{"id":1583,"date":"2012-09-12T21:41:06","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T21:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=1583"},"modified":"2012-09-05T21:42:53","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T21:42:53","slug":"how-do-stereotypes-evolve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/12\/how-do-stereotypes-evolve\/","title":{"rendered":"How do stereotypes evolve?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research has found that stereotypes evolve in a similar way to languages.<\/p>\n

The research, presented at the British Science Festival in Scotland, was carried out by a team at the University of Aberdeen. They found that stereotypes are an \u201cunintended consequence\u201d of information sharing, which evolve as they move between people.<\/p>\n

To address the genesis of such stereotypes, Dr Doug Martin and colleagues from the University of Aberdeen’s Person Perception Lab designed an experiment using aliens – an approach previously used to study the origins and evolution of language.<\/p>\n

The aliens they invented each had a different colour, shape and set of personality traits; such as arrogance, pushiness or selfishness.<\/p>\n

The team then asked a volunteer to learn the characteristics assigned to each one. The information retained by the volunteer was then fed down a communication chain.<\/p>\n

What started out as jumbled and complex individual characteristics and traits ended up encompassed in sets of stereotypes.<\/p>\n

Character traits became inextricably linked with form and colour – for example, blue aliens might be perceived as arrogant, pushy and untrusting. (Source: BBC News<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The experiment sounds a bit like a game of Chinese Whispers! The researchers will next be looking at if stereotypes can be manipulated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research has found that stereotypes evolve in a similar way to languages. The research, presented at the British Science Festival in Scotland, was carried out by a team at the University of Aberdeen. They found that stereotypes are an \u201cunintended consequence\u201d of information sharing, which evolve as they move between people. To address the genesis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,154],"tags":[569,123,25],"class_list":["post-1583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-research","tag-language-evolution","tag-language-learning","tag-languages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}