What does common stake in the sentence below mean?
Does it mean a common role?
Such overgeneralized beliefs will also be resistant to change, because
individuals develop a common stake in their perpetuation.
Learn English – What does “common stake” mean in this sentence
meaning
Best Answer
Stake means an interest, an investment.
In a project, the stakeholders are the people that invest in the project and stand to make a profit by its completion.
In gambling, "the stakes" refers to the money that the players have put up to back their bets (their "investment").
In this sentence, the writer indicates that overgeneralised beliefs tend to give individuals a reason to defend them (to resist change), because those individuals will all have to admit they were wrong if the belief is changed. Since "we" like to be right about things, we have a "stake" in defending those beliefs as true and to resist changes in those beliefs.