DESCRIPTION: This essay helped me bring together many sources and research and combining it to be one big topic of my interest. Through this essay, I also have learned that stereotyping is a big issue in our life. Whether that is our academic, our jobs, and everywhere we are basically at or going to. Hence, it needs to stop, and maybe with many research one day we will accep each others differences.
Boubacar Diallo
Stigma And Its Limitation
Since before the day we were giving birth we were already labeled, either a boy or a girl. Later, and after, we receive another title based on numbers, our weight, and age. We then go to school, to then be given another label, our race. Since then, we are always being labeled, either having to bubble a category of race or being labeled based on our grades it is like it will never end. Hence did the label that we are giving fashioned us in how we should act and how mentally affected us is what a lot of researchers wanted to find answers to. Hence, through various source of researches, we can definitely see that stereotypes have fashioned our brain and that many of us react in a way because of our label.
Research 1: Racial profiling influences people to react in fear.
This study has proved that by giving diverse race students an assessment and changing their variable, which was telling them that they will base their intelligence with the results. Many students who were African-American did poorly while many of White-Americans did very well. When both parties were asked why the majority of the African Americans said they were constantly nervous and the words that the researchers have said stuck to them like glue and they didn’t want to bring shame to their people. After both parties were giving another test which they were told that it won’t rate their intelligence, both white and black students did fairly well. After, the students were surveyed and asked what was the reason behind doing fairly bad on one of the exams and doing fairly well on the other. Most students responded that because of the fear of knowing the stigma that is giving to them. Which being that, they are not smart enough, they end
up doing fairly bad and because this test did not require to rate their intelligence they did fairly good. The researchers then came to the conclusion that knowing where society has placed you can hugely put fear in your mind. Overall the research was very well done. The abstract told the reader what was being experimented and somehow, in the end, it made the reader sympathize with the participants.
Research 2: Stereotypes affects the way we view ourselves. Stereotyping can really be in the way of many individuals, and sometimes even affect the way we view things. Research in a Predominately White School has proved that giving the circumstance of knowing what an individual stigma is, one can likely behave opposite their stigma, in proving so scientists in the Uniersity of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA, experimented with students in biracial conditions. They indicated that stereotypes effects performance, for example when the certain race is favorable than the other of another race. People start believing that they are not good enough and slow their performance. This is why we see that the statistic numbers for color people applying to ivy league colleges are very less than non-colored people because it is believed that they are less likely to get accepted to Ivy league colleges then colored people. Hence, most deserving and most intelligent people are afraid of applying to Ivy colleges. So when we think of the emotions that the brain deals with, we think of many things that we struggle with. That is why, the author states that the fear of applying to ivy league colleges is accounted with the aftermath of stereotyping and how it affects individuals even in the academic area. Though the research was well organized, the author still believes that the resulting gain from the experiment doesn’t really determine if any colored people are affected with stereotyping because some colored people still do apply as it is statistically proven. Hence, stating that all colored people are affected by stereotyping because they don’t apply to Ivy colleges is not really proven to be because of stereotypes, because it could be for many reasons, some cannot afford,
and others just feel like it is not fit for them. For this case, the author should at least survey 100 high school students and see if they are afraid of attending Ivy league colleges because of the fear of rejection due to their race or it is because of other reasons.
Research 3: Stereotype creates misjudgment of individuals
societies. The psychologist Inzlicht and Mckay both conducted research to find out. Which in result research 1 showed a correlation around stereotype awareness and life-regulation. As this proved that the much aware that African Americans were to their stereotyped the less self-control they revealed. Experiments 2 and 3 offered cause and effect proof for the self-depleting characteristics for stigma through removing interesting new stigma: stereotyped respondents who are students of color and young women did show damaged identity control to two quite different fields which are cognitive and physiological identity regulation, even before the stigma is detected. Findings 2 and 3 presented cause and effect proof for both the self-depleting characteristics of prejudice by resetting experimental prejudice: if the stigma has been activated, stereotyped individuals who are black students and females did show unwell self-control in two quite fields of study of perceptual and personal conscience-regulation. This research, in the end, was evident to prove that stereotyping can really affect an individual to a point where they had to control and limit themselves because of knowing their stigma.
Statistically demonstrating how in 2014, 32 million people were reported to have been unfairly misjudged because of the fear that they would do something based on their race. Also that the constitutional safeguards against racial profiling exist, and that the Supreme court allows the use of traffic violation to stop other people. In another way, it means that the police could stop someone just by their physical appearance and most people are stopped for the wrong reason. By trying to solve this case the author conducted a survey in which he asked 100 participants mixed race if they ever been asked to pull over by cops and how they reacted. The results showed that majority of the participants who were black said they did get pull over and they had to comply with the officer because the wrong move, like trying to reach a comb or reaching for an id could actually mean they are taking out a weapon to the officer. While the majority of the participants who were white stated that they acted normally. This in conclusion that the author states, because of the labels giving by society many react in fear and some are forced to act against what they actually are as an individual rather a label.
Research 4: Being the Target of Prejudice Affects Self-Control Stereotype reduces the potential groups of people to regulate their behavior. Since learning to cope with stigma needs personality-regulation and life-regulation is indeed a tool of reduced capacity, they anticipated that people relating to stereotyped groups will be less able to restrict their own behavior once they became mindful of their stigmatizing status or joined intimidating
After all these researches and million others, we can see that stereotype does have an effect on many individuals, and especially people with color. Yet, why does it even exist, why do we care about the difference, we’re all humans. Humans to human we are equal. What physical appearance has to do with what’s beneath us, when underneath we are all the same. Hopefully, in future research, we get to see the origin of stereotypes, and a way to ignore and accept our differences as something that will unify us all.
