Social stereotypes

A stereotype is generally accepted, as a rule, prejudiced opinion about certain objects or phenomena. A reduced collective image of something that is used when interacting with it.

It is proved that simplified group samples do not have any real grounds for existence, but the stereotypes of society are already so firmly entrenched in our minds that it is practically impossible to eradicate and practically impossible. By itself, stereotyping is not someone's evil intent. It rather helps us to master the surrounding world, systematizing it in the form of cliches, on which we can quickly make decisions.

Main characteristics of communication stereotypes:

1. Stereotyping. It is caused by aberrations in perception, manifested in the form of illusory acceptance of people of different ethnic groups. An example in this case may be that many of us think that the British are conservative, and the Germans are pedantic.
2. Stereotypes affect the way information is passed and its selection.
3. Samples suggest the expectation of a certain behavior from others, who involuntarily try to confirm them. This is the phenomenon of behavior stereotypes.
4. Clichés generate prediction prone to confirmation.

There are several basic types of stereotypes that indirectly affect the relationship with our environment. They can also be called cultural stereotypes, because they are the most common.

1. The gender. As you already understood this cliché in the perception of female and male sex. So it is considered that women are weaker than men or that a woman can not be a leader, since her vocation is to be a wife and mother.
2. Age. The standard is the saying that all children are "pure in heart", all teenagers are "difficult", and all young people are frivolous and windy.
3. Ethnic. They talked about above, but as an example one can cite the generally accepted opinion that the Japanese are hardworking, and the French are loving.

Stereotypes have penetrated into all spheres of our life. There is already even such a thing as stereotypes in advertising. Television very often uses the ready-made images to demonstrate the essence of the commercial to make it more forgiving from the point of view of the semantic load.

Female stereotypes relate to success in professional activities and personal life. So in the life there were certain mistaken standards:

1. A woman is unhappy in her personal life if she has achieved great heights in her professional activities.
2. If the lady occupies a leading position in the company, then she is a workaholic and because of this loses femininity and turns into soulless leadership.
3. All the successes in life a woman achieves with the help of sex.
4. It is the wife who should be engaged in washing and cleaning, as the husband must provide for the family.

Professional stereotypes arise from the confusion of ideas about the profession, because society is little known about specific features of some professions. Because of this, you can often hear that the psychologist works with mentally ill people, although in fact it is not so.

Other kinds of formal standards in professional activity can be established on the basis of gender and age differences. An example is the saying "which woman is the boss", etc.

Do not forget that stereotyping of thinking makes a person superficial and close. Therefore, be attentive to the established stereotypes of people and think twice before taking them for granted.