rwg (09/12/82)
Doesn't much of our ability to deal with people come from our ability to assume their roles and guess their responses (something like look-ahead in game-players)? Stereotypes often give a better first-order approximation of an individual's future behavior than a generic model of humans could. Hospitals (I'm sorry this is vague; I read this \years/ ago) have found they can give better care by tailoring their actions for certain ethnic groups. They realize that in some cultures it is simply normal to complain more, or to get very emotional easily, or to resent too much care. Just as asides: Should you treat people differently under the law because of stereotypes (if a group was raised to hide their emotions, are they seen in court as 'less remorseful' and sentenced more harshly than others)? A false stereotype can be self-perpetuating, no? If a class of student is considered naturally better at languages, might that type be given better language instruction, to actually become better? Or, can you create a false image of people from Jersey by ignoring all but the most visible subset? Of programmers? Germans circa WWII?