Multicultural Psychology - Stand Your Ground Law

In Multicultural Psychology is the study of behavior cognition, and the effects on people who are of different, race, culture, ethnicity and background. It is studied how they act, perceive and treat each other due to the fact that they all interact. Culture is an external factor because it determines how we interact with people and how we respond to different things. It is amazing to see people who you think are one culture or race and they turn out to be far from what you expected; which shows everyone that physical appearance does not always give us an accurate guess on what a person race could be.

According to (Jeffery Scott Mio, 2009), stereotyping is a generalization about a group or its members on the basis of their categorization. A stereotype can be an accurate reflection of a group's norm; can be a overgeneralization, applying the norm to every member of the group or not allowing variation about the norm, or can be simply inaccurate. Stereotypes are cognitive categorizations of people made on the basis of some demographic characteristic and do not necessarily convey positive or negative evaluations. For example in the film (Crash, 2004), Jean Cabot and her district attorney husband Rick Cabot where leaving a restaurant and she saw the two young black males and displayed what the character, Anthony, described as blind fear. Meaning when Mrs. Cabot saw the two black males she became afraid but didn't know why, minutes later she was being car-jacked at gun point by the individuals. Mrs. Cabot felt that her stereotype had been confirmed. Another example of stereotyping in the movie (Crash, 2004), was when Officer John Ryan called an insurance representative by the name of Shaniqua Johnson, he demanded to speak to her supervisor. When she stated that she was the supervisor, he responded with the racial comment about his father helping "minorities" all because he was upset that his father could not receive help. This response that came about was the result of Officer Ryan stereotyping her name.

According to (Jeffery Scott Mio, 2009), discrimination is a negative behavior toward a group or its members on the basis or their categorization. This was also displayed in the film when Farhad Soomekh, a storeowner, tried to purchase a weapon but was turned down by the salesman, because he assumed that Farhad was an Arabian only judging by the way he looked and the language he spoke. Racism is said to be the discriminatory behavior that is backed by institutional power (Jeffery Scott Mio, 2009). The incident with Cameron Thayer and his wife Christine Thayer and the police officer was a sure display of Racism. The police pulled the vehicle for no reason anyway, and when he discovered it was a black man with who he thought was a white woman, that gave him more reason to feel that he could act the way he did. When he did pull them over he sexually harassed the wife, Christine. This incident only came about because