Public Opinion — Chapter VI Stereotypes

1. 1. Our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, and a greater number of things than we can directly observe, so they must be pieced together from reports and imagination.
2. 2. For the most part we do not first see and then define; we define first and then see, picking out what our culture has already defined for us.
3. 3. In a Göttingen experiment, 40 trained observers watched a staged brawl; only one report had less than 20% error, and 10 reports were completely false.
4. 4. Stereotypes are economical shortcuts; without them, the attempt to see all things freshly and in detail would be exhausting and impractical in busy modern life.
5. 5. The moving picture is steadily building up imagery that is then evoked by words in newspapers, providing effortless mental food that shapes our perception of reality.
6. 6. There is no scientific evidence that men are born with the political habits of their country; these are transmitted through nursery, school, and church, not through germ plasm.