Stereotypes in the Philosophy of Mind

Essai , 2017 , 12 Pages , Note: A

Philosophie - Mémoires générales, Epoques

Stereotypes can be defined as the generalization about a group of people. Under this generalization, there is a defined set of traits that is associated with certain groups. The classifications can be either negative or positive. For example, various nationalities are stereotyped as friendly or unfriendly. The principal purpose of stereotype is to help one interact with each other. Each of the calcification in this contact tends to be having an association and script.

It is the association and the script that can be used to interpret what different groups are saying. As such it is used in deciding what is right or bad and also helps in making a response choice. The only challenge that comes with a stereotype is the aspect of the implicit bias. Implicit bias refers to a relatively unconscious and some of the fairly automatic features of prejudiced judgment and social behaviors. As much as psychologist over the time have been dwelling on discussing the implicit attitudes towards self-esteem, food alcohol, consumer product and political values, the most striking and one of the well-known issue has been on the implicit attitude towards some of the members of the socially stigmatized groups like the African America, LGBTQ community and women. The physiological research on the implicit bias and stereotype of mind can be said to be present, however, host of the metaphysical, ethical questions and epistemological about how these implicit bias and stenotypes could be pressing.

Contents

Stereotypes in the Philosophy of Mind
History and methods of implicit social cognition
Epistemology
Self-knowledge
Ethics
Moral responsibility

The function of stereotypes
The relationship between cognitive and the social function
Cognitive functions
Social functions

Formation of the stereotype of mind
Correspondence bias
Illusory correlation
Common environment
Socialization and upbringing
Intergroup relations

Effects of stereotypes
A trributional ambiguity
The stereotype threat
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Discriminations
Self-stereotyping

Bibliography

Stereotypes in the Philosophy of Mind

Stereotypes can be defined as the generalization about a group of people^[1]. Under this generalization, there is a defined set of traits that is associated with certain groups. The classifications can be either negative or positive. For example, various nationalities are stereotyped as friendly or unfriendly. The principal purpose of stereotype is to help one interact with each other. Each of the calcification in this contact tends to be having an association and script.

It is the association and the script that can be used to interpret what different groups are saying. As such it is used in deciding what is right or bad and also helps in making a response choice. The only challenge that comes with a stereotype is the aspect of the implicit bias. Implicit bias refers to a relatively unconscious and some of the fairly automatic features of prejudiced judgment and social behaviors. As much as psychologist over the time have been dwelling on discussing the implicit attitudes towards self-esteem, food alcohol, consumer product and political values, the most striking and one of the well known issue has been on the implicit attitude towards some of the members of the socially stigmatized groups like the African America, LGBTQ community and women. The physiological research on the implicit bias and stereotype of mind can be said to be present, however, host of the metaphysical, ethical questions and epistemological about how these implicit bias and stenotypes could be pressing.

History and methods of implicit social cognition

The nature of prejudice has over the time remained to be a touchstone for the psychological research on most of the prejudice aspects. In this course, the study of prejudice of mind is seen to be having two distant and roots, the first stem is derived from the difference that exists between the controlled and the automatic processing that is made by some of the cognitive psychologists in the 1970s^[2]. The controlled processing, on the other hand, was in most instances thought to be voluntary attention demanding and that of limited capacity. The automatic processing was view to unfold without necessarily involving attention as such it has nearly unlimited capacity the indirect measures of attitudes. What an individual says is normally not a good representation of the whole of what’s they feel and think and nor how they will behave the central advice of the

Epistemology

The majority of the philosophical works on the aspect of the epistemology of implicit bias tend to focus on three questions; first, do we have the knowledge of our implicit bias, if we do how? Secondly, are the emerging data on the some of the implicit bias demands that we develop skeptics about the existence of our perplex beliefs and third, are we usually sometimes faced with the dilemmas that exist between our epidemic and some of our ethical values.

Self-knowledge

Stereotypes are basically known as the thoughts of the unconscious states. However, this particular phrase could be having several meanings: first, there could be no direct phonenology that is associated with the concurrent of the stereotype of mind. Secondly, the agents involved might be unaware of the content of their attitude to some of their behaviors thirdly, the agents in evolved might also be unaware of the relations that extend between then and the various beliefs in which their attitudes implicit stand. According to most of the scholars, the majority of the agent tends to lack “source” and the effect of their stereotype beliefs. However, these agents have “content awareness.”

Ethics

Most of the writings on psyolophical stereotype bias have focused on two related questions. The first aspect is the one related to the morally responsible for their implicit biases, secondly, whether agents can change their implicit biases and sometimes can control the effects of these stereotypes on their explicit judgments and behavior.

Moral responsibility

Relationship of stereotypes and another type of the intergroup attitudes stereotypes like discrimination and prejudice are usually understood as related though they represent different concepts. Most of the scholars have regarded stereotype as the most cognitive components and as such, it often occurs without consensus awareness. Prejudice on its part has been profoundly seen as the effective components of both the stereotype and finally, discrimination is considered to be one of the behavioral elements of the prejudge as reactions. Among this tripartite view, it is the stereotype that reflects the expectations and some of the beliefs regarding the characteristic of members of a given group that e perceived different from their own. The prejudice, on the other hand, represents the emotional response, and the discrimination is usually the action^[3].

As much as they are related, the three concepts tend to exist independently of each other. Stereotyping can lead to racial prejudice especially when people emotionally react to a given name of the group, evaluate the characteristics and acerbic to the characteristics of the group. There are usually possible prejudices that can affect stereotypes some of these include; justification of the ill-founded prejudices, the unwillingness to rethink of one attitude and behavior towards the stereotyped groups and the prevention of some people of stereotyped groups from entering or succeeding in certain events in life.

The function of stereotypes

Most of the early studies have suggested that stereotypes were primarily used by the repressed, rigid and the authoritarian people. In the current studies, this concept seems to be refuted. The current studies suggest that the ubiquity of the stereotypes and such has regarded stereotype as a collective group beliefs. This means that in individuals belonging to the ascertain group tends to share the same set of stereotypes. Most of the modern research have also been asserting to the full understanding of the stereotypes demands that two complementary perspectives.

The relationship between cognitive and the social function

Stereotyping can also serve a cognitive functions on an interpersonal levels and some of the social functions. In order for the stereotype to function in some of the intergroup level, the person must be able to see themselves a given part of group and this aspect must be salient for the individual.

Cognitive functions

Stereotype can be used to help make sense of the world. They are considred to be a form of categorization that is used in simplifying and also systematizing information. A s such, the information here can be easily indentified, predicted, recalled and reacted to. They are also the categories of pole or objects. Between the various stereotypes, the people or objects appear as different from each other as possible

Some of the scholars have suggested possible answers as to the reason why people find it rather easier to understand categorized kind of information. First, people are able to consult a category to help in the identification f patterns, secondly, the categorized kind of information is considered to be more specific than a non categorized I kind of information, this is majorly attributed by the categorized properties that are usually shared by the members of the group, hardly individual are able to readily to describe objects in a given category since the objects in the same category tend to have distinct characteristics. Finally, peoples have the tendency of taking for granted the characteristics of particular category since the category in itself ma y be having an arbitrary groupings

A complementary tends to theorize the stereotypes functions as one that save time and energy. It also allows people to act more efficiently. Another perspective also suggests that the concept of people biased preposition of their context As such in this context it can be s aid that people end to use stereotypes as shortcuts to help in making sense of their social contexts such it help in making a person task of understanding his other world to be one which is generally a ale cognitive interims of its demand.

Social functions

This aspect of stereotype function in usually helpful in the following s situations. First, it is deemed necessary when the stereotypes are generally n explaining some aspect of social events, secondly, it could be useful when the stereotypes are used in justifying variouscativities of a given group, finally it so good when the stereotypes are used in differentiating in-group as appositively and one that is distinct from any other out groups.

Formation of the stereotype of mind

There have been various disciples that have been used in giving various accounts of how the stereotypes develop. Most of the psychology could in most cases focus on an individual experience with ascertain group, in the group conflicts and the papertn of communication that exist about other groups. Some o scholars have also argued that the development of stereotype have over the time developed by poor parenting, conflicts and inadequate mental and emotions development. In case an aspect of stereotype have been formed there are usually two main factor s that can be used in explaining its persisnstence, the first concept is the cognitive effects of the various schematic process, the second concept is the effective or the emotional aspect of the prejudice that have e since rendered a logical arguments in the existing stereotypes. The following there fore can be said to be some of the sources of stereotype in the mind.

Correspondence bias

The term correspondence bias majorly refers to the given tendency of ascribing an individual’s behavior to a given discipline or a personality. This kind of bias usually leads to the underestimate the extent in which some of the theist factional factors tend to elicit some behaviors. The correspondence bias is known for playing an important role in the stereotype formation

According to most of the researchers in this field^[4], the majority of people who usually draw dispositional references from a given behavior and tend to ignore the aspect of situational constraints are usually, more likely to developed a sty type mind against the low-status group as those who are incompetent and their counterpart as competent.

Illusory correlation

Stereotypes can also develop as a result of a cognitive mechanism known as illusory correlation. This is defined as an erroneous interference that describes a relationship between two events. If two statistically inters frequent events co- occurs; in most cases, the observers are likely to overestimate the frequency of the co-occurrence of these two events. The major reason attributed to this is the fact that are and inherent event tend to be in a way more distinctive and salient when they are paired

When it comes to the intergroup context, the illusory correlations in most cases have been leading people to misattribute some of the rare behaviors or some of the traits at a higher rate to some of the minority groups than it exists in the majority groups. For example, the black people are regarded as a minority group in the United States as such, the interaction with the black is considered relatively infrequent event for most of the average white American. Also, the aspect of some of the undesirable behaviors such as the issue of crime is considered to be statically less frequent than some of the desirable behaviors. In this case, it can be concluded that both the two events, both the blackness and the undesirable behavior are considered to be distinctive in the sense that they are infrequent.

Common environment

The stereotype can be attributing and also stimulated by the same environment. This is because the same environment helps people to react in the same way. However, the common problem with the aspect of the same environment is that it doesn’t not in most cases explain how the shared have the ability to exist without the common and direct stimuli. Some of the research has since suggested that

Socialization and upbringing

Another explanation in an attempt to explain individual is mostly socialized to adopt into the same stereotypes. Most of the psychologist tend o believe that as much as age can absorb the stereotype, they are also usually acquired in the early childhood. This acquisition is generally under the influence of parents, peers teachers, and the media.

In case the stereotype is defined by the type of social values, then the stereotype is likely to change as per the changes in the social values. This explanation illustrates that most the stereotype are rigid since they cannot be altered at will.

Various studies emerging in the midst of 1940s refuted the fact that the stereotype cannot be refuted at will^[5]. These particular studies suggested that one group's stereotype of a given group is likely to become more o less positive. However the degree of positively depended on whether their intergroup relationship had improved or degrade. Some o the intergroup events such world war two and the Persian Gulf conflict could be said to have to change the intergroup relationship. For instance, after the world war two, the black American students developed a rather more negative stereotype of some of the people from some countries that were considred to be the United States enemies. From this scenario, it can be said that, if there is no changes to an intergroup relationships, ten it it’s actually true that the relevant stereotype do not change

Intergroup relations

As explained by some scholars, the aspect of shared stereotype are neither caused by coincidence of a common stimuli nor by the aspect of socialization. However, they posits that most f the stereotypes are usually shared because majority of the members are in most cases motivate to behave in certain ways. As such, the aspect of stereotype just ref lects such behaviors. In light of this, from this particular explanation, it can be easily concluded that stereotypes are consequences and not the cause of the intergroup relations. In this explanation it is shower assumed that when it deemed important for the people to acknowledge their out-group iadningroup, they will in most cases emphasis their differences from the out-group members and some of their similarities to the in-group members

Effects of stereotypes

A trributional ambiguity

Attributive ambiguity can be defined as the uncertyaininty that most of thememenrs of the stereotypes groups tend to be experiencing while intrrevpreting the cause of other behavior towards them. Most of the stereotype individuals who unusually receive feedbacks that are negative can unusually attribute to either to the personal shortcomings. This could be as a result of lack of ability of the poor effort or sale of the evaluator’s stereotypes towards their social groups. However, the positive feedbacks can either be attributed to the personal merits or sometimes can be discounted as given sympathy or pity. As explain by most of the scholars in a given research, when the back participants were subjected to an evaluation by a white person whom they thought was aware of their race, the blacks mistrusted the feedbacks. They attributed the negative feedback that they would receive the evaluators stereotype and the positive feedback was attributed to the whites evaluators desire to appear unbiased. However, when the black participants were unknown to the evaluators they were seen to be more acceptance of the kind of feedback received^[6]

The stereotype threat

The stereotype occurs when people are usually ware of the negative stereotype about their social group and also the existence and the experienced anxiety. It also exhibits some of the concern that may confirm the stereotype. The stereotype tharest tne dto affect have in masot cases demonstrated for a array social groups in some of the many different arenas. This does not only include academic but also the sport and the business.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The act of stereotype is known to be leading people to expect certain actions from members of various social groups. Some of these stereotype based expectations are usually known to be leading to self filling prophecies. This is whereby once inaccurate expectations about apaticaulr parson behavior through the cat of social interactions can prompt the person to act in stereotyped consistent wassy. This way it usually confirms one erroneous expectations and thus validating the stereotypes.

Discriminations

The stereotype has been seen to be leading to discrimination in labor markets and some other domains. Also, the aspect of general stereotype tend to be paying a significant role in that affecting hiring roles

Self-stereotyping

The stereotype has been found to be leading to self- evaluations and as such, they can easily lead to self –stereotyping. For example the common stereotype they m most of the women have lower mathematical ability tend to be affecting the m both the men s and women evaluation of their abilities

Bibliography

Basow, Susan A. "Evaluation of Female Leaders: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination." In Why Congress Needs Women: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate, p. 85. ABC-CLIO, 2016.

Bennett, Kourtney. "Media image stereotypes and ethnic identity of young Black college women." PhD diss., FORDHAM UNIVERSITY, 2016.

Dash, J. Michael. Haiti and the United States: National stereotypes and the literary imagination. Springer, 2016.

Fischer, Eugen, Paul E. Engelhardt, and Aurelie Herbelot. "Intuitions and illusions: from explanation and experiment to assessment." (2015).

Marquart, Franziska, and Florian Arendt. "Corrupt politicians? Media priming effects on overtly expressed stereotypes toward politicians." (2015).

Reuben, E., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L., 2014. How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (12), pp.4403-4408.

[...]

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^[1] Fischer, Eugen, Paul E. Engelhardt, and Aurelie Herbelot. "Intuitions and illusions: from explanation and experiment to assessment." (2015

^[2] Marquart, Franziska, and Florian Arendt. "Corrupt politicians? Media priming effects on overtly expressed stereotypes toward politicians." (2015).

^[3] Basow, Susan A. "Evaluation of Female Leaders: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination." In Why Congress Needs Women: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate, p. 85. ABC-CLIO, 2016

^[4] Basow, Susan A. "Evaluation of Female Leaders: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination." In Why Congress Needs Women: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate, p. 85. ABC-CLIO, 2016

^[5] Reuben, E., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L., 2014. How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (12), pp.4403-4408.

^[6] Dash, J. Michael. Haiti and the United States: National stereotypes and the literary imagination. Springer, 2016.

• Note: A
• Auteur: Wachara Jevence (Auteur)
• Année de publication: 2017
• Pages: 12
• N° de catalogue: V368198
• ISBN (ebook): 9783668478459
• ISBN (Livre): 9783668478466
• Langue: anglais
• mots-clé: stereotypes, philosophy, mind