Stereotyping goes away with maturity

[Napoléon]

When I was younger I used to have a level of prejudice against Arabs, Pakistanis and Muslims in general, mainly because the city I live in (and most of the country) has had noticeable immigration from these people and I used to think immigration from them had caused a significant decline in my area (I still do think so to an extent, or it would be better to say I think it has been a contributing factor).

Obviously I don't hate people from these backgrounds anymore, since going to uni I've met a lot of people who are both Muslim and from Arab descent and none of them are evil. Each person is ofcourse different but there are still those that meet certain stereotypes. I'd be lying if I said they didn't. Some of them actively back up the stereotypes. Hell, stereotypes aren't necessarily a bad thing.

Stereotypes and empirical generalizations are neither good nor bad, desirable nor undesirable, moral nor immoral. They just are. Stereotypes do not tell us how to behave or treat other people (or groups of people). Stereotypes are observations about the empirical world, not behavioral prescriptions. One may not infer how to treat people from empirical observations about them. Stereotypes tell us what groups of people tend to be or do in general; they do not tell us how we ought to treat them.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-...tereotypes

I try not to let stereotypes influence how I treat people anymore. However I think what you're really talking about is prejudice. They're two different things. I don't think all people who pay attention to stereotypes are necessarily immature, but those with clear prejudice probably are. But then again, I'm not really sure if maturity has a whole lot to do with prejudice at all.