Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature
Why most suicide bombers are Muslim, beautiful people have more daughters, humans are naturally polygamous, sexual harassment isn’t sexist, and blonds are more attractive.
When I was an undergraduate, my first mentor was an expert on the psychology of categorization — how we make sense of the world by deciding what belongs with what. This professor was the most eccentric one I had in a long university career, and probably the most brilliant. One of his many lines, which I will never forget, was: “stereotypes develop for a reason”.
A stereotype is a generalization or commonly-held belief about a group of people, and stereotypes are often considered to be politically incorrect. But, in the absence of any information about a particular individual, information about a stereotype for the group is often quite valuable. Just as in statistics, in the absence of specific information about all the data, information about central tendency and variance can be very useful. Stereotype are not always negative, although we tend to only use the word when referring to negative characteristics
By rejecting stereotypes because they are often used negatively, we are forgetting the valuable role that they can play in making sense of the world. An older Psychology Today article from 2007 reviews some of the stereotypes we have about human behavior, and the truth behind them.
Posted: November 13th, 2009 under Human nature.
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Comment from Mike
Time: November 17, 2009, 8:55 am
This reminds me of the satirical article from The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33210 entitled “Stereotypes are a Real Time-Saver”. Clearly, The Onion article is an over-the-top piece intended to mock those who actually hold such extreme views. Yet it works as a humorous article (in its own weird way) because the general principle is true in some cases, as the Psychology Today article shows.
Comment from mooring packs
Time: November 19, 2009, 9:09 pm
Excellent article. I had learned lot of things from this article. That list will make brunettes unhappy
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