This post was co-authored with Rebecca Schlegel, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University.
What do you think of when you hear the word stereotype? This term has become highly polarizing in today’s society. It probably brings to mind ideas like social justice; diversity, equity, and inclusion training; meritocracy; oppression; wokeness; and equity. You probably have emotions about these ideas, possibly strong ones, and have attitudes about what we should do as a society about these things. But what comes to mind is probably not what psychologists mean when they study stereotypes, and people are often surprised by the role of emotions in shaping what we think about others.
Mental Categories Help People Learn and Navigate the World
When viewed through a psychological lens, stereotypes are not good or bad. They are byproducts of how people think. The human mind operates by creating categories or “bins” and using those bins to collect related information. As children learn language, for example, they might create a bin called “dogs,” and place everything that is four-legged and furry into that bin. This leads to some common errors, such as children calling a cat a “dog” because it is four-legged and furry. Typically, these errors are corrected by others (a parent explains it is not a dog, but a cat), and the categories get adjusted as children learn what information goes in what bin. This structure is critical for functioning in the world—we can enter a new situation and know what to expect because we’ve been in similar situations before. Without the category of “dog,” we would have to treat every encounter with a dog as a new experience. With the category of “dog,” we have some idea of how the animal will behave and what we should and shouldn’t do when encountering a dog, and we can talk with other people about our experiences with dogs to share information. Overall, categories help us learn faster and function better.
We use this same categorization process to make sense of the many different types of people we encounter in the world. From an early age, we learn categories and place people into those categories. We learn some bins at very young ages, such as family versus stranger. As we grow and learn, the categories are adjusted based on correcting errors and greater experience. Placing people into those categories allows us to quickly respond—children learn to treat someone in the bin of “stranger” very differently than they treat someone in the bin of “family.”
Stereotypes refer to the information and beliefs we put in the bins we have learned for groups of people. Just as people might associate the bin of “dog” with concepts like loyal or energetic, people associate bins for groups of people with different concepts. For example, people may associate the category of “football player” with concepts like “strong.” At their root, stereotypes are mental shortcuts that people use to make sense of other people just as they do with other types of categories in the world. Creating the bins and putting information in the bins is just a feature of how our brain makes sense of a complicated world.
Attitude Formation Attaches Emotions to Categories and Shapes Behavior
The challenge comes when we develop emotions about the bins we use. One person might associate the bin of “dog” with loyalty and develop good feelings about dogs, whereas another person might associate the bin of “dog” with aggression and develop negative feelings about them. In the same way, people attach good or bad feelings to bins for categories of people. This process—where an emotion is attached to a category or idea—is called attitude formation. The bin is no longer neutral—there is an emotional tag that changes how you interact with the members of that category. If the bin of “dogs” is attached to negative feelings or fear, you avoid dogs. Similarly, you are disposed to act differently toward categories of people associated with negative emotions versus groups you associate with positive emotions. These emotions can be powerful guides to behavior.
The beliefs we hold about groups of people and the emotional responses we have toward the groups are different concepts in psychology. In daily life, however, these things often go hand in hand and are influenced by the messages we receive about groups. Societal views of smoking and smokers in the United States are an excellent example of how stereotypes (and the emotions they evoke) develop and can shift. From the 1920s through the 1960s, smoking was associated with glamor and wealth. This was the result of marketing by companies and striking images of celebrities in movies, ads, and television. Smoking was not only socially acceptable; it was a good thing—part of being a productive and engaged member of society. The group “smokers” had become associated with positive beliefs and positive emotions.
As the health consequences of smoking behavior and the resulting economic impact became clear, government officials took steps to change public perceptions of smoking. They banned cigarette advertisements, promoted anti-smoking campaigns, and prohibited companies from using terms that suggested particular brands were safer or healthy. Many of the campaigns were graphic and evoked strong emotion, such as images of smokers with cigarette burns in their clothes and yellowed teeth, diseased lungs, or people in wheelchairs struggling to breathe. These messages were not just providing information to people about the health risks—they were actively attempting to shift the stereotypes of smoking and smokers. Over time, “smokers” became associated with negative emotions and beliefs, and were viewed as dangerous, irresponsible, selfish, unhealthy, and disgusting. They were banned from restaurants, airplanes, workplaces, campuses, and stores.
In current society, there is a high level of concern and attitudes about stereotypes and what we should do about them. Stereotypes have become a focus of political debate and calls to action. However, from a psychological perspective, stereotypes exist because they are a byproduct of how people learn, think, and navigate a complex social world, and they cannot be removed. But we can understand how messages through advertising, media, and other sources affect the impressions we form about other people. Understanding how our impressions are formed can help all of us make more intentional evaluations about other people based on our own experiences and our personal values.