Breaking Down Stereotypes

Reported April 2010

DURHAM, N.C. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- You've heard the sayings, the French are romantic, Asians are smart, women are neat and clean, men are strong. These are stereotypes; assumptions about a group that are not always true and not always positive. Now, researchers are breaking down and dispelling some common stereotypes.

"It's kind of unavoidable to not stereotype," one person gave Ivanhoe their take on sterotypes.

"One of the more common stupid ones is all Asian people are good at math and they're bad at sports," another person added. "That's silly."

"I think everybody does it, but it's a question of how much you do it and whether it's conscious or subconscious," said another individual.

Stereotyping appears across all races, cultures and ethnicities, usually painting a false picture.

In the latest study on stereotyping, Jen'nan Read, Ph.D., a research sociologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C., studied people's perceptions and misperceptions of Muslim Americans.

"Perhaps maybe not surprisingly, Muslims look a lot like other Americans in terms of their economic, social and cultural assimilation," Dr. Read said.

Dr. Read found U.S. Muslims achieve higher education levels, and have higher incomes. Seventy-one percent of Muslim Americans feel hard work gets you ahead, compared to 64 percent of Americans, and 37 percent of Muslims are satisfied with American society, compared to 32 percent of Americans.

"One of the easiest ways to dispel stereotypes is to have people actually meet people of the group that they're stereotyping," Dr. Read said. "People assume that I'm Hispanic, or they assume because I study a certain group, I'm a member of that group, when in fact, I'm not."

Dr. Read believes changing stereotypes enables us to move past age-old, false assumptions.

Researchers at the University of Chicago also found that people hold stereotype about not only people but also businesses and that these stereotypes can predict which websites consumers visit or if they buy a particular product.

The American Sociological Association contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Jen'nan Ghazal Read
Sociologist
Duke University
(949) 266-4249
jennan.read@duke.edu

Lee Herring
Director of Public Affairs and Information
American Sociological Association
(202) 247-9859
http://www.asanet.org
herring@asanet.org

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