Stereotypes exist because the human brain is a meaning making machine. It creates patterns, even where ostensibly, none are to be found. This ability to recognise and retain patterns allows us to recognise faces, understand language, read, and appreciate music.
刻板印象的存在是因为人脑是制造意义的机器。 它创造了模式，即使表面上找不到。 这种识别和保留模式的能力使我们能够识别面孔、理解语言、阅读和欣赏音乐。
The reptile brain, the basal ganglia, is in charge of our basic automated response systems, and functions pretty much without our conscious by or leave.
爬行动物的大脑，即基底神经节，负责我们的基本自动响应系统，几乎在我们的意识或离开的情况下发挥作用。
“The primal brain is also in charge of, what are often referred to as, the four Fs: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing, and… Reproduction,” according to The Interaction Design Foundation, effectively maintaining the bodily operating system on autopilot.
据交互设计基金会称，“原始大脑还负责通常被称为四个F：进食、战斗、逃跑和……繁殖，”有效地将身体操作系统保持在自动驾驶仪上。
This is quite helpful for the more absent-minded of us. Some days, remembering to breathe and metabolise and keep the heart beating may be too many balls to keep in the air.
这对我们这些心不在焉的人很有帮助。 有些时候，记住呼吸、代谢和保持心脏跳动可能有太多的球，无法保持在空中。
This basal ganglia region of the brain is, in a very real sense, responsible for our survival, for every breath we take. Identifying the familiar and unfamiliar is a central part of the Fight/Flight response. Our ancestors, by definition, were pros at fighting and flighting.
从非常真实的意义上说，大脑的这个基底神经节区域负责我们的生存，负责我们每一次呼吸。 识别熟悉和不熟悉是战斗/飞行反应的核心部分。 根据定义，我们的祖先是战斗和飞行的专家。
As winners of the human race, our very existence depends on our brains’ ability to read the room and respond accordingly.
作为人类的胜利者，我们的生存取决于我们的大脑阅读房间并做出相应反应的能力。
One way by which the brain categorises and processes information is by stereotyping; to typecast, label or tag stimuli in a fixed or oversimplified way.
大脑对信息进行分类和处理的一种方式是刻板印象；以固定或过度简化的方式对刺激进行定型、标记或标记。
Because, in fairness, when a saber-toothed tiger was thundering towards you, a calm and considered response was not optimal to survival.
因为，公平地说，当一只剑齿虎朝你雷鸣时，冷静和深思熟虑的反应对生存来说并不理想。
This can still be seen today on the web, with a glut of Cats vs Cucumber videos providing hours of mirth to procrastinators across the globe. Quite simply, while Snowball is filling her furry, feline face in a food bowl, the owner sneakily places a cucumber on the floor behind her. Once Snowball’s six senses perceive something long, green and snaky near her hind quarters, she proceeds to shoot into the air, inflated like a helium cat balloon, before streaking to safety. The response is ballistic. Instinctual. Reptile brain.
今天仍然可以在网上看到这一点，大量猫与黄瓜视频为全球拖延症患者提供了数小时的歡樂。 很简单，当雪球用食物碗填满她毛茸茸的猫脸时，主人偷偷地把黄瓜放在她身后的地板上。 一旦雪球的六种感官感知到她后穴附近长、绿色和蛇状的东西，她开始向空中射击，像氦猫气球一样充气，然后划向安全地带。 反应是弹道性的。 本能的。 爬行动物的大脑。
“A stereotype is an exaggerated belief, image or distorted truth about a person or group—a generalisation that allows for little or no individual differences or social variation. Stereotypes are based on images in mass media, or reputations passed on by parents, peers and other members of society. Stereotypes can be positive or negative.” [Learning for Justice].
“刻板印象是对一个人或群体的夸张信念、形象或扭曲的真相——一种概括，几乎不允许或没有个人差异或社会差异。 刻板印象是基于大众媒体上的形象，或父母、同龄人和社会其他成员传下来的声誉。 刻板印象可以是正面的，也可以是负面的。” [为正义而学习]。
As humans, we still go ballistic when our snaky stereotypes get too close to our hindquarters as well.
作为人类，当我们的蛇状刻板印象离我们的后肢太近时，我们仍然会很不快。
I’ve done the “imaginary-bug-in-my-hair” dance a few times, for sure, I’ve crawled across the parapets of Blarney Castle when vertigo made my head spin and my brain gag. I have cried in pain and laughed in pleasure.
我跳过几次“我头发上的想象中的虫子”舞蹈，当然，当眩晕让我头晕目眩，大脑被堵住时，我爬过布拉尼城堡的护栏。 我痛哭流涕，快乐地大笑。
Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection means that favourable genes and traits are reproduced, whilst less favourable ones, like the Tiger Whispering gene, are lost forever.
达尔文的自然选择理论意味着有利的基因和特征被重现，而不利的基因和性状，如老虎耳语基因，会永远消失。
There’s nothing inherently wrong, then, with stereotyping and categorising, on one level. But in a world which is increasingly globalised, connected and interdependent, and struggling to redress an unconscionably unjust power balance between race, gender and class, to name but a few, an instinctual bent towards defining the unknown as “other” and the “other” as bad is not good. Say, what?
因此，在一个层面上，刻板印象和分类没有固有的错。 但在一个日益全球化、相互联系和相互依存的世界里，并努力纠正种族、性别和阶级之间不合理的权力平衡，仅举几例，本能地将未知定义为“其他”，将“其他”定义为坏是不好的。 说，什么？
This phenomenon, known as, “Othering”, occurs when the group excludes those who are perceived as not fitting within the social norms of said group, or whereby negative characteristics are attributed to the “them” who are not the ‘us.’
当群体排除那些被认为不适合该群体的社会规范的人，或者将负面特征归因于不是“我们”的“他们”时，就会发生这种现象，这种现象被称为“他者化”。
And this is where the tendency of our central operating system to label and tag and compartmentalise, becomes problematic. No more than I can sneeze with my eyes open, nor Snowball can stay chill and just back slowly away from the cucumber, neither can Humans, as a species, resist the biological imperative to pigeonhole and stereotype.
这就是我们中央操作系统标记、标记和分区的倾向成为问题的地方。 就像我可以睁大眼睛打喷嚏，雪球也不能保持冷，慢慢远离黄瓜，人类作为一个物种，也不能抵制生物的刻板印象和刻板印象。
Othering is a result of reptile brain survival functions. These functions have survived who knows how many billions of others? If it’s still part of our neural suite, it must serve some purpose? Or are stereotypes the cultural equivalent of an appendix? A relic from meaner times. Intellectually, this would make judging people based on stereotypes as passé as eating grass.
异化是爬行动物大脑生存功能的结果。 这些功能幸存下来，谁知道还有多少亿个？ 如果它仍然是我们神经套件的一部分，它一定有某种作用吗？ 还是陈规定型观念在文化上等同于阑尾？ 卑鄙时代的遗物。 在智力上，这将使基于刻板印象来判断人就像吃草一样过时。
Snowball cannot hack her feline brain: she cannot reason with herself that it’s only a cucumber and remember to leave a nice, fresh mouse on her owner’s pillow to return the favour. She cannot go online and explore different perspectives or the most recent findings on responding to primal instincts with circumspection.
雪球不能破解她的猫的大脑：她不能和自己说这只是一个黄瓜，并记得在主人的枕头上留下一只漂亮、新鲜的老鼠来报答她。 她不能上網探索不同的观点或最近關於謹慎地回應原始本能的發現。
She cannot do anything but launch into orbit and somersault across the room, at the whimsy of million-year-old response systems.
她什么也做不了，只能发射到轨道上，在百万年前的响应系统的奇思妙想下翻穿过房间。
And neither can we, in terms of first response. But we can ferret out implicit bias and preconceptions. We can become aware of thought patterns embedded within our culture and begin to actively question those. Awareness is the first step towards rectification.
就第一反应而言，我们也不能。 但我们可以发现有隐性偏见和先入为主的观念。 我们可以意识到我们文化中蕴含的思维模式，并开始积极质疑这些模式。 意识是整改的第一步。
One nifty tool to get a glimpse into the murky writer’s room of our brains is Project Implicit, The Implicit Associations Test, (IAT), which “can tap those hidden, or automatic, stereotypes and prejudices that circumvent conscious control.” Scientists from The Universities of Harvard and Virginia have been gathering data since 2011 online, and the tests take no more than ten minutes or so to complete.
一个窥见我们大脑中模糊的写作室的巧妙工具是隐性项目，隐性关联测试（IAT），它“可以挖掘那些隐藏的或自动的、规避有意识控制的刻板印象和偏见。” 自2011年以来，哈佛大学和弗吉尼亚大学的科学家一直在在线收集数据，完成测试的时间不超过十分钟左右。
I was curious to find out what are the cucumbers to my Snowball, so I took them all. Physician, heal thyself!
我很好奇我的雪球里有什么黄瓜，所以我把它们都拿走了。 医生，治愈你自己！
Prejudices, formed by the human need for love and acceptance, are inherent. We all have them. Project Implicit tests for implicit bias across a broad range of race, gender and class spectrums with a view to better understanding bias and disparity.
由人类对爱和接受的需求形成的偏见是固有的。 我们都有它们。 项目对广泛的种族、性别和阶级光谱的隐性偏见进行隐性测试，以更好地理解偏见和差异。
An awareness of what subliminally launched us into somersaulting orbit can allow us to also moderate responses to situations where we may otherwise be operating on autopilot, or reptile pilot, which sounds far more dangerous.
意识到是什么潜意识地将我们送入翻筋斗轨道，也可以让我们对我们可能在自动驾驶仪或爬行动物飞行员上操作的情况做出适度的反应，这听起来要危险得多。
So perhaps, as the year draws to a close, and dark evenings usher in more reading time by the fire, it is time to put down the grass sandwich and take an implicit bias test or two. Make friends with the reptile and negotiate a more equitable crisis management system.
因此，也许，随着一年即将结束，黑暗的夜晚在篝火旁迎来了更多的阅读时间，是时候放下草三明治，参加一两个隐性偏见测试了。 与爬行动物交朋友，并就更公平的危机管理系统进行谈判。
Knowledge is power. Understanding the implicit biases that undermine each and every decision we make is the only way towards building a more equitable future, for cats, cucumbers, reptiles and all.
知识就是力量。 了解破坏我们做出的每一个决定的隐性偏见是为猫、黄瓜、爬行动物和所有人建立一个更公平的未来的唯一途径。