Categories and Generalizations

In class we discussed the importance or the disadvantage of generalizations and categorizing people into "groups" however, I noticed a trend in class today. I realized that nearly everything we have dealt with in this unit had to do with this final article. Looking back to the episode of freaks and geeks we learned why types of stereotypes came with each categorized group (the freaks & the geeks) and how people applied their knowledge of those groups to situations, for example students know the "freaks" are supposed to be tough, rebellious, and mean so the "geeks" already don't see a chance in any geek wining a fight with a freak. Why? We learned that in the article today where Charton explains that we apply relevant knowledge that we learned in the past, to situations we encounter and that is because of generalization. Thus, because we generalize certain stereotypes, we use it to our advantage- staying away from the freaks. Then when we did the "booted off the boat" activity and we applied our previous knowledge of categories: elders, smarties, the "useful" and the "non-useful" and that was the determinants of who stayed and who got booted off. Obviously before that I never put that much thought into things, I kind of assumed we just do it because it's "what's expected" of us, but I'd never think people put thought into doing experiments and writings on it- I thought it was just a natural part of how our minds work. It was proved to me that it is a large part of Sociology because in the movie A Bronx Tale, we saw the many categories and generalizations that came with the categories "C" was placed in. For example, when he started to hang around with Sonny, the big Mafia tough guy; people began to fear him- like the guy who owed him money. The reason that happens is because we tend to categorize people into stereotypes and while doing so we generalize about those groups. Mafia guys (Sonny and the crew) are people who were not trusted and feared. "C's" friends were categorized as trouble makers who seeked revenge and were generalized as racists.
I can relate this to myself because when you're at the lunch room the tables become categories, for example we see all the asians together and we just assume they're all the "smart ones who do homework during their break time" or we see someone sitting alone, and we generalize that they have no friends. So, obviously it's a natural way of thinking, but we never think if our generalizations are even correct. Perhaps it's just because we're more comfortable sitting with certain people who share commonalities with us, because Charton did express that often times our generalizations are incorrect.