Stereotypes. A stereotype is defined as a social perception of an individual in terms of membership or physical attributes. It is a generalisation that is made about a group and then attributed to members of that group. Explain the formation of stereotypes and their effect on behaviour.

Catagorisation. For Aronson et al (2007) widely held generalisations about a group of people. Stereotypes assign similar characteristics to all members of a group, despite the fact that group members may vary widely from one another. According to Augustinos et al (2006) “A stereotype is a schema, with all the properties of schemas.

Theories of stereotype formation Social cognitive theories of stereotype formation are based on the following reasoning: Our world is very complex and presents us with overabundance of information. Since our capacity to process information is limited there is a need to simplify our social world. One of the ways in which we avoid information overload is social catagorisation.

The categories used in social categorisation are stereotypes Stereotypes are schemas and therefore have, among others, the following four characteristics. 1. they are energy saving devises 2. they can be automatically activated 3. they are stable and resistant to change and 4. they affect behaviour

Social identity theory. According to SIT stereotype formation is based on the category accentuation effect and positive distinctiveness. Category accentuation is an outcome of social categorisation that refers to the exaggeration of within the group similarities and between group differences. Positive distinctiveness referred to the motivation to show the superiority of one’s in-group over some out-group.

Systems –Justification and Social representations. For some theorists stereotyping cannot be fully explained unless we move beyond the individual, or intergroup process, to address more collective societal influences on stereotype formation. (The bigger picture) Jost and Banaji (1994) system-justification theory (SJT)stereotypes are used to justify social and power relations in society. Rich and poor; powerful and powerless; have a nd have not.

Unlike social cognitive and social identity theory. System justification attempts to explain negative self-stereotyping, that is the phenomenon where disadvantaged groups tend to internalise the negative stereotypes of themselves held by others In Moscvici (1984) social representation theory, social representations are shared beliefs held by the society we live in or the group to which we belong Although social representations are social categories they are not, unlike the schemas of the socio-cognitive theory, the outcome of individual cognitive functioning. Rather they are widely shared and emerge from the social and cultural life of the individual.

Stereo-type threat effect. This term refers to the performance impairment that results when individuals asked to carry out some task and made aware of of a negative stereotype held against them regarding their groups ability to perform well in a task. Sadly experiments, such as Steele and Quinn (1999) have found that simple manipulations effect a groups ability to perform when fed a negative stereotype.