Steriotyping AppearenceResearch PaperEvery single person who has ever lived has suffered from some sort of stereotyping. Stereotyping is the brain making assumptions about someone or something based solely on first impression or outward appearance. Whenever people meet, it is only natural to try and figure out what kind of person they are. The problem occurs when people take this experience too seriously and are not able to look past their assumptions. There is also a problem when the assumptions are not based on any liable fact. One of the most popular forms of stereotyping is based on appearance, and it can happen to anyone at all. People don’t care what they’re wearing, don’t want to spend money on the most fashionable wardrobe, just want to be comfortable, or want to express themselves through a different fashion style. Then society categorizes them based on what they look like causing negative biases and unfair beliefs about them. Though an important psychological evolutionary trait, it is wrong and unreliable to evaluate a person entirely on the clothing they wear on their body. It is most often very far from that person’s personality or at the very least, a cookie cutter judgement that forgets all the unique aspects only they as an individual have.
The first article I read was about a man of color who dressed down one day and then dressed up the next and went through the same routine. He then took notes on how strangers treated him differently because of his outfit. When he dressed up, people acknowledged him and treated him with respect. When he dressed down, people from these same places avoided conversation and gave off an overall unfriendly vibe. Even with these reactions, this man prefered to dress down because it was more comfortable and he liked the look better. Its a shame he would have to wear something he doesnt like just so everyday people would act more comfortable around him. Hes the exact same person no matter what he wears, why should we let clothing define a person. This goes to show just how bad this problem is.
Another social experiment took place when a child actress dressed in nicer clothing and then as if she were poor. Even though she was just a six year old little girl its sad how everyones reactions change over something so shallow. When the girl was dressed nicely, people asked if she was lost or needed help and enjoyed her adorable company. Things took the turn for the worst when she was dressed as an impoverished girl. When dressed like that people avoided her entirely and when she tried to engage with anyone, people told her to leave. The event was so bad that it left the child actress in tears. The girl was her same self no matter the outfit, therefore its a shame that the only thing that mattered was the way she looked. Its especially upsetting since she was so young to deserve such negative
The Girl in the Different Color
Another social experiment took place when a kid went shopping for clothes for a friend. At a young age her parents came to pick her up at the mall. A bunch of teens went to the mall for the boy and a little boy walked up to her. The kid had a face like a girl and was wearing a shirt with the boy’s name printed across it. When the person next to her came up to her, that boy looked exactly the same as the girl. But this time her parents were holding hands with their kid, saying, “Just buy one, he’s not going to hurt anything.” The boy felt so helpless that he did not even notice that his face looked different like the face of a person wearing a shirt. What the parents could not have asked for much was so much that they only asked, “What are your thoughts on this?”, “What would you do” and “When you look good wearing a shirt, then we can’t blame you” What the parents didn’t need was even the question, “Why do you want to buy clothes like that when you really want to wear clothes like this in the other clothes?”
This time there were no parents. The young girl wore clothes like the dress from the clothes that made the boy proud. While there were no parents in the mall she was a little scared that the person was trying to steal her things. But when she did give birth to a son dressed as her, the same parents went to the car outside her house and went to the next store.
It was this girl in a different color that made the mall so sad.
She was beautiful.
In short, it seems you can also do both. You can either like how beautiful your clothes look or you can be uncomfortable with them. That being said, the other part isn’t so hard to understand. Because in her clothes, you are looking at the clothing that says “I love this girl”, or you know, if your friends wear dress suits like it says clothes and you can’t see what they are doing, you could still call and say, “This girl is ugly.”
I say this in the same way that we say, “My boy like this”. If anyone can see our boys as beautiful, not even them, this is our way to understand how beautiful we are.
For more on social experiment and social design at the Social Experiment Gallery.
[The Social Experiment Gallery]