Seems a bit long and technical but it means something to the effect of "to possess traits in opposition to expectations from observable indicators." I had to go to Hume's The Elements of Mentality: The Foundations of Psychology and Philosophy to find a suitable word. The dictionary was not helpful.

His purple mohawk and "Fuck you" forehead tattoo was counter-indicative of what a helpful young man the new shop assistant was.

but "self-fulfilling prophecy" is a cousin to what you want.

If people get treated as if one aspect of them defines their entire self and is used to predict their future, you sometimes get a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm also curious if you're only thinking about the negative aspects. There can be positive ones, also. But the positive side can also include overreach, such as if you assume someone who is good at one thing, like managing a pet store, would be equally good at something similar, such as managing a water park or running an entire empire of food stores there can be problems.

Even though I'm not the OP.

Basically, asserting an attribute (in this case, recklessness) to a person as if that trait defines them, rather than that trait simply being a reaction to a particular situation.

It's analogous to an "attribution error", to be sure, though perhaps not with as linear a relationship between cause and effect. It's not so much "He slammed the phone down, therefore it's safe to say he's an angry person", as "I have witnessed a behavior that I find disagreeable and will now simply disparage anything he has to say, regardless of the topic or situation".

...as in "they were labelled as a [x,y,z]..."

Last edited Fri Aug 2, 2013, 09:39 PM - Edit history (1)

It's not stereotyping that I'm trying to describe. The concept I want to capture is basically a logical fallacy, though I can't identify it specifically. The motocross racer in the OP was a poor example. I'm after the tendency to use ones objection to an argument or a belief to condemn any or all other aspects of an opponent's belief system, but not necessarily to apply the specific objection in a broad-brush manner; i.e. - "bigoted", "uneducated", etc. So, "judgmentalism" to be sure, but what lies behind the propensity to judge (and commonly, misjudge) in the first place.

It is a human trait which cuts across all boundaries of society and seems, to me anyway, to be becoming increasingly common. It's a mental shortcut to dislike, distrust, and even enmitize the whole based on a fraction of the person.

This is a tough one. I don't think umbrageous is it, but it's fairly close.

Our culture doesn't value critical thinking. Additionally, it demands instant everything, including instant judgments, lest we appear stupid, which we are, because we can't think critically.