Stereotyping: Definition, Examples, & Consequences

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Stereotypes are assumptions we make about people based on their belonging in certain social groups. Stereotypes have far-ranging consequences for our society.​
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After graduating from college, I lived in Egypt for a year. It was the first place I’d ever been where I wasn’t the default person—white and English-speaking. For the first time, I was perceived as a stereotypical American. This meant that people on the street assumed I would love American fast food, know all the most popular songs, and be from California or New York City.​
It was my main experience of being stereotyped, and it was pretty benign, all things considered. I am privileged not to be stereotyped in ways that put my career or my well-being at risk, as many people are. But it gave me a little taste of how it feels to be judged by people before we even interact. (And to a small extent, I think that as a man in predominantly female professions--psychology and counseling—I think I do continue to occasionally come up against stereotypical interpretations.) Let’s look at what scientific research has shown us about stereotypes, including the serious consequences for our society.​
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What Is Stereotyping? (A Definition)​

Stereotypes are quick judgments we make about other people based on a single characteristic they possess (Bodenhausen et al., 1994). They reflect the associations we have between that particular characteristic and other personality traits we think the person might possess. Stereotypes are simplistic judgments we make instead of considering the other person as a unique individual about whom we can make no assumptions.

Stereotypes are a form of social categorization. We have a natural and automatic tendency to try to classify people into groups (Fiske, 1998). This tendency would disappear if it was not at least somewhat effective, and indeed, the assumptions we make about other people based on single traits are not always harmful. However, stereotyping is not fully automatic; we can and should recognize when we are engaged in making such assumptions as well as the situations that make us more likely to stereotype (Fiske, 1998).

This is because stereotyping entails believing that members of a certain group always behave a certain way, or have a certain trait, as a result of belonging to that group. For example, two stereotypes sometimes held about Jewish people are that they are greedy and that they are politically liberal (Berinsky & Mendelberg, 2005). The first stereotype has become far less acceptable to voice, while the second might be considered a more reasonable assumption by some people. However, neither stereotype is a fair assumption to make about any particular Jewish person.​

Opposite of Stereotyping​

The opposite of stereotyping is to refrain from making any presuppositions or judgments about people based entirely on the social identities they hold or the categories into which they fit. This means not leaping to conclusions about who a person is based on their race or ethnicity, their gender, their nationality, the language they speak, the work they do, and so on.

To interact with other people without ever falling into stereotyping them would be very difficult! Categorizing and making associations are such natural functions of our brains that these things happen regularly and automatically. What seems more important to me is that we not act on those stereotyping thoughts, and when we say or do something based on stereotypical thinking, we take responsibility for it.​

Causes of Stereotyping

It is a fundamental human need to understand where we stand in relation to other people (Brewer, 1999). This could mean needing to know that we do or do not belong to a group or whether another person comes in peace or is a threat. Regardless of the social motivation, we make these judgments in less than a second (Ito & Urland, 2003) and act accordingly. This ability to read other people can make us incredibly smooth and effective social operators—think of a natural politician such as Barack Obama working a crowd—but it also sets us up to think and behave in prejudicial ways.

We can use developmental intergroup theory (Bigler & Liben, 2006) to explain how we come to stereotype other people. This theory proposes that because we are such good categorizers, and because it is so essential for functioning effectively in the world, we learn from an early age to look for differences between people. Over time, we notice patterns in those differences and begin to classify people into groups.​

Stereotyping Gender Example

Let’s take the example of gender. Children observe from an early age that certain people are more likely to do things than other people. Since so many aspects of our culture are organized around the gender binary, children naturally observe which things boys and men seem more likely to do and which things girls and women seem more likely to do. While this process of social categorization has innumerable practical advantages (Bigler & Liben, 2006), it can also lead to an abundance of errors in judgment, from assuming that a young girl will not be interested in entering the science fair to refraining from offering a man emotional support when he is clearly upset.​

Examples of Stereotyping

As noted above, stereotypes typically revolve around our primary social identities or categories. Examples of gender stereotypes abound, such as the belief that men are not emotional—or can only express anger—while women are overly emotional. Racial and ethnic stereotypes probably also easily come to mind, such as associating Black people with criminality or Asian Americans with being deferential or gifted scientists.

Consequences of Stereotyping​

Stereotypes have a full range of consequences. Though some can be relatively benign, many are extremely harmful. Even just anticipating being stereotyped by others can affect people’s athletic and academic performance, financial decision making, and performance at work (Spencer et al., 2016b). For a good example of how holding stereotypes can lead to negative consequences, we need look no further than the example of racial stereotypes affecting decision making among police officers, which has led to many needless deaths and high levels of political and social upheaval (Spencer et al., 2016a).

Stereotypes also impact our workplaces, leading to unequal treatment of employees when it comes to job reviews, promotions, and hiring (Operario & Fiske, 2001). Many efforts have been made to address stereotypes within professional settings because workplaces are systems where leadership can exert a stronger influence over the company’s culture, and some interventions do seem to help reduce the impacts of stereotypes on workplace outcomes.​

Stereotyping Theory

A lot of what psychologists think about stereotyping boils down to this: It is sometimes an effective and highly efficient way of thinking, so we keep doing it (Wegener et al., 2006). Our brains are always trying to be as efficient as possible, and they seem willing to sacrifice some accuracy for the sake of efficiency. In other words, we stereotype because we can often get away with making instant judgments of people and situations.

Social psychology research tells us that stereotyping is a behavior that is rooted in our social contexts as much as it is in our brains (Amodio, 2014). When we must make decisions under time pressure, or when we are presented with particularly threatening situations, we are more likely to stereotype other people. Our thinking becomes even more automatic, and less reflectful, when the older, more survival-focused parts of our brains get activated (Amodio, 2014).

In a moment like this, the theory suggests, we use our preconceptions about a given group to quickly evaluate the person we are interacting with and take action. It seems like there just isn’t the time to more thoughtfully evaluate the person or the situation, and we seem to have good reason to believe the preconceptions are real or effective. Indeed, it is rather effortful to override this automatic and mostly unconscious cognitive pattern (Amodio, 2014). And in fact, many people believe stereotypes not just unconsciously but consciously as well (Wegener et al., 2006).​

Stereotype Threat

Stereotype threat is the experience of knowing that one may be stereotyped in a certain situation—an experience that can easily cause the person to become upset or change their behavior (Spencer et al., 2016a). For example, a Black person might experience stereotype threat when they find themselves wanting to voice frustration with a situation but are afraid of being stereotyped as the “angry Black person.” A well-studied effect of stereotype threat occurs in academic performance. When children are reminded of their racial, ethnic, or gender identity and how it is associated with poorer academic performance, they tend to underperform on tests (Steele & Aronson, 1995).​

Stereotyping and Bias

Stereotypes can be thought of as a kind of bias that results from watching people in their different social roles (Eagly & Wood, 2012). For example, we see more women than men in caretaking roles, whether that is as a parent, an elementary school teacher, or a nurse. Over time, we come to associate the characteristics and behaviors of a person in that role, such as being caring, nurturing, and accommodating, with the social category of women. In other words, we have developed a biased way of interpreting women: We assume the characteristics we have witnessed in previous women will hold true for the next woman we meet as well.​

Stereotyping and Prejudice

Stereotypes are a form of prejudice, or judging someone before you know them. Some psychologists have noted that this prejudice has two main components: warmth and competence (Fiske et al., 2002). What this means is that our stereotypes typically consist of the expectation that somebody will be high or low in warmth or in competence. For example, stereotypes about Black men often include their being very athletically competent but also aggressive (in other words, low in warmth).​

Stereotyping of Gender Roles

Plenty of research has looked at gender stereotypes (Ellemers, 2018). Women are perceived as more emotional, and more emotionally expressive, than men (Plant et al., 2000). On the other hand, men are perceived as more sexual than women. Although many gender stereotypes reflect only a very tiny actual difference between men and women when measured across large samples, they continue to exert a very strong influence on how we live our lives and relate to each other (Ellemers, 2018).

Stereotyping in Movies

Stereotypes are perpetuated by the characters we see in movies. Disney films provide a particularly good example of this because they repeatedly demonstrate the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype. Multiple studies have found that characters who are “good” are depicted as more attractive and experience happier endings in Disney films (Bazzini et al., 2010; Smith et al., 1999). This kind of depiction matters: In one study, after viewing a Disney film, children indicated that they were more interested in playing with more attractive peers than with less attractive peers (Bazzini et al., 2010). Another study showed a very similar effect with adults after watching other mainstream movies (Smith et al., 1999).

Stereotyping in Advertising

Stereotypes are also everywhere in advertising. Scholars have effectively traced the long histories of using racist or gender-based stereotypes to try to sell products (Boulton, 2016), which may be because the advertising world itself is a mostly white and male industry. Only recently have advertisers begun to intentionally use representations of diverse gender roles and non-stereotypical depictions of people of color to sell their products (Grau & Zotos, 2016).

Stereotyping the Elderly

Stereotypes of the elderly focus on the idea that older people are losing their cognitive abilities, such as becoming more forgetful (Hummert et al., 1994). While these stereotypes may sometimes protect the elderly against pressure to engage in activities that will be difficult for them (Snyder & Miene, 1994), they also often dehumanize the elderly and lead to unfair treatment.

Articles Related to Stereotyping

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Stereotyping

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Stereotyping​

As I hope I have made clear, stereotyping is a very natural human tendency—one that unfortunately comes with plenty of negative consequences. When we are the targets of stereotyping, I hope we can recognize that it is not personal and often done unconsciously. At the same time, I hope we all can also take responsibility for the moments when we slip into stereotypical thought.

For a very human description of what it’s like to be a human in a stereotyping world, I recommend watching the following TED Talk:​

Video: Stereotyping​

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