Stereotypes are largely consensus-based, which gives them a larger data pool than any individual would have. If a comedian starts making jokes about the foibles of a large group, and most people haven’t experienced those same foibles, they’re not going to find it funny. Now, smaller groups can get a lot nastier treatment, both because there’s less evidence to contradict a stereotype, and because they can turn into the token butt of jokes(Newfies being the stereotypical example where I’m from—nobody actually believes the jokes, but everybody makes them just because they’re the group you make dumb-people jokes about). But “women” is a far too common group to get much in the way of false stereotypes, for example.
At this point, I should also point out the dangers of stereotypes that are true only because culture forces them to be. For example, saying that women needed protection in the 19th century was basically true, but it was largely true because we didn’t let women protect themselves. Feedback loops are a real danger.
I think you are discounting effects such as confirmation bias, which lead us to notice what we expect and can easily label while leading us to ignore information that contradicts our beliefs. If 99 out of 100 women don’t nag and 95 out of 100 men don’t nag, given a stereotype that women nag, I would expect people think of the one woman they know that nags, rather than the 5 men they know that do the same.
Frankly, without data to support the claim that:
There is a lot of truth in stereotypes
I would find the claim highly suspect, given even a rudimentary understanding of our psychological framework.
It’s a system seriously prone to false positives, of course. But I think the odds of a true stereotype getting established are sufficiently higher than the odds of a false one getting established that it still counts as positive evidence.
Stereotypes are largely consensus-based, which gives them a larger data pool than any individual would have. If a comedian starts making jokes about the foibles of a large group, and most people haven’t experienced those same foibles, they’re not going to find it funny. Now, smaller groups can get a lot nastier treatment, both because there’s less evidence to contradict a stereotype, and because they can turn into the token butt of jokes(Newfies being the stereotypical example where I’m from—nobody actually believes the jokes, but everybody makes them just because they’re the group you make dumb-people jokes about). But “women” is a far too common group to get much in the way of false stereotypes, for example.
At this point, I should also point out the dangers of stereotypes that are true only because culture forces them to be. For example, saying that women needed protection in the 19th century was basically true, but it was largely true because we didn’t let women protect themselves. Feedback loops are a real danger.
I think you are discounting effects such as confirmation bias, which lead us to notice what we expect and can easily label while leading us to ignore information that contradicts our beliefs. If 99 out of 100 women don’t nag and 95 out of 100 men don’t nag, given a stereotype that women nag, I would expect people think of the one woman they know that nags, rather than the 5 men they know that do the same.
Frankly, without data to support the claim that:
I would find the claim highly suspect, given even a rudimentary understanding of our psychological framework.
It’s a system seriously prone to false positives, of course. But I think the odds of a true stereotype getting established are sufficiently higher than the odds of a false one getting established that it still counts as positive evidence.