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Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are prevalent in society. Two theories on how stereotypes are formed are illusory correlation and social role theory. Stereotypes are still maintained in society, as shown by a study comparing gender stereotypes from 1983 to 2014. The study found that the only significant change was an increase in the stereotyping of female gender role behaviors. It is important to challenge and change these stereotypes to create a more accepting society. The podcast will also discuss how psychology can lower crime rates. Hey y'all, welcome back to the Psychology of Buzz podcast. I'm Kristen and today we're going to dive into some cool topics. Good morning you guys, or maybe it's evening. I'm not really sure when you might be listening to this, but let's dive right into the topics today. Have you ever been in public eavesdropping on strangers and find yourself saying, holy crap, how can somebody be that racist? Well, if you're like me and from rural Ohio, you definitely have. Every day we encounter so much stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice. Whether this comes from our minds, the words of others, or just the culture and society around us, it's really hard to get away from any of it. Have you ever wondered, though, how the stereotypes are formed or how they're maintained through time? Why do you have those unwanted thoughts in your head about other people? Why do certain groups hate others just based on their gender, age, or race? Well, you guys aren't alone. As a lot of you know, stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are very different topics. So today we're going to focus specifically on stereotypes, their formation, and how they're still here today. There have been a few theories on how stereotypes are formed that have been found. Two of the most interesting types that I've found are illusory correlation and social role theory. Illusory correlation is when two different events occur and you watch it happen, but then you assume that they happen all the time. So it would be like if you saw an Irish dude playing the banjo in the subway, and you just assumed that because you saw that, all Irishmen play the banjo in the subway as well. Because you take those two distinct events and you make them co-occur all the time. Or I guess if you saw a Hispanic woman beating her kid with a flip-flop, you could just assume that all Hispanic mothers beat their kids with shoes. Now social role theory is when you assume somebody to have the characteristics or the personality that fits who they are in society or the role they play in society. So if you're a woman and you're holding a child, lots of people would assume that you're a mom. And so being a mother would be the role that you play in our society. So by that role, a lot of people would stereotype you as loving, kind, or nurturing because those are the characteristics of mothers. But in all reality, you could be a horrible person waiting to sell your kids for drug money. So you definitely don't always fit into the role that people assume you do. So now that we kind of discussed what stereotypes are and kind of how they're formed, I'd also just want to touch on how they're still maintained in society today. Within my research over stereotypes, I found a study. It was called The Times They Are a-Changin' or Are They Not? A Comparison of Gender Stereotypes, 1983 to 2014. This study was conducted by Elizabeth Haynes, Kay Dow, and Nicole LaFaro and their team. Haynes' study was trying to just compare the gender stereotypes from 1983 to the gender stereotypes that are still here in 2014. They were hoping that there would be a difference since there have been so many changes over those 30 years, especially in the United States. The society changed, a lot of the culture changed, and a lot of the stereotypical things that men or women could do have changed. Throughout the study, they assessed for stereotypes, gender traits, role behaviors, occupations, and physical characteristics. They repeated the same study done in 1983. They just had a group fill out responses about how likely they believed that a man would have this job, trait, etc., or how likely a woman would be to have all of those same things. So they compared all the different answers, and they also compared the likeliness of women, men, and just a person without a specified gender. The conclusions they found of this study was that the only significant change over this 30-year gap was that the gender stereotyping of female gender role behaviors had increased. None of the stereotypes had decreased over those 30 years, and that was the only one that was significant. So there may have been increases here or there, or decreases here and there, but nothing that was actually significant to the study. So Haynes and all of her coworkers were able to pretty much come up with the overall results. They said that this still showed a really strong belief in the old-fashioned gender stereotypes even to this day. So really, why does any of this matter to you? If you're a man, woman, person, child, whatever, these results should probably worry you. Changes in men and women's activities and representations have drastically changed over the last 30 years. However, the mental representations and stereotypes we hold over them have not changed whatsoever. The acceptable societal roles and the jobs of both men and women have changed over the course of the years too. If you or anyone you know decides that you want to deviate from these roles and the stereotypes, you're going to be judged and disapproved for it. This is unacceptable in 2023. We have to take it upon ourselves to adapt and learn in every chance we have. I hope that there have been changes in this thinking over the last nine years, but we have to learn to be better than our parents and the generation before us nonetheless. If we decide to not make these changes, then we're no better than them. Actively preventing these applications of stereotypes, even in your own mind, is going to be a great start to make big changes in the future. Okay, well, we're going to take a quick break from this study, and when we'll come back, we'll talk about how psychology can lower crime rates. Here's a word from somebody who would not sponsor this podcast. Crimson Cup Coffee fueled this podcast. Crimson Cup, the go-to coffee for college students. They have drinks for everybody. Iced or hot, coffee, chai, matcha, and more. Go to one of their multiple locations in Columbus, Ohio, and you'll find me on my third cup of joe doing homework. Conveniently located on Lane Avenue and North High Street, use the code BROKECOLLEGESTUDENTS for a 0% discount. Again, the code BROKECOLLEGESTUDENTS. Crimson Cup Coffee, fueling caffeine addictions for an amount of years I forgot to Google. I like it here because not a lot of people get homework. I like the way we learn with fun.