1. The first talk I listened to was titled; “How Can First Impressions Mislead Us?” Before even listening to it, I was more than aware of how some individuals perceive first impressions. They use it as a moment to judge somebody that apart from physical appearance, they know nothing about. Personally, I find the implications behind first impression criteria somewhat harmful. Someone might be naturally nervous in a situation where they have to meet a new person, or just not be good at matching certain outfits. Which is why this talk definitely resonated with me, since I already had a somewhat negative view of first impressions to begin with.
First impressions are often judgmental, whether you mean for them to be or not. As mentioned in the talk, you try to pinpoint where they came from, or what community they belong to after one glance. Just assuming where somebody is from is already not good in and out of itself, but especially if you attach a stereotype to it. Like the one giving the talk was saying, plenty of the kids at his school assumed unfair stereotypes. Some of these being eating curry every night or having very discipline-oriented parents. While they were true in his case, such assumptions were still hurtful. Placing such an unnecessary, and sometimes demeaning label on someone can absolutely be harmful to a young child. He mentioned struggling with those stereotypes that rang true for him, feeling as though they were bad things. It brang a sense of shame to him when he thought about his accent or origins, of the decor at home, all of it. All simply because he didn’t fit in or hold up to the same set standard that all the other kids in class did. This sort of mentality can make a child feel inferior to their peers, which is obviously not a good thing. That segment of the talk alone highlighted just how harmful stereotypes could be, especially to young children.
But after he grew up, his mentality about fitting in began to change. I personally felt like his newfound analogy was amazing. It was that every time you fail to become something, like an idol, you become more like yourself, or more authentic. We learn who we are by copying others, then realize it doesn’t fit us and adapt according to that. Once we begin on that journey of identity, we can break free of the trap-like limitations placed on us. You do not need to remain within the box people put you in, being your authentic self is true value. I think all of this definitely rings true for everybody, especially those growing up. In the meantime, everyone else should keep in mind that personalities and people can be made up from more than a localized or distant area. Throw whatever stereotype you conceived upon meeting someone away, and instead take note of their true self.
2. The second talk I listened to was titled; “Why Do We Create Stereotypes?” This absolutely offered a contrast to the previous talk I listened to. It was from more of a ‘logical’ standpoint, if you could even call it that. Paul Bloom began by saying that if you thought badly of stereotypes, then you didn’t understand them well enough. Honestly that was somewhat jarring for me to hear. While saying not every stereotype is meant to be harmful, it’s a whole other thing to say none of them are. In my opinion, his concept of what a stereotype is happened to be much different from mine. One example he used was “you don’t ask a two-year-old for directions”, which is just silly. A stereotype is generally defined as a belief about a certain category of people. It’s common sense that a baby is not yet able to comprehend directions, it’s not a belief but a plain fact to see. For that reason, I felt his argument started off very poorly, and his attitude talking about it when there are tons of people being negatively affected by stereotypes was very irritating.
Another point that didn’t sit well with me was one comment he made about infants. He said and I quote that they “Learned that race matters in the world we live in.” How in the world is a one- or three-year-old going to know anything about that? They are naive to the set ways of our cruel world and what goes on in adult life. Again, another point I felt like made him look ridiculous. While I didn’t agree with him overall, there were some things he said that I completely agreed with. Something he brought up early on was that stereotypes can go awry in all sorts of ways. This is especially true when considering mass group generalizations, and pretty much how stereotypes are formed in the first place. This tends to happen when excessively harmful or untrue stereotypes are placed on a certain group of people, who are then stuck with being viewed that way basically forever. That and you can glance at someone then quickly determine their religious or political beliefs. Some people are naturally good at that, though I’d call it more of an observation than actual stereotype.
Stereotypes are most definitely influenced by certain factors, such as past experiences. If you have had multiple bad experiences with multiple people of a certain group, it isn’t unfair to be somewhat wary, as that’s the world we live in. But even then, it’s so bizarre to me that people offer back-handed compliments based on the stereotypes they are familiar with/believe. For example, calling someone clean, composed, or articulate. What gave you the impression that they weren’t in the first place? It’s really little things like that which show how ingrained certain stereotypes are into people's minds. And sometimes in hypothetical scenarios, we’ve all asked ourselves; Well, I wouldn’t say that..would I? False representation is most definitely an issue, and something people should be paying more mind to. Overall, it’s my personal belief that quite a few stereotypes are very harmful to said group’s image.
