Week 6: Class Discussion Q1

Is it possible to perceive others without in some way judging or categorizing them? When I hear this question I immediately know my answer and it is no. I think everyone forms a general opinion on someone within the first 5 seconds of meeting them, even before they get a chance to say a word. We look at age, what they are wearing, what they look like, where are you first meeting them and so on. Of course this isn’t to say that we should not judge people and give everyone the same blank canvas but it happens. There are also pre dispositioned stereo types that make people automatically categorize people such as a jock, cheerleader, hillbilly, rocker, ghetto and so forth. Because we already categorized someone we then thing of all the stereo types that come with those categories and base how we listen to that person off those. I don’t know how we can change this, because even if you were to talk to someone on the phone you do the something because they may have an accent or deep authoritative voice. Obviously this is not fair because you may be surprised when you find out that the “hillbilly” is really has a PhD, very well educated and very wealthy, it happens all the time.