Stereotyping
Social Psychology
June 27, 2015

Jennifer – Jennifer is an African American woman working as an administrative assistant for the same company I work for. We talked about our families and what we were planning this weekend, I told her we didn’t any plans yet. We started talking about work and what we do daily; I asked her what she thought about stereotypes within the company. She said working as an administrative assistant she sees a lot that goes on. People will walk by her desk talking and you hear things like “working with a woman is difficult because all women are moody” or “the new girl working in the mailroom can’t seem to catch on, but that is to be expected because all blondes are dumb.” She said when she hears things like this it makes her angry because people are judging other people based on either past experiences or because they have been taught or brought up to believe that. They don’t give people a chance to show who they are.
Michael – Michael is a personal trainer at the gym I go to, Michael and I talk quite a bit when I am at the gym. When I asked him what he thought of stereotyping in the gym, he said working in a gym stereotyping is something that is seen daily by the people that work out and by gym staff. The staff will assume things about the clients look when they come in, he said that when one client came in and brought her son with her to work-out. The staff started saying “that kid wouldn’t know a piece of workout equipment if it hit him in the face.” The thing is they were only saying this because the kid wore glasses and looked like he spent the majority of his time with his nose buried in a book. Another time there was a woman that came in to join the club because she wanted to start losing weight so she wanted to work with a personal trainer. She signed up for a membership and paid a little more to be able to work with a personal trainer, the only problem was none of the trainers wanted to work with her. They would say things like “she is heavy so she will be lazy and won’t put the effort needed to do a good workout.” Michael said it really upset him that the other trainers were talking about her that way. He said instead of giving her a chance to show what she can do and what she is capable of doing they were making assumptions about her without knowing anything about her. He said he took her on as a client, he said he didn’t think he there was a dedicated person trying changing her life style and getting healthy.
Chung – Chung is the owner of the gas station I stop in at every morning for a drink. I talk with Chung every once in a while, he likes to tell me about his business and the people that come in and the things they say. I asked him if he sees a lot of stereotyping, he said yes working in a gas station it is something that happens daily. People will come in and not be dressed in their Sunday best and you can hear other people in the store saying things like “trailer trash.” He said it is sad that people will judge other people by the way they look instead of who that person actually is. Chung also said that he has one customer who is a regular that comes in every morning for a cup of coffee and a donut. This particular gentleman is a very tall black man so he hears whispers like “he is tall so he must be a basketball player because all tall black men play basketball.” He said believes that we as a society need to start seeing people for who they are and not for whom we think they are because of what we see.
Each person I talked to said they believed that the stereotyping they saw and heard really upset them because each one was seeing what could be seen as being negative. None of them thought that what they had heard was accurate; they each thought they people were making assumptions about different people because of the way they had been raised or past experiences. Each person I talked to thought that any type of stereotyping positive or negative was a bad thing and should not be done, stereotyping can cause a person serious mental damage.
The people I talked to seemed to be really bothered by the stereotyping they had seen because of the damage they believed it could cause the people that were subject to the stereotyping. Each person gave a different reason as to why they thought stereotyping was wrong and shouldn’t be done. Jennifer thought it was wrong because of the way it made her feel just hearing it she couldn’t imagine how it made the person feel who was the target. Michael thought that people who stereotyped others were just trying to make themselves feel better about themselves. Chung thought people who stereotyped where just being childish and needed to make other people feel bad about who they are and where they came from.
For me I agree with all three of the people I talked with regarding stereotyping. People stereotype for different reasons but I believe people stereotype because they don’t understand other people. In my opinion people make poor decisions and assume things before they have all the facts or understanding of the people and things around them.

References
Moore, J. (2015, June 25). Administrative Assistant. (J. Anderson, Interviewer)
Peterson, M. (2015, June 23). Personal Trainer. (J. Anderson, Interviewer)
Xiou, C. (2015, June 26). Gas Station Owner. (J. Anderson, Interviewer)