Evolutionary psychologists have argued that stereotypes were absolutely necessary for our survival. In other words, picture that it is 10,000 B.C.E. Imagine that you and your clan come across a rocky terrain and one of the members of your group gets fatally bitten by a snake that was hiding in those rocks. Now, imagine that you and your group travel on further, but come across a different set of rocks. What very helpful stereotypes might you and your group make about the rocks that might just increase your chances for survival? Might you stereotype that all rocks like that have the potential to have hidden snakes in them? And if you come to that stereotype, might it not help your chances of survival?
Stereotypes have a biological basis in our brains; however, just because they can have some value does not mean they always have a positive value. In fact, more often than not (especially since this is not 10,000 B.C.E.) the stereotypes by which we live now only seem to limit our worldviews and perspectives on life.
People seem to be furious when others label them by the negative characteristics of a group to which they might belong. Yet regardless of that anger, they themselves stereotype others. Stereotyping appears to be a very natural process that we all engage in, but there is hope. Once we can evaluate what our stereotypes actually are, we can then analyze why we hold those viewpoints. Even further, we can look at whether or not holding those stereotypes is actually helpful for us or not.
People are the way they are for a reason. As psychologists, we have a job to help people uncover why they do what they do. In the process of working with the thousands of people we have encountered, we have learned profoundly that everyone has a story. When we learn what other people’s stories are, it becomes much more difficult to judge those people. As we have learned to listen openly to individual stories in the confines of our offices, we have come to deeply see that we can never know a person’s entire story by working from stereotypes.
