Do people stereotype in order to control?

to control their own personal lives, yes...

to minimize conflict
prevent things that have happened in the past to occur again

 

Yes, I do.

 

Now that you mention it, for me I do. By being able to label everyone, put them in boxes, categorize them in a coherent order, and create templates to make others more quickly go into a box, I am controlling things. It takes something that in itself is very loose and esoteric, and makes it into something concrete, solid, and tangible (even though it shouldn't be). Because it has been made solid, I have created a method of control for myself, and I am really realizing that I need to control everything around me, and I become depressed if I can't.

 

Not stereotyping requires a subtle and open way of thinking and for a lot of people that is quite unnatural to do. If you literally reduce everything to black and white you then have some stability to work off, you can then create "logical" frameworks that you can make predictions off.

Complexity and ambiguity is scary because it implies letting go of most of your control and decreasing your self-importance substantially.

Stereotypes are mental shortcuts to put ourselves at ease in a complex and ambiguious universe.

 

I think that this happens for so many reasons. Stereotypes almost always change when people actually meet and get to know someone. Stereotypes help people objectify other people in a way. It makes it easy when you put someone in a bottle, smack a label on them and go about invading their country. However, I have to be honest that I make snap judgements about other people. I try hard not to....very hard....

 

Yeah, in society their are many sterotypes.

Their's actually a guy who's in a wheelchair and says how he takes advantage of his stereotype.

 

... perhaps in order to feel that they are at the controls of their own lives, that by assigning a 'known' name and a box to people, things and ideas, they are designing their own life for comfort. Secondly, that they are part of the same world as others - that they belong to and with those who use the same stereotypes and labels.

I disagree with stereotypes and labels, but I use them. It is a neccessary evil, to coexist in the world. Maybe becoming a hermit or taking a vow of silence would be the only ways to avoid them, but even then, thoughts would be aligned with pre-existing stereotypes.

Children do not naturally, inately have prejudices against others, so the only other escape I can imagine, is growing up with wild animals, so that these patterns are not learned in the first place.

 

Nobody cares to stereotype sand grains. Except when we call them sand.

 

I know someone like this too. He goes up to people's houses and asks them for money, pretending to be part of a charity. He's scammed hundreds of people like this.

OP, yes I do think people stereotype to control. The human mind has a tendency to segregate everything into distinct boxes; indeed, you can't understand anything without doing this. Even calling someone a human being is boxing them into a sort of "stereotype". Reality is far more fluid and continuous. But we can get closer and closer to reality by creating more and more specific boxes; for example, you might say "all fat people are lazy", and then after a bit of reflection, might reconsider to mean "all fat people who don't try to lose weight are lazy" and then further segregate to mean "all fat people who don't try to lose weight and don't have a medical condition are lazy" etc. The more we specify individual circumstances as being a criterion in any particular stereotype, the more likely we are to discover the truth. but then, I guess they wouldn't be stereotypes then, would they? lol
sorry for going off on a tangent !

 

I think people stereotype because they fear having no control. Similar, but not exactly the same.

 

Absolutely. Stereotyping simplifies reality into something that can be "managed". Unfortunately it requires willful blindness in order to work.

 

^This

On the micro-level, I don't think we do it consciously to "control." I think we do it because it makes it easier to manage information.

However, that's not to say that stereotypes cannot be artificially engineered to suit a political agenda... Propaganda, anyone?

 

Interesting point Tricky. I heard a long time ago that blond jokes came about from ethnic jokes. Because it was no longer acceptable to tell ethnic jokes, that people changed them to be blond jokes instead... and that at first it was understood that the jokes really weren't about blonds. I don't know if this is true actually, it was just something I heard, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

 

Haha, as soon as I saw this post I *nodded*.

That's what I've always thought, anyways. It's much easier to only have to deal with one's own expectations than another whole set of variables. Plus putting things in groups allows hierarchies to form, thus elevating one's own status/putting others down.

This isn't always the case, but that is the dark side of boxes/groups.