by Steve Martin

Created on: February 13, 2007   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

I have met one or two people that I immediately disliked, but I wouldn't put this down to intuition. Psychologically speaking, we do try to sum people up very quickly and will use whatever knowledge we have in order to do this. Thus, when you take an immediate dislike to someone it is often because they remind you of someone dislikeable that you knew previously.

Other factors can come into play and these are often to do with stereotyping. Stereotyping is not a word to be afraid of. It is often associated with racism and considered bad. However, we all stereotype all the time; it is one of the ways we sum people up quickly. Thus, for example, if I meet a woman who is both blonde and loud, I will make a snap judgement and perhaps avoid her (say, for example, if it was a party). This is because I tend not to get along too well with loud, brash people. However, the individual concerned may not fit the stereotype at all. She may be intelligent, kind, thoughtful etc. Unfortunately, I do not see these positive aspects as I do not get beyond the stereotype.

I think a way of getting past this manner of summing people up is to recognise that we do stereotype. It is nothing to be ashamed of and has nothing to do with racism, sexism etc. It is something we all do - use past experience to judge the present. As long as we are aware that we do stereotype, then we can try to move beyond this when we meet people.

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