A stereotype is defined as ‘a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing’. According to an article in the Pacific Standard magazine, stereotypes are everywhere and often can’t be avoided. Because of the way our brains are wired, we make assumptions and classify others into groups without even realizing it ourselves.
“The process of repeatedly passing social information from person to person can result in the unintentional and spontaneous formation of cultural stereotypes,” researchers from the Psychological Science journal said.
Our brains make mental shortcuts in order to retain as much information as possible and to give structure to our world. This causes people to make stereotypes based on little or no information.
According to the article, stereotypes do often form from some sort of truth, but often times are made up about a group or subgroup within a culture. These assumptions can come from personal experience and interactions with others.
Stereotypes are often the cause of distress to a lot of people because they feel they are being put into a group that they don’t belong. Although this is true, some stereotypes tend to be accurate. This is why we have chosen to do this project; we want to give students on our campus a voice.
Click here to see our list of stereotypes at BVU.
This interactive infographic represents the results from a survey given to students that currently attend Buena Vista University. We posted the survey to Facebook and emailed it to current BVU students. Forty-one students responded to a seven question survey.
We're debunking stereotypes on BVU’s campus. During our college career, we’ve seen and heard some stereotypes that may or may not be true. Now, we’ve heard time and time again not to judge a book by it’s cover...so we decided to help you all out by getting to know some of our fellow students here.
We brainstormed and came up with 10 stereotypes on campus that we have personally seen or heard about; then we conducted a survey to get an idea of what you experience. Turns out, people are stereotyped all the time, for many different reasons and we all know that’s not right. We wanted to give the stereotyped a voice to hear what they have to say about the generalizations and get a better understanding of individuals and groups at Buena Vista University.
You all should care about this because you are a part of the BVU family. We pride ourselves on that, and anything we can do to make this community stronger is appreciated. We want to gain a better understanding of people around campus so we don’t jump to conclusions and label them.