Title: What are the consequences of stereotypes? - Getting Race Right
Headings: What are the consequences of stereotypes?
What are the consequences of stereotypes?
It’s so easy to see in an experiment
And so difficult to see in real life
Stereotypes influence how we think about other people
Stereotypes influence how we behave toward other people
Stereotypes perpetuate inequality and place a significant burden on those affected
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Content: Furthermore, lots of contradictory information was necessary before the participants came to a counter-stereotypic conclusion about someone. A White person had to be really genuine in order to be seen as not phony by Black people, and a Black person had to be really naïve in order to be seen as not streetwise by White people. Think of this as the difference between the English and the French systems of justice—are you innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven innocent? When it comes to deciding that someone fits our stereotypes, we go with the French—it doesn’t take as much evidence to decide that they are “guilty.” But when it comes to deciding that someone doesn’t fit our stereotypes, we go with the English—we need enough evidence to get beyond a reasonable doubt. All the while, our attention is directed, not at our stereotypes, but at the information we receive about the people with whom we are interacting. We are seeing information that is, in fact, consistent with the conclusions we have reached, leaving us confident that we are not stereotyping anyone, even when we are. A real-world example: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned for his office partly on his opposition to the “stop-and-frisk” policy of the NYPD. Perhaps that’s because, when he was Public Advocate for the city, his office did a study of how stop-and-frisk was carried out. (