Stereotyping

Method | Example | Discussion | See also

Method

Cast those who you want to denigrate into an unpopular stereotype. Talk about the stereotypes as 'them', downplaying their rights as humans. Describe them as threatening, unworthy, disgusting and other negative frames.

Put emphasis on the stereotype words and the associations you want link to the stereotypes.

Name their leaders. Give exaggerated and distorted examples that 'prove' the stereotype and so condemn all who follow them.

Stereotyping can also be used to cast a group of people as good, perfect and otherwise wonderful and desirable.

Example

These foreigners who come here and take all our jobs and suck dry all the social benefits of our democratic system. These are the parasites we must purge!

Discussion

A stereotype is a schema, a generalization that allows everyone who is given the label to also have attributed to them a set of characteristics that have been pre-defined as belonging to people in this group.

Talking about people in the third person, as 'them', turns them into objects, which can then be stripped of human rights.

Stereotyping allows the speaker to draw lines around good and bad groups of people, encouraging the listener to cognitively and emotionally move away from the bad and towards the good.