Joking about bombs on planes...

[sun-star]

Originally posted by Valandil
I would venture to guess that we all stereotype groups of people to some extent - by religion, nationality, (ED: age), ethnicity - even body size and shape. It greatly simplifies life by giving us a starting point. What is then important is to find out how accurate our notions can be held across a group - and (probably most important) to allow for individual differences.

Stereotyping has some validity... it's just very important to understand its limitations.

I see your point, but isn't there a danger that, in allowing ourselves to stereotype a certain group as a "starting point" for knowing them better, we then (subconsiousy) fit the experience to the stereotype, thus perpetuating the fixed idea instead of replacing it? Example: someone thinks French people are arrogant. They meet a French person who says "France is a great country". Because they (subconsciously or consciously) expect to meet arrogant French people, they interpret this statement as arrogance, when if, say, a American said "America is a great country" they would interpret it as patriotism. So they go away thinking French people are arrogant. Now I know there are some statements that aren't open to a positive interpretation, but how do you distinguish between those statements and the negative ones if you expect negative ones?

That's why I think stereotypes are always a bad idea - sometimes impossible to avoid, but always a bad idea.

Unfortunately the paradox is that you have to be open-minded to allow challenge your prejudices to be challenged, but if you're open-minded you try not to have such prejudices in the first place