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 Stereotyping is rooted in perceived differences
In 1964, 15-year-old S.E. Hinton began writing a book about class divisions after one of her friends got beat up at school. Four years later, the completed book, The Outsiders, was published, introducing to young adult readers what recent studies by Harvard scientists, published in Neuron, are now supporting with evidence—that stereotypes are often rooted in perceived differences.
Dr. Stephen L. Macknik, director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurophysiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute, writes of the Harvard study: “A forebrain area called the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) appears to predict the behavior of members of outgroups by employing prejudices about their presumed background—assumptions we make, in other words, based on what groups their various traits and contexts seem to put them in or out of.”
These assumptions are made, at the brain level, on how alike or dissimilar an “outsider” appears to us. The less people can identify with someone they don’t know, the more threatening that person becomes.
However, according to Henri Tajfel and John Turner’s Social Identity Theory, a person does not have one personal self but rather several personal selves, which are dependent upon three things:
1. How we categorize ourselves,
2. Who we identify with, and
3. How we compare ourselves, and those we identify with, to others.
Therefore, our ability to expand our own self-definition greatly influences the way we perceive others. In short, the more things we allow ourselves to be, or the less we categorize ourselves, the more connected we can become to everyone else and the less we will stereotype.
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