Why do people believe in all these stupid stereotypes instead of thinking for themselves?

Of course it’s because it’s easier or if you prefer “more efficient”.

Yes, because it’s both easier and faster. Our tendency to generalize evolved from the need to quickly assess new situations based on similar past experiences. That ability carried a certain survival benefit, even though the conclusions drawn by generalizations and stereotypes aren’t very reliable.

We’ve also evolved higher cognitive functions that are capable of more accurately assessing individual situations and drawing more nuanced and reliable conclusions. But these processes take time and mental energy, resources that many of us are loathe to invest.

All of us use stereotyping, if only at a subconscious level. Those ancient mental functions will always be with us. The question becomes whether or not we understand the inherent flaws in those functions and bring our more evolved functions to bear.

Stereotyping is an arrow in the quiver of the narcissist.

Get enough of them shot at you, and any one of us will succumb to the wounds of alienation.

“This group is bad”... “That person is untrustworthy”…
Let’s put them in a box for safe reference, and to distinguish ourselves apart from them.

Happens all the time, to all of us, just because someone keeps saying it is so. Coke vs Pepsi, Dem vs Rep… Very few lines are drawn in the sands of merit. Most are drawn in the mud of estrangement.

Because their capability to reason has been reduced/taken away. We can’t fairly blame people why they believe in stereotypes while their parents and society have raised them in such a way that stereotypes have become the acceptable norms of theit life.

Of course it is easier, and for the most part people always go with the crowd, if the crowd says they are gay well who are we to argue?

It is easier than thinking. It is a form of tribalism. It allows us to adopt an us against them attitude with very little effort or insight.

It is a way for the right side of the brain to make sense of or rationalize the world. It is the brains way of telling you that you don’t need to get to know every person because they all fit into these little boxes that are defined by their sex, color, creed, religion, nationality, political beliefs, etc.

Lazy thinking.

It’s far easier to condemn a group rather than look deeply into the mannerisms and behaviors of an individual.

Because, generally speaking, people are sheep.

Confirmation bias. Not a good thing.

Also, sometimes because so many stereotypes have some validity. A stereotype doesn’t have to be negative. groups can have cultural mores and norms that are observable. That are statistically prevalent. Stereotyping doesn’t mean all people in a group definitely have the same qualities. It allows for exceptions. One of the biggest problems is stereotypes that are misunderstood and seen as negative when they are just cultural differences and might have a very good reason for why a group behaves that way. People just tend to be ethnocentric, and that’s a problem.

If something is statistically true, can you really be annoyed the stereotype exists? I think the big problems are prejudice and racism.

The most important duality of human nature consists of me/not-me. When infants are able to distinguish between “me” and “mommy”, they also begin to realize that not everything that is “not/me” is “mommy”. This realization comes into play as they develop and learn more complexities about the world. First it is me/not-me, and then it develops into us/not-us. Instinctively, if it is “not-us” it must first be seen as a possible threat to “us”.

Because it’s easier and requires no effort to believe in stereotypes that put people into neat little boxes. They don’t realise that all those boxes have smaller boxes inside them, and those boxes have smaller boxes inside them. And so on to infinity…

Humanity is too complex for such oversimplification of concepts such as stereotypes or caricatures