Stereotypes often paint a partial or false picture of an individual or group.

Participants in the role-playing game EverQuest II defy the stereotype of the overweight male teenager, researchers reported this month in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

A common gender stereotype assumes that men are more aggressive and women are more emotional. In negotiation, men are assumed to be more assertive and women better at fostering relationships.

A group of scientists from the University of Granada has studied for the first time from a scientific point of view gender driven prejudices, proving that both stereotypes and prejudices can be modified in spite of the automaticity of stereotyping and even though they are implicit (that is to say, people do not realize them).

Stereotypes can boost as well as hinder our chances of success, according to psychologists from the University of Exeter and St Andrews University. Writing in the new edition of Scientific American Mind (out in the UK 22 April 2008), they argue that the power of stereotypes to affect our performance should not be underestimated.

Latest Australian research into myopia or shortsightedness reveals that people who wear glasses are not stereotypical geeks or nerds.

The studies in the article demonstrate how associating Asian-Americans with positive qualities tends to increase the degree to which people feel threatened by the group’s academic and financial success, which in turn leads to more negative attitudes towards them.

Study reports that men and women are equally talkative. The study found both men and women pronouncing about 16000 words a day.

Refuting the popular stereotype that females talk more than men, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found women and men both use an average of 16,000 words each day.

Autistic children have a capacity to understand other people through stereotypes, say scientists at UCL (University College London). The research shows that autistic children are just as able as others to predict people's behaviour when stereotypes, such as gender and race, are the only available guide.

Children with autism, who are unable to grasp the mental states of others, can nonetheless identify with conventional stereotypes based on a person's race and sex, researchers report in the June 19th issue of Current Biology, published by Cell Press.

A popular stereotype that boys are better at mathematics than girls undermines girls' math performance because it causes worrying that erodes the mental resources needed for problem solving, new research at the University of Chicago shows.