Challenging Stereotypes

The New Neighbours

The house next door has been sold and your new neighbours have just moved in.

A friend, who finds out everything before you do, tells you that your new next-door neighbours are peace protesters, spotted recently at an anti-war demonstration.

What do they look like?
What were they wearing at the demo?
How were they behaving?
How old are they?
What do they do for a living?
What do they eat for breakfast?

Well, of course, they'll be long-haired, wearing ethnic knits and crunching muesli bars. They will probably be in their thirties and from middle-class stock. She (if there is a she) will be a vegetarian and he will have given up his job as a social worker to lend his efforts full time to The Cause. Their children, Jack and Poppy, will be educated at home.

So far, so stereotypical.

Even if you have never met a peace protester, I am sure you have an image of one in your mind. She or he might not fit the description above, but you will have one, nevertheless. However hard we try not to, we always have a mental 'type' to refer to for any given social group. Where do we get these stereotypes from? The answer is obvious - we live on a world which is packed to the gunwales with visual imagery and the sheer volume of stimuli is hugely influential. All the images of people we ever see become inextricably knotted into a tangle of impressions which inevitably end up being distilled into stereotypes.

Click here to see some photographs of real peace protesters. Thanks guys.