Categories and stereotypes

This week in Sociology, we learned the difference between categories and stereotypes. Categories are  when objects or people are put into specific groups depending on specific characteristics. In my life, the categories/ groups I'm a part of are my church, Stevenson, my family, and my friends. On the other hand, stereotypes are loose assumption or generalizations that people associate with different groups depending on little or no evidence. For example, since my brother is a very tall male, whenever meeting someone, everybody asks if he plays basketball. Although he does, it's interesting to see how people can just assume that tall people must play basketball.