Thus the trouble is that stereotypes make us mentally lazy. As S.I. Hayakawa, the authority on semantics, has written: "The danger of stereotypes lies not in their existence, but in the fact that they become for all people some of the time, and for some people all the time, substitutes for observation."

因此问题是模式化使我们在精神上变得懒惰了。正如语言大师早川濑里奈在书中所写到的：“模式化的危险性不在于它的存在本身，而在于所有人在有些时候或是有些人在所有时候用它来替代观察了。”

Worse yet, stereotypes get in the way of our judgment, even when we do observe the world. Someone who has formed rigid pre-conceptions of all Latins as "excitable,容易激动" or all teenagers as "wild," doesn’t alter his point of view when he meets a calm and deliberate Genoese, or a serious-minded high school student. He brushes them aside as "exceptions that prove the rule." And, of course, if he meets someone true to type, he stands triumphantly vindicated. "They’re all like that," he proclaims, having encountered an excited Latin, an ill-behaved adolescent.

更糟的是，即使是在我们观察世界时，模式化也会影响到我们的判断。有些人认为拉丁人是容易激动的、青少年是狂野的，对这些已经形成了固定的先入为主的概念的人来说，即使他碰到了一位平静且深思熟虑的热那亚人或是一位严肃的中学生，他也不会改变他的观点，而是将这些作为恰恰能证明模式的列外。而如果他碰到了符合模式观点的人，他便会更加维护这些模式。当他碰到了一位激动地拉丁人或是一位行为糟糕的青少年后，他便会说：“哈！他们果然都这样。”

Hence, quite aside from the injustice which stereotypes do to others, they impoverish削弱 剥夺 ourselves. A person who lumps the world into simple categories, who type-casts all labor leaders as "racketeers,非法 剥削 " all businessmen as "reactionaries,反动派" all Harvard men as "snobs,自命不凡者" and all Frenchmen as "sexy," is in danger of becoming a stereotype himself. He loses his capacity to be himself—which is to say, to see the world in his own absolutely unique, inimitable不可效仿的 and independent fashion.

因此，模式化除了会对他人不公外，更要命的是它们消弱了我们自身。那些将世界归为简单的类别的人、认为工人的领导都是剥削者、商人都是反动派的人、认为哈佛人都自命不凡、法国人都性感的人自身实际上正处于被模式化的危险之中。他会丧失掉做自己的能力，做自己即是意味着用他自己的完全独一无二、不可效仿且独立的方式来看待世界。

Instead, he votes for the man who fits his standardized picture of what a candidate "should" look like or sound like, buys the goods that someone in his "situation" in life "should" own, lives the life that others define for him. The mark of the stereotyped person is that he never surprises us, that we do indeed have him "typed." And no one fits this strait-jacket so perfectly as someone whose opinions about other people are fixed and inflexible.

相反，他会把票投给符合他关于竞选人应该有怎样的形象和声音的模式的人、买那些在他的“生活境遇”的人“应该”拥有的东西、过别人认为他该过的生活。模式化了的人的标志是他从不会给人以惊奇，他确实是被“模式化”了。没有人比那些对他人的观点是固定且不可改变的人更适合穿“模式化者”这件紧身小马甲了。