment.
• Skip the pre-writing stages. Doing so may lead you to write an essay, which is not only off-point but also overwhelmingly one-sided. Your paper should give adequate attention to different sides of one issue, presenting different viewpoints, studies, and academic opinions, which brainstorming helps achieve.

Need more tips? Let IvyPanda guide your writing process!

• Stereotypes and Their Effects Three common stereotypes include the perception that Muslims are terrorists, Christians are ignorant, and that women are less intelligent than men.
• Gender stereotypes of superheroes The analysis is based on the number of male versus female characters, the physical characteristic of each individual character, the ability to solve a problem individually as either male or female and both males and […]
• Importance of Stereotypes in Communication People are eager to use their prior knowledge about different ethnic groups to be ready for communicating, still, the impact of stereotypes cannot be pure negative or pure positive, and this is why it is […]
• The “Welfare Queen” Stereotype in the US Reagan’s portrayal of these ladies was used to justify real-world policy changes and contributed to the shrinkage of the social safety net.
• Stereotypes in United Kingdom A stereotype is a common or popular belief about certain people or behaviors of certain individuals. People from different cultures have different stereotypes.
• Stereotype of a Black Female In the following paper, three stereotypes that I have faced in my life will be addressed in terms of the reasons for their formation and the mistakes that lie at the heart of these stereotypes.
• To Be Disabled: Stereotype Analysis The purpose of this paper is to examine, how the stereotype is reinforced in the world, and how disabled people experience it.
• The Dynamics of Stereotype Priming and Assimilation The activation of a mental representation of a social group leads to behaviour corresponding to specific attributes of the stereotype. For priming a stereotype some researchers have held that accessibility of the information and the […]
• The Male Bashing Stereotype: Formal Critique All of the mistakes and lack of social molding that they show women during their youth are not the stuff that dictates the kind of men they will be in the future.
• Racism Issues: Looking and Stereotype In order to find the answer to this question, it is important to introduce the concept of ‘looking’ supporting with the writing of Sturken and Cartwright, Hall, Goodwin, and Gooding-Williams.
• Women and the Industry of the Trap Music: Empowering or Succumbing to the Stereotype? Indeed, on the further scrutiny of the problem, one will see that the issue of female DJs in the trap music domain In light of the specified argument, one may infer that abandoning the trap […]
• Stereotype of Video Games Being for Boys In the article author speaks about the problem of different video games that designed for boys and for girls. In this article author explains that gender difference in the video games is a marketing strategy […]
• Stereotype Threats and Social Psychology Pickren defines social norm as “The rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society”.to the society, it was acceptable to treat the immigrants differently from the rest of the population because […]
• Stereotype of Aboriginals and Alcohol in Canada Therefore, it is necessary to research whether the given prejudice has certain grounds to base on, track the measures that are being currently undertaken to eliminate the stereotype and offer other efficient ideas that will […]
• Stereotype-Conductive Behavior The notion that fat people are lazy is because many of them avoid doing activities that would require them to spend a lot of energy and movement. In many cases, the speed of fat people […]
• Chinese Stereotypes Reflected in Movies The main research objective will be to: “Analyse Chinese stereotypes in movies” The specific objectives will include: To identify the various stereotypical depictions of the Chinese in movies To determine the relationship between Chinese stereotype […]
• White Female Stereotypes in Media In most instances, the images that are in the media are of exceptionally slim white girls and women, and this sends a negative image to those women that have bigger bodies.
• Review of Stereotype Threat and Arousal: Effects on Women’s Math Performance The variables used in the study were gender, difficulty of the tests, and the perception of stereotype threat. The results of the data were that the implication of stereotype threat did in fact negatively affect […]
• Stereotypes in the media Media has continued to group people by their tribes and the effects of the tribal stereotype is mostly felt in the less developed world.
• Influence of activating implicit gender stereotypes in females The results revealed that the participants who were subjected to the gender based prime performed relatively poorly compared to their counterparts on the nature prime.
• “Stereotype Threat: Effects on Education” by Smith, Cary Stacy, and Li-Ching Hung In some cases, only the topic of these sources is similar to that of the article and not their subject matter.
• Stereotypes of Islam and Muslims in the West This was evident after Shadid made analyses of various publications which analyzed the threat of Islam and the Muslim community to the western countries and fashion such stereotypical messages in the realm of myth.
• How Anthropology Helps to Evaluate Stereotypes The recent study on leadership shows that women have been enlightened and they are up to take their positions in leadership.
• Towards Evaluating the Relationship Between Gender Stereotypes & Culture It is therefore the object of this paper to examine the relationship between gender stereotypes and culture with a view to elucidating how gender stereotypes, reinforced by our diverse cultural beliefs, continue to allocate roles […]
• Stereotypes people have toward Chinese Most of these studies focus on the major stereotypes held about the Chinese but forget to address the effects of these stereotypes to the Chinese students especially the ones studying in other countries.
• How contemporary toys enforce gender stereotypes in the UK Children defined some of the physical attributes of the toys.”Baby Annabell Function Doll” is a likeness of a baby in that it that it has the size and physical features of a baby.
• Stereotype Threat: Women’s Abilities in Math On the other hand, in study 2, they demonstrated that it is possible to reduce the performance differences when elimination of the stereotype that is descriptive of the anticipated performance is done to ensure that […]
• Hoodies and the stereotype. Bad or not? The hoodie marches had a lot of racial undertones, but it is clear that the victim’s piece of clothing was the centre of attention in these campaigns.
• Gender Studies: Gender Stereotypes From what is portrayed in the media, it is possible for people to dismiss others on the basis of whether they have masculinity or are feminine.
• Cross-Cultural Interaction: Prejudices and Stereotypes In this regard, the concept of stereotype also influences social categorization and information sharing in the course of cross-cultural communication. One of the most effective ways to exterminate stereotypic and linear thinking is to change […]
• Aspects of Rhetoric and Stereotype Image It is clear then, that feminists are found to be of negative stereotypes from the start. The stereotypes in this group are a complete revelation of both positive and negative image.
• African-American Students and Mathematics Achievement Gap: Stereotype or Reality? The purpose of this research is to find whether there is the evidence of the math performance gap between Black and White students and, if we find that it exists, to throw ling upon its […]
• Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes: Being Prejudiced Because of Inequalities Is Not Always Correct The exhibition under consideration, Sex, Lies and Stereotypes, is aimed to prove how unfair but still constant discrimination of people is; and several illustrative posters like Women Are Not Chicks or Oh, So That Explains […]
• Canadian Stereotypes On the cover of the novel Canadian stereotypes, there will be the image of the maple leaf bag. The image of the maple leaf bag will represent both the flag and the history of the […]
• Learning to Stereotype: The Lifelong Romance One of the most enchanting novels in the American literature, the piece by Cahan offers a plunge into the world of the usual.
• Stereotypes of American Citizens McAndrew and Akande lament that in the United States, African Americans are the most stereotyped due to racial discrimination and the dark history of slavery.
• Gender Stereotypes on Television Gender stereotyping in television commercials is a topic that has generated a huge debate and it is an important topic to explore to find out how gender roles in voice-overs TV commercials and the type […]
• The Stereotype Of A Smart High Achieving Asian American
• Racial Stereotyping : A Stereotype, As Defined By The Merriam
• Prejudice, Stereotype, Discrimination, and In-Group Vs. Outgroup
• The Sports Media and the Marketing Advertisers a Hypermasculine Stereotype
• Think like a Monkey: Borrowing from Animal Social Dynamics to Reduce Stereotype Threat
• The Metamorphosis Of The Schemer Stereotype
• How Stereotype Threat May Cause Poor Performance In Women
• Women Are Worse Drivers than Men Stereotype
• What Is The Function Of Racist Stereotype In Blackface Minstrelsy
• How Race And Stereotype Can Affect Justice Being Served
• The Imposition of Gender Stereotype by Society Today
• Women’s Oppression In Hurston’s “Sweat”: The Stereotype Of Women’s Role In Society
• Understanding the Gender Stereotype of the Macho-Man Myth
• Use Of A Stereotype Cue On The Perceived Level Of Mathematics
• The Stereotype of Women in a Patriarchal Society
• The Stereotype of Female Taming in Shakespeare’s Time in the Taming of the Shrew
• The Stereotype of the Dumb Blonde in Legally Blonde, a Movie by Robert Luketic
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• The Impact of Stereotype Threat on Age Differences in Memory Performance
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• Why Stereotype Based on Blood Type Genotype or Body Type?
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• The Stereotype African Characters in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Impact Of The Violent African American Stereotype In Rap Music
• The Teenage Driver Stereotype in Society
• Breaking the Stereotype: Why Urban Aboriginals Score Highly on Happiness Measures
• An Analysis of the Macho-Men Stereotype Plaguing Today’s Man
• The Problems of the Aboriginal People and the Average Media Stereotype
• How Racialized Stereotypes Determine a Community’s Value?
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• How Advertising Reinforces Gender Stereotypes?
• How Stereotypes for Women Came to Be?
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• What Are Social Stereotypes?
• Are Continuum Beliefs About Psychotic Symptoms Associated With Stereotypes About Schizophrenia?
• How Do Hispanic Bilinguals’ Cultural Stereotypes Shape Advertising Persuasiveness?
• How Do Racialized Stereotypes Determine a Community’s Value?
• How Does Drag Affect Stereotypes About Gay Men?
• How Refugee’s Stereotypes Toward Host Society Members Predict Acculturation Orientations?
• Why Are Female Stereotypes in Advertising Still Effective?
• Can Gender Quotas Break Down Negative Stereotypes?
• Does Mainstream Media Have a Duty to Challenge Gender Stereotypes?
• How Have Gender Stereotypes Always Been a Part of Society?
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• Are Sexist Attitudes and Gender Stereotypes Linked?
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• What Are Gender Stereotypes?
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• How Are Class Stereotypes Maintained in the Press?
• How Can Bob Dylan and Wolf Biermann Be Employed to Make Students Aware of Stereotypes and Prejudice?
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• What Makes People Have Certain Stereotypes?
• How Can Stereotypes Negatively Affect Listening?
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• How Are Stereotypes Used to Racially Profile People?
• How American Minorities Are Stereotypes in American Drama Series?
• Sociological Imagination Topics
• Orientalism Titles
• Racism Paper Topics
• Sociological Perspectives Titles
• Tolerance Essay Ideas
• Sexism Essay Ideas
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• Self-Concept Questions
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Stop stereotyping

• Short Report
• Published: 20 May 2019
• Volume 81 , pages 1228–1235, ( 2019 )

Cite this article

• Johanna K. Falbén   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4711-1771 1 ,
• Juliana L. Olivier 2 ,
• Marius Golubickis 3 ,
• Nerissa S. P. Ho 2 ,
• Linn M. Persson 1 ,
• Dimitra Tsamadi 1 ,
• Eleni Marinopoulou 1 ,
• Bianca Bianciardi 1 ,
• William A. Cunningham 3 &
• C. Neil Macrae 1  

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Restraining the expression of stereotypes is a necessary requirement for harmonious living, yet surprisingly little is known about the efficacy of this process. Accordingly, in two experiments, here we used a stop-signal task to establish how effectively stereotype-related responses can be inhibited. In Experiment 1, following the presentation of gender-typed occupational contexts, participants reported the sex of target faces (i.e., Go trials) unless an occasional auditory tone indicated they should withhold their response (i.e., Stop trials). In Experiment 2, following the presentation of male and female faces, participants made either stereotypic or counter-stereotypic judgments, unless a stop signal was presented. Regardless of whether stereotyping was probed indirectly (Experiment 1) or directly (Experiment 2), a consistent pattern of results was observed; inhibition was faster for stereotypic compared with counter-stereotypic responses. These findings demonstrate that stopping stereotyping may be less challenging than has widely been assumed.

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People perception and stereotype-based responding: task context matters

Stereotypy and Repetitive Behaviors

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

With depressing regularity, individuals respond toward others in racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise disagreeable stereotype-related ways. These actions, moreover, occur in even the most visible of arenas. For example, in 2011, two prominent male sports commentators in the UK were fired for remarking that female officials are incapable of understanding the offside rule in soccer. Extending beyond the obvious offence that comments such as these provoke, the wider impacts of stereotyping (in its various forms) are insidious and tangible. For example, in the UK alone, the economic cost of prejudice in the workplace is estimated to be around £127 (~$163) billion annually (Vincent, 2018 ). Worldwide, discriminatory practices are reckoned to reduce global income by around 16% (i.e., $12 trillion; OECD, 2016 ). Given that the purveyors of stereotyping—be it an ageist remark in the office or a wolf whistle by the pool—are routinely humiliated and embarrassed by their actions, an interesting question arises. If the personal and societal costs of stereotyping are so great, why do people not just stop themselves from responding in this way?

Although there are multiple reasons why stereotyping persists (Fiske, 1998 ), one in particular dominates contemporary psychological theorizing; stereotype-based responding saves people the trouble of thinking deeply about others. Supported by decades of research, the application of stereotypes has been shown to economize (i.e., streamline) core aspects of social-cognitive functioning. Most notably, compared with counter-stereotypic material, stereotype-consistent stimuli are detected with rapidity, processed efficiently, and exert undue influence on judgment and memory (Bodenhausen & Macrae, 1998 ; Brewer, 1988 ; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990 ; Freeman & Ambady, 2011 ; Hilton & von Hippel, 1996 ; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000 ). Serving as repositories of culturally shared knowledge (e.g., men are aggressive, librarians are introverted, Scots are stingy), stereotypes furnish person-related information without the cumbersome necessity of social interaction. In other words, as simplifying cognitive tools, category-related beliefs facilitate both information processing and response generation. Given, therefore, the benefits of categorical thinking, it is perhaps understandable why stereotyping prevails. The ease with which stereotypic responses can be generated and executed may simply make them difficult to stop (Bargh, 1999 ; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990 ; Freeman & Ambady, 2011 ; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000 ). As Bargh ( 1999 ) has argued, ‘Once a stereotype is so entrenched that it becomes activated automatically, there is relatively little that can be done to control its influence’ (p. 378). But is this actually the case?

As things currently stand, the inhibition of stereotype-related responses remains poorly understood. To date, efforts to explicate the regulation of stereotyping have focused almost entirely on how readily stereotypic thoughts can be banished (i.e., suppressed) from consciousness (e.g., Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, & Jetten, 1994 ; Monteith, Sherman, & Devine, 1998 ). Less conspicuous in the literature is work exploring the intentional stopping of stereotype-based deeds (but see Bartholow, Dickter, & Sestir, 2006 ). This oversight is surprising, as response inhibition (i.e., stopping an already initiated, but uncompleted, action) is a core component of executive function and has been studied extensively elsewhere (Diamond, 2013 ; Friedman & Miyake, 2004 ). Moreover, in laboratory settings, the stop-signal task has emerged as the primary method for exploring this ability (Verbruggen & Logan, 2008 ). In this task, participants are presented with a visual stimulus (i.e., Go signal) that requires a speeded motor response. Occasionally, after a variable delay (i.e., stop-signal delay [SSD]), the Go stimulus is followed by a stop signal (e.g., an auditory tone), instructing participants that the response should be withheld. Although, at short SSDs response inhibition is usually successful, at longer delays inhibition often fails, and the action is performed. Footnote 1 The utility of this paradigm is that it enables estimation of the covert latency of the stop process—the stop-signal response time (SSRT; see Logan & Cowan, 1984 ; Logan, Cowan, & Davis, 1984). That is, the efficiency of response inhibition can be established.

Using a standard stop-signal task, here we considered the ease with which stereotyped (i.e., stereotypic/counter-stereotypic) responses can intentionally be stopped. Footnote 2 Following the presentation of gender-typed occupational contexts, participants were required to report the sex of target faces (i.e., Go trials) unless an auditory tone signalled they should withhold their response (i.e., Stop trials). Sequential priming tasks such as these are commonly used to activate stereotype-related knowledge in memory (Kidder, White, Hinojos, Sandoval, & Crites, 2018 ; Wentura & Rothermund, 2014 ). Although it is tempting to presume that stereotypic responses must be difficult to stop (Bargh, 1999 ; Bartholow et al., 2006 ), there is good reason to suspect that the opposite may be the case—stereotype-consistent responses may be inhibited more effectively than stereotype-inconsistent responses. In response-priming paradigms of the type used here, prime and target stimuli elicit either compatible (i.e., consistent trials) or incompatible (i.e., inconsistent trials) responses (Wentura & Rothermund, 2014 ). Thus, on stereotype-inconsistent (vs. stereotype-consistent) trials, participants must potentially deal not only with a stop signal (i.e., suppress a motor response) but also with preactivation of the incorrect (i.e., primed) response. As a result of these increased inhibitory demands, SSRTs should be elevated to counter-stereotypic compared with stereotypic stimuli (see Kramer, Humphrey, Larish, Logan, & Strayer, 1994 ; Ridderinkhof, Band, & Logan, 1999 ; Verbruggen, Liefooghe, & Vandierendonck, 2004 ; 2006 ). We explored this hypothesis in the current experiments.

Experiment 1

Participants and design.

Thirty undergraduates (10 males, M age = 22.27 years, SD = 2.82) took part in the experiment. Footnote 3 All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity. Two participants (females) failed to follow the instructions and thus were excluded from the analysis. Informed consent was obtained from participants prior to the commencement of the experiment, and the protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee at the School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen. The experiment had a 2 (context: auto-repair workshop or cosmetics store) × 2 (target: male or female) repeated-measures design.

Stimulus material and procedure

Participants arrived at the laboratory individually, were greeted by the experimenter, seated in front of a desktop computer, and told they would be performing a sex-categorization task. In the task, a gender-typed occupational context was presented (i.e., auto-repair workshop or cosmetics store), followed by either a male or a female face. Using two buttons on the keyboard (i.e., N & M ), participants had to report the sex of each face (Falbén et al., in press ). The faces were taken from the Chicago Face Database (Ma, Correll, & Wittenbrink, 2015 ) and were 140 × 176 pixels in size, greyscale, and depicted young adults ages 20–30 years. The context pictures were taken from Google Images, were 500 × 500 pixels in size, greyscale, and contained no people.

Each trial began with the presentation of a central fixation cross for 1,000 ms, followed by a pictorial context (i.e., auto-repair workshop or cosmetics store), which remained on-screen for 500 ms, after which it disappeared and was replaced by a male or female face for 50 ms. The screen then turned blank, and participants had to report, by pressing the appropriate button on the keyboard as quickly and accurately as possible, whether the target was male or female. Participants had 1,500 ms to make a response (6% of responses fell outside the response window). Eighty faces (40 male, 40 female) were used, with each face preceded by both contexts. The meaning of the response buttons was counterbalanced across the sample. Participants initially performed 20 practice trials, followed by four blocks each containing 160 experimental trials in which context-consistent (i.e., auto-repair workshop/male face, cosmetics store/female face) and context-inconsistent (i.e., auto-repair workshop/female face, cosmetics store/male face) stimulus pairs appeared equally often in a random order. Critically, on 25% of the trials a stop signal (i.e., an auditory beep) was presented, indicating that participants should withhold their response (i.e., do not press the button). The stop signal was presented at 1,000 Hz for 100 ms and occurred dynamically. Specifically, SSDs were increased or decreased by 50 ms when the participant succeeded or failed to inhibit, respectively. The SSD values were drawn from four interleaved staircases, resulting in 40 trials from each staircase for a total of 160 stop trials (i.e., 40 stop trials per block). Stimulus and response events were presented using MATLAB (The MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA) and the Psychtoolbox ( www.psychtoolbox.org ). On completion of the task, participants were debriefed, thanked, and dismissed.

A 2 (context: auto-repair workshop or cosmetics store) × 2 (target: male or female) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on participants’ mean Go response times (Go RTs), response accuracy, SSDs, failed inhibition, and SSRTs, the results of which are summarized below (see Table 1 ).

Responses faster than 200 ms were excluded from the analysis, eliminating less than 1% of the overall number of trials. The only effect to emerge in the analysis was a significant Context × Target interaction, F (1, 27) = 51.05, p < .001, η p 2 = .65. Further analysis of the interaction revealed a significant consistency effect for both the auto-repair, t (27) = 5.34, p < .001, d z = 1.01, and cosmetics, t (27) = 6.11, p < .001, d z = 1.15, contexts, such that responses were faster on context-consistent (i.e., stereotypic) than on context-inconsistent (i.e., counter-stereotypic) trials.

The analysis yielded no significant effects.

The analysis revealed no significant effects.

Failed inhibition

No significant effects were observed.

SSRTs were estimated using the quantile method, which does not rely on the assumption of a 50% inhibition failure rate (Band, van der Molen, & Logan, 2003 ). To calculate quantile SSRTs, all Go RTs were arranged in ascending order, and then the Go RT corresponding to the observed inhibition failure rate was selected, yielding the quantile RT. The average SSD was subtracted from this quantile RT, providing an estimate of the SSRT. The only effect to emerge in the analysis was a significant Context × Target interaction, F (1, 27) = 9.97, p = .004, η p 2 = .27. Further analysis of the interaction revealed a significant consistency effect for both the auto-repair, t (27) = 3.02, p = .005, d z = 0.57, and cosmetics, t (27) = 2.47, p = .020, d z = 0.47, contexts, such that SSRTs were shorter on context-consistent (i.e., stereotypic) than context-inconsistent (i.e., counter-stereotypic) trials. Footnote 4

Hierarchical drift-diffusion modelling

To identify the operations though which contextual expectancies impacted task performance, Go trials were submitted to an additional hierarchical drift-diffusion model (HDDM) analysis (Ratcliff, Smith, Brown, & McKoon, 2016; White et al., 2014 ; Wiecki, Sofer, & Frank, 2013 ). Elucidating the processes that underpin performance on Go trials in a sequential priming paradigm provides potentially useful insight into the dynamics of response inhibition (see Supplemental Material for a description of drift-diffusion modelling and the current analysis).

Interrogation of the posterior distributions for the best fitting model demonstrated that performance on Go trials was underpinned by a response bias. Specifically, contextual expectancies shifted the starting point ( z ) of evidence accumulation, such that the auto-repair context was closer to the upper threshold (i.e., male response, z = .51), and the cosmetics context was closer to the lower threshold (i.e., female response, z = .48). There was strong evidence that these starting values differed from each other ( p Bayes [auto-repair > cosmetics] = .018). Footnote 5 In addition, the auto-repair context yielded suggestive evidence for a bias in starting value (comparison with z = .50, p Bayes [auto-repair > .50] = .128), and the cosmetics context strong evidence for such a bias ( p Bayes [cosmetics < .50] = .019). No evidence for a difference in nondecision processes ( t 0 ) was observed (p Bayes [context-consistent < context-inconsistent] = .271, respective M s: .374 s vs. .391 s). These results confirm that prior expectancies impacted person construal via a shift in the starting point of evidence accumulation (i.e., preactivation of prime-consistent responses).

The results of Experiment 1 support the hypothesis that it is easier to inhibit stereotypic compared with counter-stereotypic responses (cf. Bargh, 1999 ; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990 ; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000 ). In a sequential-priming paradigm, SSRTs were faster when target stimuli (i.e., faces) were consistent rather than inconsistent with respect to the preceding occupational context. In addition, an HDDM analysis revealed that prior expectancies influenced task performance via a response bias (Ratcliff et al., 2016 ). The demonstration that stopping was faster for stereotypic than counter-stereotypic responses corroborates previous work demonstrating that inhibition is facilitated when targets are accompanied by response-congruent compared with response-incongruent stimuli (Kramer et al., 1994 ; Ridderinkhof et al., 1999 ; Verbruggen et al., 2004 , 2006 ).

Given the counterintuitive flavour of the current results (i.e., it is easier to inhibit stereotypic rather than counter-stereotypic responses), the goal of our second experiment was quite straightforward; to attempt to replicate the effects observed in Experiment 1 using a different paradigm and measure of stereotyping. Compared with a sequential priming task in which stereotyping was assessed indirectly (i.e., Experiment 1—participants provided sex-categorization judgments); in our next experiment, participants were required to make explicit stereotype-based responses (Osterhout, Bersick, & McLaughlin, 1997 ; Wang, Tan, Zhang, Wang, & Luo, 2018 ; White, Crites, Taylor, & Corral, 2009 ). Specifically, following the presentation of a male or female face, participants had to provide either stereotypic or counter-stereotypic responses on the basis of occupational or trait-based stereotype-related information. Replicating Experiment 1, we expected response inhibition to be faster for stereotypic compared with counter-stereotypic responses.

Experiment 2

Eighty undergraduates (14 males, M age = 21.85, SD = 3.54) took part in the experiment. Footnote 6 All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity. Two participants (two females) failed to follow the instructions, and thus were excluded from the analysis. Informed consent was obtained from participants prior to the commencement of the experiment and the protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee at the School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen. The experiment had a 2 (block type: stereotypic or counter-stereotypic) × 2 (target: male or female) × 2 (judgment: occupation or trait) mixed design with repeated measures on the first and second factors.

Stimulus materials and procedure

Participants arrived at the laboratory individually, were greeted by the experimenter, seated in front of a desktop computer, and told they would be performing a social-judgment task. First, participants were randomly assigned to make judgments pertaining to either occupational (i.e., mechanic vs. hairdresser) or trait-related (i.e., dominant vs. caring) stereotype-based information. This manipulation served as a between-participants replication of the effect of interest. Next, participants were told that male or female faces would appear on the computer screen, and their task was simply to respond to them in a stereotypic or counter-stereotypic manner on the basis of prevailing occupational or personality-related stereotypes. For the stereotypic block of trials, participants were instructed to respond to all male faces with the occupation ‘mechanic’ (i.e., occupation condition) or the trait ‘dominant’ (i.e., trait condition) and, correspondingly, to all female faces with the occupation ‘hairdresser’ or the trait ‘caring’. On the counter-stereotypic block of trials, this face-response mapping was reversed (i.e., respond to male faces with ‘hairdresser’ or ‘caring’ and to female faces with ‘mechanic’ or ‘dominant’). Critically, on 25% of the trials, a stop signal (i.e., auditory beep) was presented, indicating that participants should withhold their response.

Each trial began with the presentation of a central fixation cross for 500 ms, followed by a male or female face for 1,000 ms. Participants had to make either occupational or trait-related stereotype-based judgments as quickly and accurately as possible using two buttons on the keyboard (i.e., N and M). A response was required while each face remained on the screen (3% of responses fell outside the response window). Sixty faces (30 male and 30 female) were taken from the Chicago Face Database (Ma et al., 2015 ). Participants initially performed 20 practice trials, followed by four blocks of 120 experimental trials in which two blocks were stereotypic (i.e., males are mechanics/dominant; females are hairdressers/caring) and two blocks were counter-stereotypic (i.e., males are hairdressers/caring; females are mechanics/dominant). Block order and the meaning of the response buttons was counterbalanced across the sample. The stop-signal procedure was as in Experiment 1. On completion of the task, participants were debriefed, thanked, and dismissed.

A 2 (block type: stereotypic or counter-stereotypic) × 2 (judgment: occupation or trait) mixed-model ANOVA was conducted on participants’ mean Go RTs, response accuracy, SSDs, failed inhibition, and SSRTs, the results of which are summarized below (see Table 2 ). Footnote 7

Responses faster than 200 ms were excluded from the analysis, eliminating less than 1% of the overall number of trials. The only effect to emerge in the analysis was a main effect of judgment, F (1, 77) = 7.99, p = .006, η p 2 = .09, such that RTs were faster when responses were based on occupational ( M = 568 ms, SD = 67 ms) compared with trait-related information ( M = 611 ms, SD = 74 ms). Footnote 8

The analysis yielded a main effect of block type, F (1, 77) = 11.55, p < .001, η p 2 = .13, indicating that responses were more accurate in the stereotypic ( M = 96%, SD = 4%) rather than counter-stereotypic ( M = 94%, SD = 6%) block.

The analysis revealed a main effect of block type, F (1, 77) = 5.42, p = .023, η p 2 = .07, revealing that SSDs were longer in the stereotypic ( M = 269 ms, SD = 54 ms) compared with the counter-stereotypic ( M = 261 ms, SD = 54 ms) block.

The analysis yielded a main effect of block type, F (1, 77) = 7.15, p = .009, η p 2 = .08, indicating that participants failed to withhold their responses less often when a stop signal was presented during the stereotypic ( M = 31%, SD = 14%) rather than counter-stereotypic ( M = 34%, SD = 14%) block.

SSRTs were estimated using the quantile method (Band et al., 2003 ). The only effect to emerge in the analysis was a main effect of block type, F (1, 77) = 12.55, p < .001, η p 2 = .14, such that inhibition was faster for stereotypic ( M = 482 ms, S D = 105 ms) compared with counter-stereotypic ( M = 529 ms, SD = 106 ms) responses. Footnote 9

Using a different paradigm and measure of stereotyping, these results replicate those observed in Experiment 1. Following the presentation of male and female faces, response inhibition (i.e., SSRTs) was faster for stereotypic compared with counter-stereotypic judgments, regardless of the stereotype-related dimension under consideration (i.e., occupational or personality-related information).

General discussion

A widely endorsed viewpoint is that construing others in an expectancy-confirming (i.e., stereotypic) manner is the mind’s default outcome, taking less time and effort than the expectancy-disconfirming (i.e., counter-stereotypic) alternative (Allport, 1954 ; Bar, 2004 , 2007 ; Bodenhausen & Macrae, 1998 ; Freeman & Ambady, 2011 ; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000 ). An interesting consequence of this propensity is that inhibitory demands may be greater when counter-stereotypic compared with stereotypic responses must be suppressed (Logan, Van Zandt, Verbruggen, & Wagenmakers, 2014 ; Verbruggen et al., 2004 , 2006 ). The current research yielded evidence for just such an effect. Countering the assumption that stereotypic responses are difficult to inhibit (Bargh, 1999 ; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990 ; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000 ), here we demonstrated quite the opposite. When stopping stereotype-related responses, SSRTs were faster for stereotypic compared with counter-stereotypic judgments. This effect, moreover, emerged whether stereotyping was probed indirectly (Experiment 1—sex categorization) or directly (Experiment 2—stereotype-based judgments).

That stereotypic rather than counter-stereotypic responses are easier to inhibit is consistent with related work using the flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974 ). In the flanker task, participants make speeded responses to stimuli (e.g., letters) which are flanked by distractors. Critically, these distractors are either congruent (i.e., require the same response) or incongruent (i.e., require a different response) with respect to the target stimulus. The widely replicated finding in this paradigm is that responses are slower when targets are accompanied by incongruent compared with congruent flankers. Interestingly, SSRTs yield the same pattern, such that stopping is impaired when flankers are incongruent rather than congruent with the target. Ridderinkhoff et al. (1999) attribute this effect to the interaction between two inhibitory demands (Nigg, 2000 ), the requirement to inhibit an incorrect response in the flanker task and the suppression of a motor response when a stop-signal is presented (see also Kramer et al., 1994 ; Schachar et al., 2007 ; Verbruggen et al., 2004 , 2006 ). A similar interpretation can be advanced for the current findings. On counter-stereotypic (vs. stereotypic) stop trials, participants must suppress both a motor response (i.e., behavioural inhibition) and the incorrect judgmental response (i.e., interference control) that has been triggered by the priming stimulus (Verbruggen et al., 2004 , 2006 ). As a result, stopping is slowed on counter-stereotypic compared with stereotypic trials.

In interpreting the current effects, a caveat is in order. In tasks of the sort used here (e.g., Stroop, flanker), incongruent stimuli are known to hinder both the execution and inhibition of responses. That is, Go RTs and SSRTs are impaired by response incompatibility. As such, the precise origin of the inhibitory effects reported here remains open to question. To address this issue, one possibility would be to include a stereotype-neutral condition in which prior expectancies do not guide response selection. In Experiment 1, for example, participants could have performed a sex-categorization task on faces that were preceded by a gender-neutral occupational context. It is worth noting, however, that previous research has revealed that stopping is more difficult on incongruent than on congruent and neutral trials (Kramer et al., 1994 ), thereby tracing impairments in response inhibition to the combination of behavioural suppression and interference control during periods of response conflict (i.e., stopping performance is equivalent on congruent and neutral trials). Nevertheless, to clarify and extend the current findings, future research should explore the ease with which both stereotype-related (i.e., stereotype consistent/stereotype-inconsistent) and nonstereotypic (i.e., stereotype-neutral) responses can be inhibited. In so doing, it will be possible to compare stereotyping research with work exploring the efficiency of response inhibition in other cognitive tasks.

The demonstration that stereotypic responses can be stopped quickly offers reassurance to those concerned about the controllability of this process (Bargh, 1999 ; Blair, 2002 ; Moskowitz, 2010 ). However, before concluding that the deleterious consequences of stereotyping can readily be subdued, a cautionary caveat is in order. Here we demonstrated the intentional inhibition of stereotype-related responses. Although stereotyping outside the laboratory can, and indeed often does, entail the deliberate suppression of discriminatory actions, worries about this practice frequently dwell on the implicit channels through which stereotypes bias behaviour. For example, unbeknownst to an individual, stereotypes can subtly influence how information is perceived, interpreted, represented in memory, and ultimately used to guide responses toward other people (Freeman & Ambady, 2011 ; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000 ). Whilst it has been argued that top-down control can be exerted over seemingly impenetrable processing operations (Lupyan, 2015 ), the current findings do not speak to this matter. Instead, emphasis falls on executive control—specifically, the ability to implement goal-directed behaviour on request (Diamond, 2013 ; Logan & Cowan, 1984 ). A useful task for future research will therefore be to consider how different inhibitory functions contribute to stereotype control (Nigg, 2000 ). In particular, in tandem with the controlled inhibitory operations that enable people to cancel stereotyped outputs on demand, when do automatic inhibitory processes restrain the influence of prepotent stereotype-based responses (Schachar et al., 2007 ; Verbruggen et al., 2006 ). Work of this kind will be important, as harmonious living is underpinned by both these forms of inhibition (Payne, 2005 ).

To extend the scope of the current investigation, other issues also merit empirical scrutiny. These centre upon how stereotyping is measured, where it takes place, and who is responding in this way. Using standard methodologies to explore person construal (Freeman & Ambady, 2011 ; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000 ), the current research indexed the effects of expectancy-based processing via the activation of gender stereotypes (Quadflieg et al., 2011 ). Interestingly, comparable effects emerged whether stereotype inhibition was probed indirectly (i.e., sex categorization) or directly (i.e., overt stereotype-based judgments). Although this approach was productive, future work should consider the ease with which stereotype-related responses can be inhibited for a wider range of commonly stereotyped groups. What seems likely is that stereotype inhibition may be sensitive to the strength of people’s prior beliefs and the specific stereotypes under consideration (Bar, 2004 , 2007 ). For example, differences in the extent to which stereotypes are endorsed, in combination with people’s executive abilities and desire to appear nonprejudiced, may influence the ease with which associated behavioural outputs can be stopped (Moskowitz, 2010 ; Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel, & Schaal, 1999 ). In particular, whereas people are probably highly practiced at inhibiting culturally sensitive stereotypes, for other social groups the tendency to avoid stereotyping is unlikely to have been developed (Devine, 1989 ; Payne, 2005 ). Exploring this issue will advance understanding of how perceiver-related factors in combination with prevailing societal norms influence the efficiency of stereotype control.

Acknowledging the perils of stereotyping (Fiske, 1998 ), the current research considered the ease with which responses to stereotype-related stimuli can be stopped (Bartholow et al., 2006 ). Opposing conventional wisdom (Bargh, 1999 ), the results revealed enhanced performance when stereotypic rather than counter-stereotypic responses were inhibited. Of course, whether these results generalize to other measures and manifestations of stereotyping remains an important question for future research. Nevertheless, here we provide first evidence that stopping stereotypic responses may be less challenging than has previously been assumed.

Logan and Cowan ( 1984 ) proposed a horse-race model to account for results in this paradigm. The model assumes there are two independent processes (i.e., Go process & Stop process) with stochastically independent finishing times.

Although Bartholow et al. ( 2006 ) also used a stop-signal task to explore the inhibition of stereotype-related responses, SSRTs were not estimated in this research; instead, emphasis centred on how alcohol triggers stop-signal failures (i.e., failed inhibition).

Based on a medium effect size, G*Power (η p 2 = .05, α = .05, power = 80%) revealed a requirement of 28 participants. An additional ~10% were recruited to allow for drop out.

No association between Go RTs and SSRTs was observed, r (27) = −.040, p = .835.

Bayesian p values quantify the degree to which the difference in the posterior distribution is consistent with the hypothesis that the parameter is greater for stereotypes than counterstereotypes. For example, a Bayesian p of .05 indicates that 95% of the posterior distribution support the hypothesis.

Based on a medium effect size, G*Power revealed a requirement of 80 participants.

Preliminary analysis revealed no effects of target, consequently data were collapsed across this factor.

Unlike Experiment 1, Go RTs were not speeded for stereotypic compared with counter-stereotypic responses. However, it is commonplace in stop-signal tasks for participants to engage in strategic slowing (i.e., delaying responses) during Go trials, as this increases the probability of successful inhibition (Bissett & Logan, 2011 ; Verbruggen & Logan, 2009 ). That slowing on Go trials only occurred in Experiment 2 may reflect the focus on explicit stereotyping in this study.

No association between Go RTs and SSRTs was observed, r (77) = −079, p = .486.

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Falbén, J.K., Olivier, J.L., Golubickis, M. et al. Stop stereotyping. Atten Percept Psychophys 81 , 1228–1235 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01733-4

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Essay Samples on Stereotypes

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1. How to Stop Stereotyping in Society: The Importance of Collective Efforts

2. Breaking the Stigma: Overcoming Mental Illness Stereotypes

3. Gender Roles and Stereotypes in Today’s Culture

4. The Concept of Chivalry and Stereotypical Gentlemanship

5. Key Aspects of the Effects of Ageism and Stereotyping

6. The Rose That Proved Everyone Wrong: Tupac Shakur’s Poem

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8. A Deeper Analysis Of Indian Education

9. The Role of Women in Luhrmann’s Films: Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge

10. Linguistic Stereotyping: The Fault in Our Speech in Big Bang Theory

11. How I Developed Literature Stereotypes Throughout My Life

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Overcoming The Hispanic Stereotype

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I am a Hispanic college student and naturally that means that I must have lived a difficult life to get here. My mom must have debuted on Dr. Phil (or some other drama-filled daytime talk show) screaming at her “baby daddy” for child support. I’m Hispanic so I must be an illegal immigrant from Cuba or Mexico. I’m Puerto Rican so I must have friends in a gang. I’m Hispanic so when there’s an increase in poverty, crime, and teen pregnancies, I must have something to do with it. And of course, when applying to a scholarship for being Hispanic, the essay topic would be to write about the challenges in my life and how I overcame them, because you know, I am Hispanic and therefore my life has to be complicated. I must have had a set of obstacles that others don’t and risen above. Right?

Wrong. And yet, as a person of Hispanic heritage, all of the above are stereotypes that I have to deal with on a daily basis. At school, I am a minority within a minority. In high school, walking around the halls, so many of the students acted as our ethnic group is portrayed in mass media. They very well may be part of the troublemakers, the loud ones, the uneducated ones, the ones wearing clothes two sizes too small — the stereotypical Hispanic — and we get the labels that come with it. But really, that’s how most of the school acted, so why is it that my ethnicity is the one targeted and blamed for this behavior? Everyone seems blissfully unaware that our generation is the one who could shape the image of our minority. Of course there are people who look like me that fulfill these traits, but these characteristics exist in all races. It is not centered on one demographic.

I didn’t grow up in a broken home, a poor home, or an uneducated home. My childhood is filled with pleasant memories because my parents wanted better for me. They wanted more from me than to be that stereotypical “chonga” that got very little out of life. I am an honors student and I graduated at the top of my high school class. I took AP courses, I was Vice President of the BETA club and a member of the National Honor Society. I attend a good university and am in the honors program. I play the violin and am an active member of the community through Girl Scouts. I did everything right, the good way, the “normal” way. So why is it that in all of my accomplishments, I only ever get the question “How did you face cultural challenges to get to where you are today?” Why does the fact that I am Hispanic mean I’m not a normal candidate to be successful?

If I have overcome anything in life brought on by my culture, it would be the stereotypes waiting for me to prove I am a failure. When taking standardized tests where we have to fill in our racial group, why is it that they take the scores and categorize the means by ethnicity? And why are Hispanics always one of the lowest? Perhaps it’s because of the stereotypes we carry every day, that live within us. We all know that people expect us Hispanics to be poorly educated, so there are many who just live up to that standard — expect nothing, they give nothing. Well, that standard is not enough for me. I work at raising the standards for my minority everyday. I maintain my grades so when I graduate and become successful in life, I can say “I proved you wrong.”

About the author

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How to Avoid Picking Up Prejudice from the Media

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, killing more than a thousand people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

That was terrible. But news media may have turned this natural disaster into a disaster for American race relations by repeatedly broadcasting images of black people who were often described as “looting” in the catastrophic wake of the storm. According to a study by James Johnson and colleagues, these types of images may lead white people to endorse harsh treatment of black evacuees (by, for example, not allowing them to seek refuge in another parish). Participants were not any less likely to help white evacuees, suggesting that racial stereotypes of blacks as criminals may have played a role.

News media aren’t the only problem. In another study , the researchers found that exposure to hyper-sexualized rap music (as compared to non-sexualized rap music or no music) led participants to feel less empathy for a young black woman who was pregnant and in need of assistance—which was not the case for a young white woman in a similar situation. Why? Because exposure to the hyper-sexualized rap music seemed to have activated a stereotype that black women are more sexually promiscuous.

Other minority groups—“out-groups” in relation to the majority—are portrayed negatively in media as well. Research shows that Latinos are often depicted as low status, criminal, and as sexual objects, while East Asians and Native American characters are rarely seen in the media. When they are, East Asian characters are commonly depicted as devious villains and Native American characters tend to be depicted as animalistic and savage. Middle Easterners are often portrayed as terrorists in both news and entertainment media. These stereotypic depictions can lead us to feel and behave more negatively toward these groups.

Yes, media have historically shown minority groups in a negative light, and these portrayals can exacerbate prejudice and discriminatory behaviors. But sometimes media are our only way of connecting with minority groups at all. Indeed, media may be the only contact some people have with minority groups, especially those living in homogenous communities.

Here are steps we can all take to limit the negative impact of stereotypes in the media—and maximize the positive benefits media may have on our attitudes toward out-groups.

When media impact is positive

More on bias.

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Jeremy Adam Smith on how to read racist books to your kids .

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David Amodio explains "The Egalitarian Brain."

In a study we conducted at the University of Toronto, people reported on how much they saw different social groups (like Latin Americans, the elderly, and gays and lesbians) in the media each day for 10 days. We also asked them report on all the direct social interactions they had with these groups each day, and their attitudes toward them.

We found that media contact consistently predicted more positive attitudes toward social out-groups. Importantly, seeing groups in the media was a stronger and more reliable predictor of positive intergroup attitudes than directly interacting with these groups.

This is likely because people were not having direct social interactions with many different out-group members very often, but they were frequently seeing a wide range of out-groups in the media. Even in Toronto, one of the most diverse cities in the world, people report few direct social interactions with out-group members. This demonstrates just how important media is for providing opportunities for cross-group contact.

Our findings echo the results of other experiments. In a series of studies , Edward Schippa and colleagues found that watching media interactions with gay and transgender characters were related to more positive attitudes toward gay men and transgender people in general. They call this dynamic the parasocial contact hypothesis , which states that we can have one-sided interactions with media characters, perceiving them as real people and feeling like we could know them in real life. When we have these interactions with out-group media characters, we may feel better about the out-group as a whole.

But we’re not just being exposed to different groups through media—we’re also being exposed to interactions between members of different social groups. When we watch other members of our group have positive interactions with out-group members, we learn that positive interaction is possible. This appears to reduce our own concerns about interacting with the out-group.

Indeed, studies have found that when people consume media that include positive interactions between in-group and out-group characters, they seem to feel more positively toward those groups, and they show more interest in interacting with members of those groups.

How to minimize the impact of negative stereotypes

It is clear that seeing groups presented in a positive way is important for improving intergroup attitudes—and, clearly, if journalists and media-makers want to have a positive impact on society, they should think carefully about how they portray minorities.

However, if we as individuals are not able to avoid seeing negative depictions of minority groups, then it’s important to find ways to buffer ourselves—and our children—against their effects.

The first step is to recognize negative stereotypes in the media when you see them, label them as stereotypes, and resist their influence on how you respond to the group. There is some evidence that actively challenging stereotypic responses when they occur is an important tool in combating our explicit and implicit prejudices .

Moreover, you can deliberately expose yourself to more diverse representations of other groups.

Studies have found that people who have had more social interaction with minority group members are less likely to be affected by negative media depictions of these groups. This may be explained by the fact that they have more varied representations of what members of this groups are like, and therefore do not allow a single, negative representation to shape how they treat people from that group. Even if you are not able to do this by directly interacting with minority group members, you can consume media with counter-stereotypical depictions of these groups. Doing this repeatedly over time may reduce the extent to which you rely on stereotypes to shape your attitudes and behavior toward these groups, similar to the way direct social interaction does.

We can use these same strategies with our children in order to minimize the negative impact of stereotypes. First, we need to explain to our children what stereotypes are and why they are harmful. When you consume media with your child, you can point out stereotypes when you see them and explain to your child why that stereotype is not representative of the group. You should also encourage your child to consume media with counter-stereotypic examples of out-group members and positive interactions between members of diverse groups.

While some news coverage during and after Hurricane Katrina activated and reinforced stereotypes, much of it had the opposite effect, raising awareness about racial inequality. For example, several articles discussed how race influenced the response of the US government and the media to this horrible tragedy. This hopefully created greater awareness of racial inequality and issues facing the black community for those who read these articles.

Although stereotypes are still broadcast to us through media, we can resist their influence when we acknowledge that they exist and that they are a problem. Moreover, we can use media as a tool to come into contact with different social groups that we may otherwise not have contact with and to learn about their experiences. In doing so, we may reduce our prejudices and foster more egalitarian attitudes in ourselves and our children.

About the Authors

Amanda sharples.

Amanda Sharples is a graduate student at the University of Toronto who studies how contact with out-groups through social interaction and media influence intergroup attitudes at the individual and societal level.

Elizabeth Page-Gould

Elizabeth Page-Gould, Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology and the Canada Research Chair of Social Psychophysiology at the University of Toronto.

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Editorial: The psychological process of stereotyping: Content, forming, internalizing, mechanisms, effects, and interventions

Baoshan zhang.

1 School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China

Fengqing Zhao

2 School of Education, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China

Fangfang Wen

3 School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China

Junhua Dang

4 Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Magdalena Zawisza

5 Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Stereotype is a pervasive and persistent human tendency that stems from a basic cognitive need to categorize, simplify, and process the complex world. This tendency is a precondition for social bias, prejudice, and discrimination. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the discrimination, exclusion, and even hostility caused by stereotypes have increasingly become an important social issue that concerns political and social stability. Therefore, the current issue focuses on a broad spectrum of research addressing four main themes: (1) the psychological processes involved in forming and internalizing social stereotypes, (2) the negative consequences of stereotypes, (3) the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying stereotypes, and (4) the interventions addressing the consequences of negative stereotypes in this era with changes and challenges. Specifically, the Research Topic consists of 13 papers by 54 scholars that target stereotypes among different social groups, including males and females, older people and young generation, minority races, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), people with mental health problems, juvenile transgressors, refugees, and Asian-Americans during COVID-19 outbreak. These studies are conducted in culturally diverse countries including Brazil, China, Germany, Hungary, and the USA, contributing to a more holistic picture of contemporary stereotypes.

1. The forming of social stereotypes

Negative stereotypes from the public may be influenced by our knowledge about and psychological distance to the target group, beliefs of group malleability, beliefs in the implicit change of traits, and moral values. For instance, Caldas et al. tested whether people's knowledge and proximity to the circumstances associated with juvenile transgression would influence their opinions about the proposal for reducing the age of criminal majority in Brazil. They investigated the passers-by in a public square and workers from the juvenile justice courts and found that people were more likely to hold negative stereotypes of juvenile delinquents if they were far from them. Paskuj and Orosz focused on the refugees as the most typically vulnerable group in turbulent international times, and they found that group malleability beliefs were negatively linked to dehumanization tendencies and threats perceived from migrants in Hungary. Protzko and Schooler examined a more general negative stereotype of youth also known as the “kids these days effect” (KTD effect). In two studies with American adults, belief in whether a trait changes over the lifespan was associated with such prejudices. In addition, Lai et al. focused on three cues linked to women's perceived high long-term mating value and reported that Chinese women displaying “sexually attractive” cues were perceived to have lower moral values. Moreover, they were stereotyped as having lower levels of humanness than women displaying “beautiful” facial cues or “virtuous” behavioral cues, which in turn led to lower mating opportunity.

Culture also plays an essential role in stereotype formation. Li M. et al. targeted stereotypes toward high-power individuals and revealed that people influenced by Confucianism held positive stereotypes of competence and warmth for senior high-power individuals. This finding is inconsistent with the traditional proposition that high-power individuals tend to be stereotyped as having high competence and low warmth. This might be because high-power individuals under Confucian culture are expected to have great social responsibility and concern for the wellbeing of others. Furthermore, new stereotypes emerged as a result of COVID-19 in the global context. COVID-19 is a threat to physical health, and mental health, and various reports have indicated that COVID-19 is closely related to stigma and discrimination. Two studies examined the stereotypes related to COVID-19. Zhao et al. found that the prevalence of COVID-19-related negative stereotypes was low in China. Besides, the more people know about COVID-19, the fewer negative stereotypes associated with COVID-19 they reported. Daley et al. on the other hand reported that Asian-Americans were facing increasing challenges from different ethnic groups on social issues related to COVID-19 in the United States, and the increasing tendency to blame China for the pandemic was associated with stereotyping Asian people as more foreign.

2. The consequences of negative stereotypes

People's negative stereotypes will influence their behavioral inclinations toward the target groups, and even the law-making at a general level. For instance, Wen et al. tested space-related stereotypes associated with people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). They found that people who held negative stereotypes toward the spaces occupied by PLWHA were more resistant to visit such spaces, and people's threat perception and community evaluation mediated the effects of such space-related stereotypes on community-approaching willingness. In addition, Caldas et al. found that the more distant people were from juvenile transgressors, the more they held negative stereotypes toward juvenile transgressors and agreed with the law-making proposal for reducing the age of criminal conviction in Brazil.

Vulnerable groups may internalize the negative stereotypes and be influenced by them. Gärtner et al. tested the self-stereotyping of people with mental illness and found that negative stereotypes of their warmth and competence dimensions led them to develop negative emotions and thus exhibit higher levels of active or passive self-harm than mentally healthy people. In addition, Li J. et al. were interested in the gender self-stereotyping among college students and noted that gender self-stereotyping was positively correlated with relational and personal self-esteem and further correlated with higher life satisfaction only in the male sample. That is, gender self-stereotyping was associated with a higher level of self-esteem and life satisfaction among male students, while this effect did not hold for women.

3. The neurocognitive mechanisms of stereotypes

The neurocognitive mechanisms of stereotypes were explored by Wu and Zhao . They used RS-fMRI degree centrality (RSDC), a graph theory-based network analysis, to detect how negative stereotypes work in the brain. In a test of math-related stereotypes among female university students, they found that the RSDC of different brain regions was affected, reflecting that stereotypes are the result of the action of the brain network as a whole. For instance, a decrease in RSDC in the left hippocampus is a response to stereotype-related stress, and an increase in RSDC in the posterior parietal region (PPC) is a reflection of self-relevant processes induced by stereotypes.

4. The interventions addressing the consequences of negative stereotypes

Finally, two studies tested interventions against negative stereotypes via intergenerational contact and cognitive training. Long et al. found that simply intergenerational contact, or even just imagining it, reduced negative stereotypes of older people and increased perspective-taking toward older people among young adults. Chen et al. used the traditional IAT to compare the effect of multiple vs. single cognitive training on aging stereotypes in 12–13-year-olds. They found that multiple training tasks and additional intervention training sessions are recommended as they could significantly prolong the positive effects of the intervention.

Overall, these 13 papers discussed various aspects of stereotype formation, consequences, mechanisms, and interventions. We hope these papers will inspire future researchers in developing theories and conducting new interventions against negative effects of stereotypes. Since the current era of “black swan incidents” and related social challenges create perfect conditions for stereotypes to thrive and intensify, researchers should continue exploring the psychological mechanisms behind emerging social stigma and negative stereotypes. Especially, the development of neuroscience will provide further opportunities to study the brain mechanisms of stereotypes from a more microscopic perspective. This combined with macroscopic psychosocial mechanisms will provide new ways of addressing the severe dangers of negative stereotypes across contexts, countries and times and benefit targeted interventions and policy making.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

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The Difference Between Stigma vs. Stereotype

• Stigma vs. Stereotype

Examples of Stigma

• Cultural Perpetuation
• Consequences

Frequently Asked Questions

The terms " stigma " and "stereotype" are often used to describe negative behaviors in society that are directed towards specific groups of people. When a certain thing is attached to a stigma, it is associated with feelings of shame.

Stigmas are often driven by negative stereotypes, which are oversimplified and popular beliefs or ideas about a particular group of people or persons that are often untrue or only partially true.

In society, stigmas and stereotypes are often involved in shaming or discriminating against people who have a mental illness , certain disabilities, or are a part of a certain sexuality, race, or religion.

Both stereotypes and stigmas can have powerful holds on society as a whole and can leave a mark on certain people or groups that leave them feeling ashamed or in danger for simply being.

Read on to find out more about stigmas and stereotypes and how they differ from one another.

Stigma vs. Stereotype Definitions 

The Oxford dictionary defines stigma as, “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.”

The Oxford Dictionary defines a stereotype as, “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.”

While the two definitions seem similar, and they are, there are some marked differences between the two.

A stigma is always negative and develops because of a stereotype. Stereotypes, although often wrong or partially wrong, aren’t always negative. Although stereotypes can be positive, they are still problematic because they "other" people, don't allow people to be seen as individuals, and box people into certain expectations.

Examples of stigma include:

• Using labels to exclude certain persons or groups of people
• Assuming that persons with mental health conditions are dangerous
• Thinking that people with physical health conditions are unable to contribute to society
• Making negative assumptions about a person's intelligence or behavior based on a physical or mental health condition or race, ethnicity, religion, etc.

Examples of stereotypes (which may not always be negative) include:

• Presuming that people who wear glasses are smart
• Thinking that women are naturally nurturing
• Believing that Asian-Americans are smart
• Assuming that teachers and nurses are women and that doctors and engineers are men

The Development of Stigmas and Stereotypes

Stigmas are underlined by stereotypes, so they typically develop after a stereotype has been widely accepted.

Discrimination 

According to the American Psychiatric Association, stigmas that develop because of perpetuated stereotypes can lead to discrimination.

Discrimination is the unfair treatment of groups of people because of held beliefs surrounding their health status, sex, age, or race.

Discrimination can be both direct and indirect and can come in the form of:

• Excluding certain groups of people from things such as rental housing, employment, or other services.
• Imposing extra measures on certain groups of people that do not apply to the rest of the general population.

Direct discrimination occurs when done directly from one person to a specific group of people; indirect discrimination takes place when a person is discriminatory on behalf of someone else.

For example, a person who owns a rental property excludes a person with a disability from living at the property. That is a form of direct discrimination. A manager of a rental property that has been told to screen people with disabilities is an example of indirect discrimination.

Another example of discrimination is when an older adult applies for a job that they are qualified for. Since they are older than other candidates, the employer decides to hire someone with fewer qualifications because they are younger. That is a form of age discrimination.

Cultural Perpetuation 

Cultural perpetuation is a way in which certain stigmas and stereotypes continue to pass from one generation to the next. This type of perpetuation of certain long-held beliefs or notions surrounding stigmas and stereotypes is what gives them their longevity.  

How Does Cultural Perpetuation Advance Stereotypes?

The longer a culture supports a specific stereotype or stigma, the more staying power it has.

Studies suggest that stereotypes are perpetuated because of the cultural schema theory, which is a theory based on the idea that people use certain classifications to help them understand cultures other than their own.

When they do this with misinformation that they have been taught about specific groups of people, they keep the cycle of stereotypical discrimination going.

The idea of cultural schema can also be used to help people justify certain negative experiences they’ve had because they connect them to long-held negative stereotypical beliefs.    

What Are the Consequences of Stigma and Stereotypes?

The vast collection of stigmas and stereotypes still prevalent in society leads to negative consequences for the people and groups involved. These consequences range depending on the group being stigmatized and the result of the discrimination.

On Marginalized Groups 

Marginalized populations are groups of people who are continuously subjected to discrimination and exclusion because of who they are. Some examples of marginalized groups include:

• People who belong to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, pansexual, two-spirit (2S), androgynous and asexual (LGBTQQIP2SAA) community
• Black, Indigenous, and people of color
• Older adults
• People with disabilities or chronic health conditions
• Those who have immigrated to the United States
• People who do not speak English or have learned English as a second language
• People who fall into a low-income category

These groups are marginalized because there is an uneven distribution of power between social groups and that is largely due to stereotypical beliefs and stigmas. The consequences of this power imbalance lead to many challenges and discrepancies, such as:

• Less emotional support
• An increase in negative interactions within society
• Higher rates of substance abuse
• An increased risk of both psychological and physiological disease or illness
• Higher rates of suicide

Around Mental Health 

The stigma surrounding mental health has been slowly decreasing in recent years, however, it is still strong and those with mental health issues are still subject to discrimination. Because of this, people with mental health issues can experience:

• A reduced sense of hope
• Lower self-esteem
• An increase in their symptoms
• Difficulties maintaining social relationships accompanied by social isolation
• A lessened chance that they will stick to their treatment plan or seek help for their disorder
• Difficulties in the workplace or issues finding opportunities to participate in gainful employment, studies, or school activities
• Physical violence or harassment
• An inability to access health insurance that covers the cost of their treatment

Self-Stigma and Mental Illness

Because of the societal stigma attached to mental health disorders, many people with psychiatric disorders often self-stigmatize. This means that they have a negative attitude towards themselves. Having self-stigmatizing attitudes have been shown to decrease a person's likelihood of recovering from their mental illness.  

Around Substance Abuse 

Many people with addiction or substance abuse disorder often find themselves heavily stigmatized. People look down on those who use substances, and because of this, certain consequences plague people with addiction. They can include:

• Having a more difficult time reaching out for help out of fear of being judged or getting into trouble
• Hiding their use of drugs or using alone which can be dangerous
• A lowered quality of life because it can be more challenging to find housing or a job
• Having a difficult time getting proper health care

When people suffer from addiction, they can experience three types of stigma: self, social, and structural.

Self-stigma is when they begin to have negative attitudes towards themselves which can increase drug use, cause low-self-esteem, and avoid reaching out for help. Social stigma comes from outside sources and often leads to self-stigma.

Structural is imposed on people with addiction by healthcare providers, people who offer social services, workplaces, and government organizations. All three types cause the aforementioned consequences.

Advocating Against Negative Stigma 

Many things can be done to help reduce stigma across different groups. Becoming an ally with groups that experience stereotypical discrimination is the first step in understanding how they are affected and what needs to be done to change how society views certain communities.

What the Law Says 

There are various laws in place that are designed to keep discrimination from occurring, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still happen.

For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act was developed to help protect people with disabilities from discrimination. That being said, not all laws that are in place to end stigma and discrimination based on stigma are adhered to all of the time.

What You Can Do to Stop Stigma and Discrimination 

Several things can be done to help reduce stigma:

• Educational programs: Anti-stigma education interventions can present factual information to a wide audience to help reduce the stigma that surrounds a certain group of people.
• Mental Health Literacy Campaigns: Similar to the educational program strategy, mental health literacy campaigns aim to implement the sharing of mental health information to help positively change society’s knowledge and attitude towards those with mental illnesses.
• Contact: People with stereotypical views rarely come into contact with the people who are a part of the group being stigmatized in their minds. To reduce stigma, people have to overcome the divide and spend more time with those in stigmatized groups.
• Protest and Advocacy: Protests have been highly effective strategies for civil rights changes. Participating in peaceful protests with those who have experienced discrimination and their allies can help you impose change at the grassroots level. 

Stigmas and stereotypes are still rampant in the United States. Although the two are not the same thing, they both develop into discriminatory behaviors towards people who do not deserve it.

While there is change to be made, some groups that have been stigmatized for much of modern history are beginning to see the tides change. The way to ensure that progress continues to be made is by becoming an ally and lawful advocate.

There are three main types of stigma: self, social, and structural. Self-stigma occurs when a person is convinced that the negative beliefs of others are valid and begins to see themselves in the way that those who stigmatize them do. Social is when society stigmatizes an individual or group of people as a whole, causing feelings of shame. Finally, structural stigmas are perpetuated by workplaces, social services, and healthcare providers. These can be the most damaging because they often lead people to refrain from seeking help.

While a stigma is always negative, stereotypes are not. They can be both positive and negative. That being said, both negative and positive stereotypes can have negative consequences because they are often untrue.

Stereotypes influence the development of stigmas and stigmas influence discrimination. While the three are different in definition, they are all closely tied together. You cannot have a stigma without a perpetuated stereotype. 

People most often hear about mental disorders being highly stigmatized, but they are not the only health condition that is attached to negative beliefs and attitudes. Other disorders that are or have been heavily stigmatized include HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, epilepsy, substance use disorders, and venereal diseases.

Campellone TR, Caponigro JM, Kring AM. The power to resist: the relationship between power, stigma, and negative symptoms in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Res. 2014;215(2):280-285. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2013.11.020

Turan JM, Elafros MA, Logie CH, et al. Challenges and opportunities in examining and addressing intersectional stigma and health .  BMC Med . 2019;17(1):7. doi:10.1186/s12916-018-1246-9

Better Health Channel. Stigma, discrimination and mental illness .

Planned Parenthood. What are gender roles and stereotypes?

American Psychiatric Association. Stigma, prejudice, and discrimination against people with mental illness.

Ontario Human Rights Commission. 10. Forms of Discrimination.

Hunzaker MBF. Making sense of misfortune: cultural schemas, victim redefinition, and the perpetuation of stereotypes.   Social Psychology Quarterly . 2014;77(2):166-184. doi:10.1177/0190272514521219

Sevelius JM, Gutierrez-Mock L, Zamudio-Haas S, et al. Research with marginalized communities: challenges to continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic. AIDS Behav. 2020;24(7):2009-2012. doi:10.1007/s10461-020-02920-3

Baah FO, Teitelman AM, Riegel B. Marginalization: Conceptualizing patient vulnerabilities in the framework of social determinants of health—An integrative review .  Nursing Inquiry . 2019;26(1):e12268. doi:10.1111/nin.12268

Hochhauser S, Rao S, England-Kennedy E, Roy S. Why social justice matters: a context for suicide prevention efforts. Int J Equity Health. 2020;19(1):76. doi:10.1186/s12939-020-01173-9

Oexle N, Müller M, Kawohl W, et al. Self-stigma as a barrier to recovery: a longitudinal study. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2018;268(2):209-212. doi:10.1007/s00406-017-0773-2

Government of Canada. Stigma around drug use.

Kane JC, Elafros MA, Murray SM, et al. A scoping review of health-related stigma outcomes for high-burden diseases in low- and middle-income countries . BMC Med. 2019;17(1):17. doi:10.1186/s12916-019-1250-8

By Angelica Bottaro Bottaro has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and an Advanced Diploma in Journalism. She is based in Canada.

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Gender Stereotypes — Equality in Workplace: Sociology and Gender Stereotypes

Equality in Workplace: Sociology and Gender Stereotypes

• Categories: Gender Stereotypes

About this sample

Words: 693 |

Published: Aug 14, 2018

Words: 693 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Hook Examples for Gender Role Essay

• The Evolution of Gender Roles: Gender roles have come a long way over the centuries. Join us on a historical journey to explore how societal expectations and perceptions of gender have transformed throughout history.
• Beyond Pink and Blue: Are gender roles overly restrictive? In this essay, we’ll examine the impact of traditional gender norms on individuals and discuss the importance of breaking free from gender stereotypes.
• Media Influence on Gender Roles: Explore the portrayal of gender roles in media and its impact on society’s perception of masculinity and femininity. Are these depictions reflective of reality, or do they perpetuate stereotypes?
• Gender Roles in the Workplace: Investigate the challenges and opportunities faced by individuals as they navigate gender roles in professional settings. How do workplace dynamics contribute to or challenge traditional gender norms?
• Transcending Boundaries: Non-Binary Gender Roles: With a growing recognition of non-binary gender identities, this essay explores the evolving landscape of gender roles and the importance of inclusivity and acceptance for all gender expressions.

Works Cited

• Wolfe, Lahle. “Learn About Gender Discrimination in Society, the Biased Based on Sex.”
• https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/gender-gender-identity/what-are-gender-roles-and-stereotypes
• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-future-of-men-jack-myers-traditional-gender-roles-new-world-jodi-kantor/

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We Do Need More Moms in Politics. JD Vance Won’t Get Us There

R epublican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance ’s past comment that Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic leaders are “a bunch of childless cat ladies miserable at their own lives” is the line that keeps on living. Never mind that Vance’s comments are false. Harris is a mom: her two stepchildren recognize her as their parent, as does their biological mother .

Of course, having children shouldn’t be a pre-requisite for office—part of the job of a political leader is being able to understand the challenges of people who are different from them. But in fact, as a mom, I’m with Vance on wishing more moms would hold office. To make that happen, he and other lawmakers need to focus on the big barrier to moms of young kids running for office: childcare.

It’s unsurprising that Harris doesn’t have biological children. Being a mother is a huge impediment to winning political office, because in the U.S., moms are responsible for the majority of the childcare, and childcare is so expensive that they often can’t afford to pay for it personally while running a political campaign. That’s why so many of the women who have held the highest offices in our country don’t have kids—like Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court and cabinet secretaries such as Condoleezza Rice and Janet Napolitano . Just 6.8% of members of Congress and 5.3% of state legislators are moms to children under age 18, according to the Vote Mama Foundation.

Read More: America’s Moms Are Running on Empty. We Need to Do More to Support Them. In 28 states, childcare costs more than in-state college tuition, according to a 2023 NetCredit study . And people running for or holding political office often work exceptionally long hours, so their childcare costs are likely higher than average. What’s more, politicians in 17 states can’t use campaign funds to pay for childcare while running for office, according to the Vote Mama Foundation. And politicians in 38 states and Washington, DC can’t use campaign funds for caregiving while they’re carrying out their official duties. That’s a huge problem because the vast majority of state legislatures don’t pay lawmakers enough to afford the cost of living in their states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Politicians should be allowed to use campaign funds to cover these costs because most moms otherwise won’t be able to afford childcare while earning little or no money as a political candidate or state legislator.

Lawmakers like Vance also need to help make childcare more affordable. One way they could do that is by restoring the billions in childcare funding provided by the American Rescue Plan Act which expired in September, resulting in immediate increases in childcare costs. Not to mention, it would also likely boost the economy. A new analysis from the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project shows labor force participation by women with children under age five has fallen since September, when this funding expired. Congress could also expand the child tax credit, which would put more money in parents’ pockets for childcare. But on August 1, Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill which would do this.

More broadly, we all need to rethink our stereotypes of working moms. A lot of people assume when women have kids, we become less invested in our careers. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell famously gave voice to this assumption in 2008 when he was caught on a hot mic saying Janet Napolitano was perfect for role of Homeland Security Secretary because “Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19, 20 hours a day to” her work.

But Lauren Smith Brody, founder of The Fifth Trimester, a gender equity consultancy focused on caregivers at work, told me her research suggests the opposite: When women have children we’re often motivated to work more , both so we can afford the expenses that come with kids and because we’re worried about the world our kids are going to live in and want to try to fix it. (This was absolutely the case for me when I became a mom.)

Women who seek the hugely demanding job of political office also need more support from their partners. The latest  Pew research  confirms that, among opposite-sex couples, women still do the vast majority of the childcare and household work, even when we work full time. This needs to change. Employers can help make that possible by not expecting staffers to put in an excessive number of hours. Labor economist Claudia Goldin’s Nobel prize-winning research shows that when this happens it’s often the woman who allows her career to take a back seat so that her husband can overwork, since someone has to be around for the kids.

So, it looks like Vance got a couple things wrong: Harris is most certainly a mom, and childless people aren’t less qualified for office (by his flawed logic of believing politicians can’t comprehend the experiences of people who are different from them, only white, married, cisgender men, then, should vote for Donald Trump and Vance). Still, he’s right to point out that there aren’t many moms in top political office. But instead of isolating women even further with his comments, it would behoove Vance to start thinking about why .

Good thing that, as a member of Congress, he’s in a position to help fix the challenges women are up against by restoring childcare funding that could help moms pursue political office and other work. States need to allow parents to use campaign funds to pay for childcare while campaigning or working in government roles. Other parental figures like dads need to step up and do equal amounts of caregiving, which will only be truly possible when employers stop expecting overwork. And all of us need to rethink the way we view mothers and their motivations.

Moms of young kids are often hugely ambitious—but our country has set up the motherload of barriers to them running for office.

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Editorial cartoon: Stereotypes make it easy to hate

By Dallas Morning News Editorial

1:00 AM on Aug 2, 2024 CDT

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JD Vance Stumbles in His Debut, as Democrats Go on Offense

In the 12 days since Ohio’s junior senator was tapped as the future of Donald J. Trump’s movement, old comments and a chorus of derision have blunted any sense of invulnerability.

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By Jonathan Weisman and Shane Goldmacher

The choice of Senator JD Vance as former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate reflected the confidence of a campaign so sure of victory in November that it could look beyond a second Trump term to the legacy of his movement.

But in less than two weeks, Mr. Vance has found himself on the defensive, and his struggles have dented the sense of invulnerability that only a week ago seemed to be the overriding image of the Trump campaign.

A stream of years-old quotes, videos and audio comments unearthed by Democrats and the news media in recent days has threatened to undermine the Trump campaign’s outreach to women, voters of color and the very blue-collar voters Mr. Vance, a first-term Ohio senator, was supposed to reach.

His past comments deriding “childless cat ladies,” supporting a “federal response” to stop abortion in Democratic states and promoting a higher tax burden for childless Americans have yielded a chorus of criticism from Democrats. Mr. Vance’s fresh efforts to explain them have provided Democrats more material, with the Harris campaign promoting one short clip in which he seems to suggest that when he spoke of childless cat ladies, he meant no insult to cats — “I’ve got nothing against cats,” he said.

And his first handful of appearances on the stump have drawn unflattering attention. During an appearance in his hometown, Middletown, Ohio, he tried to explain how his critics would call his drinking Diet Mountain Dew racist, with an awkward aside assuring the audience that Diet Mountain Dew was good.

Mr. Vance’s stumbles have come after a remarkable two weeks when Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt and then rallied the party — and even some skeptics — behind him. The Republican National Convention began with calls for national unity, and though those calls were at times undercut by the Republican presidential nominee, the ticket vaulted out of Milwaukee with a head of steam and an expanded lead in the polls.

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