What does stereotype mean?
Stereotype in the cambridge dictionary refers to ‘a set idea that people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong’.
Stereotyping occurs in everyone’s life at least once and most people might be affected by it everyday. A stereotype is a common tool used by the brain to help reduce time spent thinking when faced against certain situations and helps to make a swift decision based on the immediate visible characteristics such as gender, race or age. However, when stereotyping is applied after those brief moments, it becomes ‘bias’ which is basically a belief that a stereotype is real. For example, my parents used to tell me that if i did not study hard, i would be a toilet cleaner which is a stereotype turned bias.
Why is stereotype bad for communications?
Stereotype might affect the way we look at people or the way we talk to others. Having a stereotype of someone restricts us from having effective conversation with each other and it could lead to quarrels or unhappiness. Stereotype might also cause unhappiness and it might lead to conflicts or serious consequences. For example, stereotype against Indians might lead to racial unhappiness and might be the indirect cause for the 2013 Little India riot where 63 people were injured.
Stereotyping could indirectly affect our judgement towards some people, and it might hider our productivity and opportunities to make more friends. Some people may just take stereotype as a joke but it might inadvertently hurt others and affect friendship/relationship.
Past experience of stereotype
I had witnessed an incident of stereotyping when i was still in secondary school. I remember it was during recess time and i was having lunch in the canteen with my friends when i suddenly heard a loud bang. Curiosity got the better of me and i went to check out what had happened and i saw an Express class student shouting at a Normal Technical(NT) student. After asking around, i realized that the NT student had accidentally knocked over the Express student’s tray and the express student had demanded compensation from the NT student as well as an apology. However, the express student started insulting the NT student about how NT student have no future and should not even be eating in the canteen with express student. This argument led to a fight between the two of them and was stopped when the disciplinary master showed up. At the end of the incident, i heard that the NT student was accused of starting the fight first due to him being in the NT stream and express student would not start things like fighting in school. This led to a harsher punishment of the NT student by the school which i felt was a unfair and bias action by the school.
Implication of such events on my social life
I feel that being in NT stream is not an indication of low social status or anything, it could just be NT student lacks the motivation to study or dislikes studying, therefore joining normal technical classes where they can learn more interesting classes like design and technology(D&T) or art. I have seen express students doing the wrong things such as stealing as well therefore i feel that the stereotype that NT students are just inferior to express students is wrong and biased. The impact of this incident for my social life is that whenever i am interacting with NT students during my CCA as a NPCC cadet, i make sure to not make them feel like they are inferior to other students and they could perform as well as everyone else.
Storyboard illustrating the above experience
References
McLeod, S. (2008). Stereotypes | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/katz-braly.html [Accessed 29 Jan. 2020].
zhi qiang 
Hi Zhi Qiang,I agree with your point that stereotypes are commonly used when to make quick decisions but it can also can give a wrong assumption of people which can lead to negative outcome. I also agree that stereotyping could indirectly affect our judgement towards people, and might also hurt others and affect relationship between people. Your example of stereotype is also something that I had seen before during secondary school, allowing me to relate to your experience. Thank you for sharing!
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Hi Zhi Qiang,
Your explanation of stereotypes is different from what I have seen so far. You talk about how it can save time when faced with certain situations and it made me think about incidents that it did. Good for triggering thinking. I like how you used the example of the riot in Singapore in 2013 when explaining stereotypes. It is much easier for a person to understand using a universal example that everyone experienced, instead of a specific example to the writer. While this example is easy to relate to, more explanation would show how exactly the stereotype caused a communication error and lead to the riot.
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Hi Zhi Qiang, First of all good introduction, on explaining what does stereotype means.I agree with the point you made on how stereotyping could indirectly affect our judgement towards some people. I can relate with your past experience where the NT students are always shown in a bad light. I have seen cases in my school where the Express or the NA students are far worse in character and also NT students who was from NT jump to Express. I also believe we should not look down on others. As you mentioned being in NT stream is not an indication of low social status or anything and instead as schoolmates help one another. Great post and thanks for sharing!
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Hi Zhi Qiang, I agree that stereotype helps people to save time and make a quick decision and would turn in to bias if they believe that it is real, giving no chance for the other party to prove themselves. I agree that sometimes stereotypes are thrown around like a joke but it could still hurt others in the process. Your past experience example is pretty common and I believe still exists in schools and I can relate to. I believe that if you could give a conclusion to summarise what you have wrote and that would improve the overall post.
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Hello Zhi qiang, your posts had been very consistent with the same writing structure and use of images to help your reader better understand your post. Your flow of ideas are also clearly represented by the headings and the conclusion helps to summarize the whole post into a paragraph. Overall, good effort and great post!
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