You see me and, before I’ve spoken a word, you make assumptions about me. You check out how I dress, look and present myself.

Then, based upon these observations, you make an assumption about my personality. You read a few of my thoughts and, from these words, you extract insights about how I operate. By now, you probably think you know who I am and what I’m all about.

You’re relying on stereotypes to come up with whatever you decide. You might decide that, based on what you know about most female reporters, I’m this way.

You might assume because I’m a blonde that I’m that way. Or you might project because I say I believe one thing that I will automatically fall into a certain category of cookie-cutter people.

Without knowing me, you do the best you can with the little you have. You assimilate the information you pick up about me into a complex system of associations you already have in place.

This doesn’t bother me at all. This is reality. People try to integrate the individual pieces of information they have into a coherent story about the target person or group and, in doing so, they heavily rely on their naive theories to organize incoming information.

A problem with stereotypes arises when, after entering the cave of prejudice, the monster of discrimination rears its ugly head. Another problem associated with stereotypes is that once we have them in place, incorrect ones are difficult to dislodge.

After you form your opinion about who I am, you let those assumptions settle and solidify. But, if you’re wrong, you probably won’t figure it out.

We now have evidence that shows that people’s stereotypic beliefs influence the encoding and the retrieval of information.

Soon you’ll stop observing who I really am, and you’ll stop assimilating in new information about me. Soon you’ll explain away what doesn’t fit with your already-formed concept of me, and you’ll only remember things about me that fit with your stereotype.

Enough about me. Let’s take this to a higher level.

According to “The Social Psychology of Stereotyping and Group Life,” researchers recently identified two major models that white Americas give to explain the causes behind the situations of African Americans.

In the first model, African Americans are seen as being responsible for their current lot. People held beliefs that “They aren’t motivated enough” and/or “They have poor values” which render them unable to achieve success in society.

The second model states that structural disadvantages — that is, lack of opportunities, inadequate education system and so forth — result in economic failure and lower social status.

Whereas the first model characterizes African Americans as the perpetrators of racial problems, the second model presents them as the victims of discrimination.

Subjects in the research, after hearing a story about an African American, tended to interpret the information they received in a manner consistent with their causal explanatory models. And, in sum, they gave the account with a very different meaning.

What happens when individuals attempt to break out of a stereotype society places them in? How can they?

When people are presented with a person who combines seemingly conflicting features — or a target individual turns out to belong to several social groups — is it the case that attributes are simply added up to a growing list of features, or do people generate new explanations and come up with original materials to account for the surprising mix?

When you notice someone who you previously placed in a stereotype group diverging from what you assumed, your mind will not rearrange the stereotype. It will form a subtype. And, as a result, the stereotype of the group as a whole is hardly affected.

This is the problem in a lot of minority groups. Individuals who break out of a prejudicial stereotype do not change the culture’s beliefs at large — they just confuse them and push people to form subtypes.

In contrast, however, when inconsistent information is distributed over several, if not all, the members of the target group, subjects take the contradictory evidence into account.

Thus, to change a cultural stereotype, there needs to be a comprehensive effort and, I would argue, especially in the media’s portrayal of these minority groups.

Meanwhile, we all need to do what we can to keep our minds from boxing people into rigid categorical judgments, and we need to press on as individuals to break free from stereotypic chains.

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April Goodwin is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Ames.