Stereotypes are a kind of gossip about the world, a gossip that makes us prejudge people before we ever lay eyes on them. Hence it is not surprising that stereotypes have something to do with the dark world of prejudice. Explore most prejudices (note that the word means prejudgment) and you will find a cruel stereotype at the core of each one.

模式是关于世界的一种谣言，这种谣言让我们在观察一个人之前就形成预判。因此毫不奇怪，模式化与黑暗的偏见王国有关。注意到偏见意味着预断，追溯偏见的产生，你会发现大多数偏见的核心都是一种模式化的看法。

For it is the extraordinary fact that once we have typecast the world, we tend to see people in terms of our standardized pictures. In another demonstration of the power of stereotypes to affect our vision, a number of Columbia and Barnard students were shown 30 photographs of pretty but unidentified girls, and asked to rate each in terms of "general liking," "intelligence," "beauty" and so on. Two months later, the same group were shown the same photographs, this time with fictitious虚构 Irish, Italian, Jewish and "American" names attached to the pictures. Right away the ratings changed. Faces which were now seen as representing a national group went down in looks and still farther down in likability, while the "American" girls suddenly looked decidedly prettier and nicer.

这是因为确定无疑的事实是：一旦我们已经模式化了世界，我们便倾向于用标准化的方式来看待人们。在另一个展示了模式化对我们看法影响的实验中，先向一群来自哥伦比亚大学和巴纳德学院的学生展示了30张未标名字的美女照片，让后让他们将这些美女按“普通”、“智慧”、“美丽”等分类。两个月后，这些人又看了相同的照片，不同的是这次照片上标注了虚构的爱尔兰、意大利、犹太和美国人名。排名立即发生了变化。被认为代表了有些国家的脸孔在外表上的排名出现了下降，可爱程度上则降得更多，相反的是“美国女孩”突然间变得十分美丽和可爱。

Why is it that we stereotype the world in such irrational and harmful fashion? In part, we begin to type-cast people in our childhood years. Early in life, as every parent whose child has watched a TV Western knows, we learn to spot the Good Guys from the Bad Guys. Some years ago, a social psychologist showed very clearly how powerful these stereotypes of childhood vision are. He secretly asked the most popular youngsters in an elementary school to make errors in their morning gym exercises. Afterwards, he asked the class if anyone had noticed any mistakes during gym period. Oh, yes, said the children. But it was the unpopular members of the class—the "bad guys"—they remembered as being out of step.

我们为什么用如此荒唐和有害的方式来模式化世界呢？部分原因是我们早在孩提时代就开始将人们进行分类了。正如那些孩子能看电视的父母知道的那样，在生命的早期时，我们就尝试从坏人中找出好人了。几年前，一位社会心理学家清楚地展示了这些孩提时代的模式化的看法是何等的给力。他秘密的让在小学最受欢迎的学生在做早操时犯错。然后，他问班上的同学是否有人注意到了做操期间的一些错误。“噢，是的”，学生们答道。但是记住的却是班上不受欢迎的成员---“坏学生”做错了。