Though if very few people besides you and I are participating, then I’d concede this conversation is not that fruitful and go discuss something else, I thought your point (2) was very interesting but I feel the ground the term “stereotype” covers is still a bit more narrow than this.
”2. When you are faced with a person about whom you have little information, to what extend are you willing to have an explicit model of the person. How strongly does that model influence your actions in the context of the person.”
Stereotypes aren’t just any explicit model based on limited information but are particular models based on larger group membership and assumptions of homogeneity in that group membership (for instance, if based on limited information, I look at Jane glancing at me funny and frowning and make up a mental model about Jane that maybe she hates me because some conspiracy against me as evidenced by her frown reminding me of my childhood bully that also frowned against me that way before plotting against me, that’s an explicit model of her but not a conventional thing people would call a stereotype—it’s too thoughtfully individualistic, deliberate, explicit and idiosyncratic a model of a person. If I see Jane frown at me, and then think Jane frowns on me because she is a member-of-group and we all know member-of-groups don’t like people doing X, which I just did, that falls more into a typical episode of stereotyping based on limited info).
I think a few traits of stereotypes (but not always) involve
Being part of the “common knowledge” of a society that most people share (in mass media societies it could be propagated through it, or orally as part of common knowledge elsewhere).
Homogeneity assumptions that may have some statistically average grain of truth or sometimes not, but is heavily played up in tropes that people rightly or wrongly see as over-the-top in some settings (people say stereotypes are played up in comedy, ads etc.). For example, stereotypes of women shopping for shoes are popular and may be backed up by real stats (e.g. data on purchases) but take on a life of their own grander narratives in media.
Often passed on without firsthand knowledge to others through hearsay (though firsthand knowledge can confirm or disconfirm it) -- e.g. think of the father telling the young son “what women are like” even before the son has any good mental model from experience, though also heavily backed up by people who have tons of firsthand knowledge insisting it’s common sense (“or I know it’s stereotypical but it’s true, I’ve been married 40 years”). The thing is stereotypes are things widely recognized by the culture—something you discovered yourself through years of experience about generalizing about people but are not celebrated in mass culture, common knowledge are generally not called “stereotypes”.
Not saying all stereotypes have these traits but possessing more of these traits makes something more likely to be called a “stereotype”.
3. How much entropy do you see in the information that’s assessible in a few seconds.
Yes, stereotypes seem to be reliant on certain cache’d thought/models and rely on thinking fast. If you think too much about the information and modeling, it almost becomes less “stereotypical”. But not all examples of thinking fast or relying on judgements accessible in a split second are stereotypes though.
Though if very few people besides you and I are participating, then I’d concede this conversation is not that fruitful and go discuss something else, I thought your point (2) was very interesting but I feel the ground the term “stereotype” covers is still a bit more narrow than this.
”2. When you are faced with a person about whom you have little information, to what extend are you willing to have an explicit model of the person. How strongly does that model influence your actions in the context of the person.”
Stereotypes aren’t just any explicit model based on limited information but are particular models based on larger group membership and assumptions of homogeneity in that group membership (for instance, if based on limited information, I look at Jane glancing at me funny and frowning and make up a mental model about Jane that maybe she hates me because some conspiracy against me as evidenced by her frown reminding me of my childhood bully that also frowned against me that way before plotting against me, that’s an explicit model of her but not a conventional thing people would call a stereotype—it’s too thoughtfully individualistic, deliberate, explicit and idiosyncratic a model of a person. If I see Jane frown at me, and then think Jane frowns on me because she is a member-of-group and we all know member-of-groups don’t like people doing X, which I just did, that falls more into a typical episode of stereotyping based on limited info).
I think a few traits of stereotypes (but not always) involve
Being part of the “common knowledge” of a society that most people share (in mass media societies it could be propagated through it, or orally as part of common knowledge elsewhere).
Homogeneity assumptions that may have some statistically average grain of truth or sometimes not, but is heavily played up in tropes that people rightly or wrongly see as over-the-top in some settings (people say stereotypes are played up in comedy, ads etc.). For example, stereotypes of women shopping for shoes are popular and may be backed up by real stats (e.g. data on purchases) but take on a life of their own grander narratives in media.
Often passed on without firsthand knowledge to others through hearsay (though firsthand knowledge can confirm or disconfirm it) -- e.g. think of the father telling the young son “what women are like” even before the son has any good mental model from experience, though also heavily backed up by people who have tons of firsthand knowledge insisting it’s common sense (“or I know it’s stereotypical but it’s true, I’ve been married 40 years”). The thing is stereotypes are things widely recognized by the culture—something you discovered yourself through years of experience about generalizing about people but are not celebrated in mass culture, common knowledge are generally not called “stereotypes”.
Not saying all stereotypes have these traits but possessing more of these traits makes something more likely to be called a “stereotype”.
3. How much entropy do you see in the information that’s assessible in a few seconds.
Yes, stereotypes seem to be reliant on certain cache’d thought/models and rely on thinking fast. If you think too much about the information and modeling, it almost becomes less “stereotypical”. But not all examples of thinking fast or relying on judgements accessible in a split second are stereotypes though.