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Stereotypes exist, because they are grounded in truth Stereotypes have been universal, commonplace and influential on peoples behavior since the time immemorial. They are so deeply ingrained in the subconscious of a common man that whether intentionally or unintentionally, he/she relies on them while deciding from what to buy to whom to marry? Like, parents always buy dolls for little daughters and vehicle toys for their little sons. Such a great reliance on stereotypes demands an evaluation of their truth basis behind their existence. Although, stereotypes make peoples life easier by giving them the way to quick generalizations, their mere existence cant guarantee their truthfulness because they are refuted by logic, psychology and their context based nature. If viewed from a logical point of view, stereotypes are no more than a distorted form of generalization, and application of these generalized traits to individuals devoid of these traits. Stereotypes always take the form of inductive reasoning, which is termed as non truth preserving arguments, and are invalid proof in logic. Inductive reasoning is the drawing conclusion based on a number of observations. For instance, because Karachi university students are prone to violence in their university campus due to on-campus student politics, there is a common held belief about them that they too would tend to be violent. This argument is an inductive argument, and thats why not only does make a weak argument but is also unable to provide truth grounding to the stereotype attached with the students of the Karachi University. Another form of stereotype formation i.e. hasty generalization too is invalidated by logic. As defined by the Hurley, this fallacy is committed when there are generalizations about a group based on the

evidence of a very short sample of the group, and when there is a reasonable likelihood that that short sample is not representative of the group. This example used by Hurley depicts the essence of the whole argument. Six Arab fundamentalists were convicted of bombing the World Trade Centre in New York City. The message is clear: Arabs are nothing but a pack of religious fanatics prone to violence. (131) In the above mentioned example, there has been a stereotype attached to the Arabs, which is purely faulty and ground less from the perspective of logic. All the stereotypes are either inductive arguments or the fallacy of hasty generalization (converse accident) and therefore have no truth base. Stereotypes, when analyzed through the lens of psychology, seem to be a negative byproduct of natural cognitive process of categorization and of social identity process. Categorization is the process of processing information into categories in order to both reduce the sheer quantity of information and extend knowledge of the world by capturing non obvious similarities [among] their members. Information about objects (including people) is placed into these categories based on the similarities between the object and the potential categories Once after being done with the process of categorization, the process of inferences and predictions about new category members starts, and because of limitations of cognitive structures, and presence of a lot of information to be categorized, stereotypes tend to be the helping hand and serve to over generalizations. For instance, an individual sees a red hen and knows that this red hen lays eggs, next time when he sees a white hen of the same size and same breed he infers that this white hen must lay eggs. So thats how, the process of categorization leads to stereotype formation. Regarding the social identity process, individuals form and belong to in groups and out groups at every societal layer, like all the members of a family are in-group members while all others are out-group for them. If there are 10 people in a crowd of 50 people wearing the

same color t-shirts, they are in-group members while the rest of the crowd is an out-group for them. Many people use this division of in-group and out-group to form their identities and to evaluate others, which can lead to incorrect conclusions. People tend to consider in groups as similar and out groups as different and overestimate the differences. This tendency becomes the basis for stereotyping. For instance, when in a neutral context like Europe, where the difference between the Pakistanis and Indians is subtle, most of the Pakistanis mostly define themselves as non Indians. Another facet of the stereotypes which enfeebles their reliability and truth basis is their context based nature. As Russell Spears, after a number of research experiments, writes in his book, at least in the perception of the in group, intra group versus inter group context affects the way in which information about persons is processed and stored in memory (214). In an intra group context, in-group members are seen more as individual persons and in an inter group context they are seen more as group members. This is mainly this comparative context rather than differential familiarity that determines how information is stored in memory and retrieved. So, processing of group information is adapted to and dependent upon social context and ensuing level of categorization. Doosje, Spears, Haslam, Koomen, and Oakes pursued the effect of similar or different out-groups on stereotypical judgments of group members. They asked a group of psychology students at University of Amersterdom first to rate only a group of psychology students (in-group), then this group of psychology students with a similar group of sociology students and then to rate both of these two groups of students with another dissimilar group of physics students. The results of these rating showed that the subjects perceive their group differently depending upon the social context. Differences between psychology and sociology students were neglected when comparing both of these groups with the physics

students group, but these difference were more conspicuous to the subject group when comparing both (psychology and sociology) groups against each other. So, as the above research experiments show that the cognitive theory of categorization implies that stereotyping judgments depend not only on individuals as members of social groups but also upon the context of relevance of alternative categorizations, and differential ranges of relative out-groups. Although, another facet people argue in favor of using stereotypes is that stereotypes make the lives easier by generalizations because people dont have enough time, energy and motivation to distinguish each and every person and object form one another. But by using stereotypes, stereotyped people cant be subjected to racism, prejudice, bias, discrimination and persecution. As each and every man is born different both genetically and psychologically, how can they be ripped of their individuality and be judged on the overall basis of traits of their groups? For instance, based on the stereotype that Pakistanis have been the cause of importing terrorism to UK, UK visa policy for Pakistan was specifically made stricter which caused problems for Pakistani students who had gotten admissions at British Universities. These students missed the start of their academic year. As dawn reported in its online edition of 23rd February 2011, There were visa cases in which UK authorities took as long as six months for completing the process. While the usual period of issuing a visa is about 10 days. Analyzing the deep rootedness of stereotypes in every ones daily lives, it is crucial to be cautious and careful about being trapped in the stereotype judgments. However, on the other hand for being on a safe side, one should always be logical before stating or accepting a value judgment about and individual. One should be aware of the uniqueness of every individual, respect this uniqueness and individuality and should be able know the subtle difference s that prevail among similar categories. Thus as justified by claims above, it is appropriate to conclude

that most stereotypes have no firm grounding in truth and are only variations in the different ways of perception.

Works Cited Dawn. Dawn media group, n.d. Web. 14 march 2012. <http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/23/visapolicy- softened-for-pakistanis-uk-minister.html> Hurley, Patrick. A Concise Introduction to Logic. Belmont CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000. Print.

N.p., n.d. Web. 14 march 2012. <http://adam.oliner.net/comp/stereotyping.html>. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 march 2012. <http://heroicimagination.org/welcome/psychology-andheroism/social- psychology/prejudice- stereotypes-and-out-groups/> SparkNotes Editors. SparkNote on Geometry: Inductive and Deductive Reasoning. sparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web.6 Mar. 2012. Spears Russell. The Social Psychology of Stereotyping and group life. USA: Blackwell Publishers Inc.Print.