Inevitability of stereotyping

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For this paper, you would be looking for articles that are looking at both sides, and looking at some of the advantages or disadvantage. According to Billig (1999), there are two theories of stereotypes in opposition:

(1) First, there is the human being controlled by unconscious processes - and thus inevitable.
(2) Second, human beings are responsible for their behavior, because they are able to control it themselves - and thus, not inevitable.

Generally, the first theory is flawed because it treats human beings like animals and does not accounrt for the human free will and the ability to make rational decisions. It has a biological bias e..g my brain made me do it. It is thus said to be reductionist. The strength is that some behaviors have biological basis, but not all of them. For example, there is some proof that we think in categories, which means there is a biological tendency to group things and people into categories. This makes life manageable. Imagine if we did not have a category for table, and every time we seen a table, we had to rethink: What is that plank on legs? What is it used for, etc. This implies that we will always measure people in some way to simplify thinking. However, there are also in our minds the possibilities to avoid discriminate thinking and research has shown that these attitudes can be passed down to other generations. Finally, it could be argued, that getting rid of prejudice, the negative side of stereotyping, is a matter of learning to avoid it (Billig, 1999, ...