simplified, schematized images of social objects, shared by a sufficiently large number of members of social groups. The term “social stereotype” was first used by the American journalist and political scientist W. Lippman in 1922 in the book Public opinion. According to Lippman, stereotypes are ordered, culturally determined “pictures of the world” in a person’s head, which, firstly, save his efforts when perceiving complex social objects and, secondly, protect his values, positions and rights.
Historically, the vast majority of research has been devoted to ethnic stereotypes, i.e. simplified images of ethnic communities (ethnic groups). But the diversity and mobility of the social communities to which modern man belongs and encounters poses the task of finding boundaries between “us” and numerous “strangers”. Therefore, the term “stereotype” was extended to the analysis of people’s perceptions of representatives of their own and other political, religious, cultural, sexual, etc. orientation, one’s own or another profession, one’s own or another age, generation, gender, economic status, etc.
Tajfel H. Social stereotypes and social groups. Intergroup behavior /
Ed. by J.C. Turner, H. Giles .
Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981
Erofeev N.A. Foggy Albion. M., “Science”, 1982
Devine P.G. Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. J. of Personality and Social Psychology. 1989. Vol.56.
Hewstone M. Contact and categorization: social psychological interventions to change intergroup relations. Stereotypes and stereotyping / Ed. by C.N. Macrae, C. Stantor, M. Hewstone. New York, London, Guilford Press, 1996
Lippman W. Public opinion. M., “Institute of the Public Opinion Foundation”, 2004
Find " SOCIAL STEREOTYPES" on
Social stereotypes.
In sociotypical behavior, the subject expresses culturally acquired
Social stereotypes are matrices, patterns of perception and behavior for the most frequently repeated situations. Social stereotypes can be classified. For example, we can distinguish ethnic and religious, professional, ideological, age and other stereotypes.
The main set of behavioral stereotypes is formed in the process of socialization of the individual under the influence of the macro- and microenvironment, collective and individual experience, customs and traditions. Moreover, the decisive role here belongs to external sources of social knowledge, and not to the cognitive activity of our “I”.
Social stereotypes play a huge role in everyday communication due to a number of their features.
1) They seem to predetermine the perception of a specific life situation, since we comprehend the social reality around us not directly, but indirectly, through the prism of social stereotypes that have developed in our minds or learned from the outside. Indicative in this regard is an experiment conducted by the famous psychologist A. A. Bodalev. During the experiment, a group of adult subjects were shown several photographs. Participants in the experiment, who saw each photograph for five seconds, had to recreate the image of the person they
The famous Soviet physiologist P.K. Anokhin called this psychological phenomenon "advanced reflection".
The concept of “stereotype” was first used by the American scientist Walter Lippmann and translated from Greek means “hard imprint.”
The polarity of judgments about the same person is explained by the fact that the photograph itself is not very informative and the participants in the experiment are forced to reproduce the signs of the proposed stereotype.
2) The social stereotype “saves thinking” by depersonalizing and formalizing communication. Identification with an already known model predetermines a standard reaction, allows you to use an already familiar model of role behavior, and act as if automatically. It is for this reason that official communication with strangers and unfamiliar people occurs more according to a stereotype. For example, every more or less experienced seller develops a set of stereotypes of buyers such as “attentive” - “absent-minded”; "picky"; “polite” - “rude”, etc., which allows the seller, without hesitation, to behave accordingly.
3) Each social stereotype includes a description, prescription and assessment of the situation, although in different proportions, which fully corresponds to the components of the human “I”.
4) Stereotypes are very persistent and are often passed down from generation to generation, even if they are far from reality. This includes, for example, the common belief of many in a good king (president), who will immediately solve all “Problems” and make our lives better.
Cm. Bodalev A.A. Perception of man by man - Leningrad State University, 1965. - pp. 39-40.
And, finally, the further we are from a social object, the more we are influenced by collective experience and, consequently, the sharper and cruder the social stereotype. As an example, we can compare the popular opinion about women of easy virtue and the attitude towards them of police officers who are forced by duty to regularly communicate with them: their assessment of representatives of this profession is more objective.
The limited personal experience and the inaccessibility for most people of empirical verification of the information they receive about a whole range of social phenomena create the possibility of manipulating social stereotypes. The techniques discussed below are actively used by the media to shape public opinion and, at the same time, are not uninteresting from the point of view of the practice of business communication.
Labeling: a person is “fitted” into a stereotype such as “demagogue”, “populist”, “womanizer”, “drunkard”, etc. The favorite means of specialists in the field of intrigue is successfully used to eliminate competitors in political and business life. As a counter-argument, attention should be focused on the inadmissibility of replacing real facts with subjective assessments.
"Brilliant Uncertainty" the use of stereotypes, the meaning of which is not entirely clear and unambiguous, but evokes positive emotions, since here the assessment prevails over the description. This includes such common concepts as “democracy”, “human rights”, “universal values”, “in the interests of the law”, etc. Option for communicating with management: “Your decision is undemocratic (violates human rights, social justice)!”
Appeal to the majority as a means of strengthening their position. The volitional aspect predominates. This includes judgments such as “at numerous requests from the working people”..., “all Russians unanimously support...”, etc. Arguments like “the team has an opinion...”, “the team believes that...” are suitable for business communication.
Transfer: the use of old symbols that already have a certain value. In business communication, reference to an authoritative person is possible in several ways:
b) impersonal - “They know there!”; “I’m in the know”; “And then I called, you know, who...”; “We are discussing a problem and then I came in...”, etc.;
c) use of quotations - “Socrates also said that...”,. Common people, or "your boyfriend." It is based on identification with the people and subordinates.
Personification communication that arises due to stereotypes in some cases does not facilitate, but on the contrary, complicates business communication and interferes with the establishment of informal relationships. Translated into the language of social psychology, the well-known metaphor “one is greeted by his clothes...” means that “one is met by a stereotype and seen off by one’s mind!” This problem is especially relevant in the system of relationships “manager - subordinate.”
Sociotypical personality behavior and its manifestations. National and social character
patterns of behavior and cognition, supraconscious supra-individual phenomena. The basis of supraconscious supra-individual phenomena is an objectively existing system of meanings that is a product of the joint activity of humanity (A. N. Leontyev), objectified in a particular culture in the form of various patterns of behavior, traditions of social norms, etc. Superconscious phenomena are patterns of behavior and cognition typical for a given community, assimilated by the subject as a member of a particular group, the influence of which on his activity is not actually recognized by the subject and is not controlled by him. These patterns, for example, ethnic stereotypes, assimilated through such mechanisms of socialization as imitation and identification (substituting oneself in the place of another), determine the characteristics of the subject’s behavior precisely as a representative of a given social community, that is, sociotypical unconscious features of behavior, in the manifestation of which the subject and the group performs as one inextricable whole. When studying these manifestations, those essential standards and stereotypes in culture are revealed, through the prism of which people judge representatives of other ethnic and social groups and, focusing on which they come into contact with these representatives. Such ethnic stereotypes include, for example, the idea that all Germans are pedantic or all Italians are hot-tempered, etc. Often, assessing certain actions through the prism of the standards of one’s own culture or through developed standards of behavior in another culture leads to an inadequate perception of other people. Thus, V. Ovchinnikov in his story “The Roots of an Oak” writes: “You often hear: is it even legitimate to talk about some general character traits of an entire people? After all, each person has his own character and behaves in his own way. This, of course, is true, but only partly, because the different personal qualities of people are manifested - and assessed - against the background of general ideas and criteria. And only knowing the model of appropriate behavior - the general point of reference, one can judge the extent of deviations from it, one can understand how this or that act appears before the eyes of a given people. In Moscow, for example, it is legal to give up your seat to a woman on the subway or trolleybus. This doesn't mean that everyone does this. But if a man continues to sit, he usually pretends to be dozing or reading. But in New York or Tokyo there is no need to pretend: this kind of courtesy is simply not accepted on public transport.”
How to break the stereotype?
How to “break” the stereotype, what needs to be done so that we are perceived not as a position, but as a person? In such a situation, it is advisable to use two techniques. The first technique, let’s call it “look for a hobby,” involves searching for information about what your manager is interested in in his free time. Most often, these are politics, cars, gardening, pets, health, etc. In other words, if you can find a common interest outside of work, communication will move to a new, informal level. As an example, let's remember the film adaptation of O'Henry's novel Business people”, the hero of which is a robber who unexpectedly finds the owner at home, but instead of a shootout, the matter ends in drinking together, since both of them turned out to have the same disease. However, you should keep in mind that this technique is effective only if you understand this issue deeply enough and your the interest is sincere.
The second technique, presented in sufficient detail in Dale Carnegie’s work “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” is much more primitive in concept, but more complex in execution technique. Its essence is simple: pass off your interest as the interest of this person. As a rule, this is achieved by increasing the self-esteem of the business partner and strengthening his image. For example, if the delivery of an already paid shipment of goods is delayed, it is more advisable not to appeal to conscience, but simply to politely inform that you have a very high opinion of him and would like to recommend his services to your friends, but you cannot do this, since he still has not yet fulfilled its obligations.
Forms of existence of attitudes that are stable and closed from the influence of new experience are stereotypes and prejudices. In the structure of a stereotype, the main role is played by its emotional charge, which clearly indicates what is accepted and what is unacceptable, what is generally “good” or “bad” in relation to any object. The stereotype owes its origin to the development of the network of mass communication; it forms simplified and superficial ideas about the phenomena of reality. Thanks to him, it is easy and quick to highlight supposedly essential details in any matter.
The content of the article
SOCIAL STEREOTYPES– simplified, schematized images of social objects, shared by a sufficiently large number of members of social groups. The term “social stereotype” was first used by the American journalist and political scientist W. Lippman in 1922 in the book Public opinion. According to Lippman, stereotypes are ordered, culturally determined “pictures of the world” in a person’s head, which, firstly, save his efforts when perceiving complex social objects and, secondly, protect his values, positions and rights.
Historically, the vast majority of research has been devoted to ethnic stereotypes, i.e. simplified images of ethnic communities (ethnic groups). But the diversity and mobility of the social communities to which modern man belongs and encounters poses the task of finding boundaries between “us” and numerous “strangers”. Therefore, the term “stereotype” was extended to the analysis of people’s perceptions of representatives of their own and other political, religious, cultural, sexual, etc. orientation, one’s own or another profession, one’s own or another age, generation, gender, economic status, etc.
Stereotype and its functions.
Stereotypes are characteristics that describe members of social groups, attributed to them or are associated with them. Until today, in everyday consciousness and in the media, stereotypes are widely viewed as a negative phenomenon. This is largely due to the fact that in world science, negative stereotypes of ethnic minorities subjected to discrimination have most often been studied. Hence the identification of stereotypes with prejudices, and the process of stereotyping with an “immoral form of cognition.”
However, it is necessary to make a clear distinction between stereotypes as a social phenomenon and stereotyping as a psychological process. In social psychology of recent decades, stereotyping has come to be seen as a rational form of cognition, as a special case of a more universal process of categorization: when creating social categories, we pay attention to the characteristics due to which people belonging to the same group are perceived as similar to each other and different from other people .
Objectively necessary and useful psychological function Since the time of Lippmann, stereotyping has been considered the simplification and systematization of the abundant and complex information that a person receives from the environment. Thus, supporters of the theory of “saving resources” see the main function of stereotyping in providing individuals with maximum information with minimal intellectual effort. In other words, stereotypes in the process of social perception relieve individuals from the need to react to a complex social world, but are the lowest form of ideas about social reality, which are used only when higher, more accurate and individualized ideas are unattainable.
However, perceiving a person as a member of a group does not mean a distortion of his “true” individuality, and stereotypes themselves are more useful ways of perceiving than previously thought. Our world is difficult to perceive not only because of the quantitative oversaturation of information, but also as a result of its qualitative uncertainty. Stereotyping should be considered as a means of understanding the social meaning of information. Those. stereotyping exists primarily not to conserve the cognitive resources of the perceiving individual, but rather to reflect social reality.
The outstanding British psychologist Henri Tashfel especially emphasized that stereotypes can protect not only the values of an individual, but also social identity. Based on this, as the main socio-psychological functions stereotyping should be considered: intergroup differentiation, or evaluative comparison, most often in favor of one’s group, and the maintenance of a positive social identity carried out with its help. In other words, the purpose of stereotypes is to establish a group’s relationship not with someone, but with itself, by creating an image that allows it to identify itself in the whirlpool of history. Let us remember the classic: “we are not slaves, slaves are not us.” From this point of view, the “ultimate task” of social stereotypes is to ensure, albeit symbolic, the integrity of the social community.
However, there are also manifestations of preference for out-groups. Low status groups, such as ethnic minorities, may accept their relatively inferior position in society. In these cases, they tend to develop negative self-stereotypes (in-group stereotypes) and positive heterostereotypes (out-group stereotypes).
Tashfel highlighted two social functions stereotyping: a) explanation of existing relations between groups, including the search for the causes of complex and “usually sad” social events; b) justifying existing intergroup relations, such as actions taken or planned towards out-groups. The psychological mechanism of stereotyping has at all times been used in various reactionary political doctrines that sanction the capture and oppression of peoples, to maintain the dominance of enslavers by planting negative stereotypes about the defeated and enslaved.
In other words, the content of stereotypes is determined by social rather than psychological factors. And it is hostile stereotypes full of prejudices, and not the mechanism of stereotyping in itself, that is a purely negative phenomenon that contributes to the stability of intergroup relations based on dominance and subordination.
On the other hand, stereotypes often play a negative role when used by an individual in the process of interpersonal perception with a lack of information about a specific communication partner. Not only negative, but also quite positive stereotypes can lead to difficulties in establishing mutual understanding between people. If Americans expect the Russians to be disciplined and hardworking, then their Russian partners may not live up to their expectations. And our compatriots, who expect sociability and warmth from Americans, are disappointed when they realize that communication in the United States is often determined by a person’s business value.
Basic properties of social stereotypes.
Among the most significant properties of ethnic stereotypes, they are emotional-evaluative nature. The emotional aspects of stereotypes are understood as a series of preferences, evaluations and moods. The perceived characteristics themselves are also emotionally charged.
Even the description of traits already carries an assessment: it is clearly or hidden in stereotypes; it is only necessary to take into account the value system of the group in which they are common. For example, in the Russian press of the 19th century. N.A. Erofeev discovered many statements about the practicality, business energy, prudence, and desire for profit inherent in the British. But these statements not only do not contain an approving assessment, but are not even neutral. For Russian society of that time, “practicalism” meant preoccupation with base concerns at the expense of higher ideal values.
Another important property of ethnic stereotypes is their sustainability. The stability of stereotypes has been repeatedly confirmed in empirical studies. Stereotypes of Moscow high school students and students in the late 1980s and mid-1990s indicate that the civilizational breakdown that occurred during this period in our country did not lead to the destruction of the image of their group, but only to some of its transformation. But the stability of stereotypes is still relative: when relations between groups change or when new information arrives, their content and even direction may change.
Another property of social stereotypes is consistency, or consensus. A. Tashfel considered consistency to be the most important characteristic of stereotypes. In his opinion, only ideas shared by a sufficiently large number of individuals within social communities can be considered social stereotypes.
In recent decades, a number of authors, considering the consistency of stereotypes to be a chimera and a figment of the imagination of researchers, have refused to consider consensus an obligatory and necessary characteristic of stereotypes. It is argued that the criterion of stereotype consensus is redundant: since stereotypes are located in the heads of individuals, they should be studied as individual beliefs.
However, the opposite point of view prevails, the proponents of which, while recognizing that individual beliefs about social groups exist, emphasize that stereotypes and personal beliefs, although they may overlap, are different structures, each of which represents part of the individual’s knowledge about his own or someone else’s groups. Moreover, if stereotypes were not consistent, there would be very little point in studying them. The danger of stereotypes, and therefore the main reason for studying them, is the possibility of similar reactions in response to similar stereotypes: if each individual reacted to members of the disparaged group in accordance with his own beliefs, the negative effect of stereotypes would be significantly weakened.
Another essential property of a stereotype since the time of Lippmann is their inaccuracy. Subsequently, the stereotypes received even less flattering characteristics and were interpreted as “traditional nonsense”, “outright misinformation”, “a set of mythical ideas”, etc. Falsehood became so strongly associated with the concept of “stereotype” that a new term “sociotype” was even proposed to denote standard but true knowledge about a social group.
Since the 1950s, a hypothesis has become widespread according to which the amount of true knowledge in stereotypes exceeds the amount of false knowledge - the so-called hypothesis “ grains of truth» . Now there is no doubt that social stereotypes are not reduced to a set of mythical ideas. A social stereotype is an image of a social object, and not just an opinion about it. It reflects, albeit in a distorted or transformed form, objective reality: the properties of two interacting groups and the relationship between them.
The fact that real intergroup relations influence stereotypes does not require much evidence. It is the nature of the relationship - cooperation or competition, dominance or submission - that determines the content and degree of favorability of stereotypes.
Social stereotypes reflect the real characteristics of the group being stereotyped. At the same time, it is proposed to consider, firstly, the unanimity of opinions of two or more groups regarding the traits characterizing the third group as signs of the truth of a stereotype. Secondly, there is a coincidence in the group’s perception of itself and its perception by another group. Apparently, there is a “grain of truth” in the stereotype that Americans are competitive, patriotic, independent and emotional, if these qualities are considered “typically American” by both themselves and Russian respondents. However, the “autostereotype criterion” is a rather weak test of the accuracy of stereotypes, since there is no certainty that people perceive their own group more accurately than others.
Properties attributed to others indirectly reflect the characteristics of the group in which they are common. Since other peoples are perceived through comparison with their own, Russians attribute sociability and relaxedness to different peoples: Americans, who do not always include these traits in their autostereotype, and Finns, whose autostereotype includes the opposite traits. It is likely that Russians especially highlight these qualities in other peoples due to the perception of their compatriots as “stiff” and not sociable enough.
Fighting negative stereotypes.
In 1947, as part of a UNESCO project Paths to mutual understanding between peoples (Tensions affecting international understanding) the study was conducted in 9 countries with a sample of one thousand people in each country. Researchers believed that stereotypes are the cause, if not the origin, then the maintenance and aggravation of intergroup conflicts. Therefore, it was assumed that if people became more aware of stereotypes as often erroneous and not always complete images of their own and other nations, then these images would be replaced by more accurate knowledge about peoples, which in turn would lead to a weakening of international tension. Currently, social psychologists understand that such an impact should affect not only stereotypes, but also a broader area of intergroup relations, including behavior, social attitudes, etc.
One of the leading areas of research has been the development of the so-called. “contact hypothesis”, which is based on the assumption that direct communication, under certain conditions, helps improve social stereotypes and destroys prejudices. But even if most of the conditions favoring contact are met (groups have equal status, have common goals that require cooperation, and are subject to a single set of rules), the results obtained cast doubt on the idea that meeting and getting to know members of another large group inevitably leads to attribution to them more positive qualities.
However, the inability of the contact hypothesis to predict whether positive attitudes generated during interpersonal relationships will spread to the entire group as a whole and whether they will lead to changes in stereotypes is its main drawback. According to British social psychologist M. Houston, three aspects of contact contribute to the positive effect. First, in a communication situation, perceivers begin to recognize the differences between members of the outgroup. Secondly, the “spread” of positive attitudes is facilitated by the use of information that does not confirm the initial stereotype. Thirdly, an increase in interpersonal contacts with the awareness that “insiders” and “outsiders” have many similar properties and values leads to changes in the perception of the significance of social categories for the classification of individuals.
In the last decade of the 20th century. In social psychology, approaches have been developed that are aimed at the targeted suppression of negative stereotypes and the replacement of behavior based on agreed upon social stereotypes with actions based on personal beliefs. Their supporters are based on the concept of US researcher P. Devine, according to which stereotypes are inevitably activated in the situation of perception of a representative of another group, despite any attempts to ignore them. Research has demonstrated the automation of stereotypical traits associated with African Americans, Asians, older adults, men, and women.
Negative stereotype reduction models emphasize that bias-free “responses” to stereotypes require the person who perceives members of out-groups to be aware of their biases and desire to change their beliefs based on the values of equality and justice, feelings of guilt, remorse, etc. .P.
Tatiana Stefanenko
Social stereotypes.
In sociotypical behavior, the subject expresses culturally acquired
Social stereotypes are matrices, patterns of perception and behavior for the most frequently repeated situations. Social stereotypes can be classified. For example, we can distinguish ethnic and religious, professional, ideological, age and other stereotypes.
The main set of behavioral stereotypes is formed in the process of socialization of the individual under the influence of the macro- and microenvironment, collective and individual experience, customs and traditions. Moreover, the decisive role here belongs to external sources of social knowledge, and not to the cognitive activity of our “I”.
Social stereotypes play a huge role in everyday communication due to a number of their features.
1) They seem to predetermine the perception of a specific life situation, since we comprehend the social reality around us not directly, but indirectly, through the prism of social stereotypes that have developed in our minds or learned from the outside. Indicative in this regard is an experiment conducted by the famous psychologist A. A. Bodalev. During the experiment, a group of adult subjects were shown several photographs. Participants in the experiment, who saw each photograph for five seconds, had to recreate the image of the person they
The famous Soviet physiologist P.K. Anokhin called this psychological phenomenon "advanced reflection".
The concept of “stereotype” was first used by the American scientist Walter Lippmann and translated from Greek means “hard imprint.”
The polarity of judgments about the same person is explained by the fact that the photograph itself is not very informative and the participants in the experiment are forced to reproduce the signs of the proposed stereotype.
2) The social stereotype “saves thinking” by depersonalizing and formalizing communication. Identification with an already known model predetermines a standard reaction, allows you to use an already familiar model of role behavior, and act as if automatically. It is for this reason that official communication with strangers and unfamiliar people occurs more according to a stereotype. For example, every more or less experienced seller develops a set of stereotypes of buyers such as “attentive” - “absent-minded”; "picky"; “polite” - “rude”, etc., which allows the seller, without hesitation, to behave accordingly.
3) Each social stereotype includes a description, prescription and assessment of the situation, although in different proportions, which fully corresponds to the components of the human “I”.
4) Stereotypes are very persistent and are often passed down from generation to generation, even if they are far from reality. This can include, for example, the common belief of many in a good king (president), who will immediately solve all “Problems and make our lives better.
Cm. Bodalev A.A. Perception of man by man - Leningrad State University, 1965. - pp. 39-40.
And, finally, the further we are from a social object, the more we are influenced by collective experience and, consequently, the sharper and cruder the social stereotype. As an example, we can compare the popular opinion about women of easy virtue and the attitude towards them of police officers who are forced by duty to regularly communicate with them: their assessment of representatives of this profession is more objective.
The limited personal experience and the inaccessibility for most people of empirical verification of the information they receive about a whole range of social phenomena create the possibility of manipulating social stereotypes. The techniques discussed below are actively used by the media to shape public opinion and, at the same time, are not uninteresting from the point of view of the practice of business communication.
Labeling: a person is “fitted” into a stereotype such as “demagogue”, “populist”, “womanizer”, “drunkard”, etc. The favorite means of specialists in the field of intrigue is successfully used to eliminate competitors in political and business life. As a counter-argument, attention should be focused on the inadmissibility of replacing real facts with subjective assessments.
"Brilliant Uncertainty" the use of stereotypes, the meaning of which is not entirely clear and unambiguous, but evokes positive emotions, since here the assessment prevails over the description. This includes such common concepts as “democracy”, “human rights”, “universal human values”, “in the interests of the law”, etc. Option for communicating with management: “Your decision is undemocratic (violates human rights, social justice)!”
Appeal to the majority as a means of strengthening their position. The volitional aspect predominates. This includes judgments like “at the numerous requests of the working people”..., “all Russians unanimously support...”, etc. Arguments like “the team has an opinion...”, “the team believes that...” are suitable for business communication.
Transfer: the use of old symbols that already have a certain value. In business communication, reference to an authoritative person is possible in several ways:
b) impersonal - “They know!”; "I'm aware of it"; “And then I called, you know, who...”; “We are discussing a problem and then I came in...”, etc.;
c) use of quotations - “Socrates also said that...”. , . Common people, or "your boyfriend". It is based on identification with the people and subordinates.
Personification communication that arises due to stereotypes in some cases does not facilitate, but on the contrary, complicates business communication and interferes with the establishment of informal relationships. Translated into the language of social psychology, the well-known metaphor “they are greeted by their clothes...” means that “they are greeted by a stereotype and seen off by their minds!” This problem is especially relevant in the system of relationships “manager - subordinate”.
Sociotypical personality behavior and its manifestations. National and social character
patterns of behavior and cognition, supraconscious supra-individual phenomena. The basis of supraconscious supra-individual phenomena is an objectively existing system of meanings that is a product of the joint activity of humanity (A. N. Leontyev), objectified in a particular culture in the form of various patterns of behavior, traditions of social norms, etc. Superconscious phenomena are patterns of behavior and cognition typical for a given community, assimilated by the subject as a member of a particular group, the influence of which on his activity is not actually recognized by the subject and is not controlled by him. These patterns, for example, ethnic stereotypes, assimilated through such mechanisms of socialization as imitation and identification (substituting oneself in the place of another), determine the characteristics of the subject’s behavior precisely as a representative of a given social community, that is, sociotypical unconscious features of behavior, in the manifestation of which the subject and the group performs as one inextricable whole. When studying these manifestations, those essential standards and stereotypes in culture are revealed, through the prism of which people judge representatives of other ethnic and social groups and, focusing on which they come into contact with these representatives. Such ethnic stereotypes include, for example, the idea that all Germans are pedantic or all Italians are hot-tempered, etc. Often, assessing certain actions through the prism of the standards of one’s own culture or through developed standards of behavior in another culture leads to an inadequate perception of other people. Thus, V. Ovchinnikov in his story “The Roots of an Oak” writes: “You often hear: is it even legitimate to talk about some general character traits of an entire people? After all, each person has his own character and behaves in his own way. This, of course, is true, but only partly, because the different personal qualities of people are manifested - and assessed - against the background of general ideas and criteria. And only knowing the model of appropriate behavior - the general point of reference, one can judge the extent of deviations from it, one can understand how this or that act appears before the eyes of a given people. In Moscow, for example, it is legal to give up your seat to a woman on the subway or trolleybus. This doesn't mean that everyone does this. But if a man continues to sit, he usually pretends to be dozing or reading. But in New York or Tokyo there is no need to pretend: this kind of courtesy is simply not accepted on public transport.”
How to break the stereotype?
How to “break” the stereotype, what needs to be done so that we are perceived not as a position, but as a person? In such a situation, it is advisable to use two techniques. The first technique, let’s call it “look for a hobby,” involves searching for information about what your manager is interested in in his free time. Most often, these are politics, cars, gardening and gardening, pets, health, etc. In other words, if you can find a common interest outside of work, communication will move to a new, informal level. As an example, let’s remember the film adaptation of the novel by O" Henry "Business people", the hero of which is a robber who unexpectedly finds the owner at home, but instead of a shootout, the matter ends in drinking together, since both of them had the same disease. However, it should be borne in mind that this technique is effective only if you understand this issue deeply enough and your the interest is sincere.
The second technique, presented in sufficient detail in Dale Carnegie’s work “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” is much more primitive in concept, but more complex in execution technique. Its essence is simple: pass off your interest as the interest of this person. As a rule, this is achieved by increasing the self-esteem of the business partner and strengthening his image. For example, if the delivery of an already paid shipment of goods is delayed, it is more advisable not to appeal to conscience, but simply to politely inform that you have a very high opinion of him and would like to recommend his services to your friends, but you cannot do this, since he still has not yet fulfilled its obligations.
Introduction
A full-fledged personality is formed only in the process of social activity. A person contains in his consciousness a certain historical set of skills and standards of social behavior. Historians call this “complex” historical memory. In sociology, as well as in social psychology, this concept is defined as a “social stereotype.” It is formed in the course of socialization and, having signs of stability and irrationality, acts as an incentive for an individual’s action. According to the provisions of W. Lippmann, social stereotypes represent the main mental material on which mass consciousness is built. Stereotyping the thinking process in psychological terms is associated with an attitude formed in the process of people’s previous practice. The attitude that constitutes the psychological basis of a stereotype is understood as a readiness to perceive a phenomenon or object in a certain way, in a certain light, based on previous experience of perception.
Thus, stereotypes have an objective nature and are an integral property of the human psyche to make generalizations. Indeed, if a person did not have the ability to stereotype, generalize, simplify, and schematize the surrounding reality, he would not be able to quickly navigate the continuously growing flow of information, which, moreover, is constantly becoming more complex and more differentiated. This opportunity is provided by the ability of the human brain to develop generalized ideas about phenomena and facts, formed on the basis of a person’s previous knowledge, as well as new information coming to him. Stereotypes convey only the essence of an event or phenomenon in one word, sentence, picture, understandable to everyone or the majority.
Social stereotypes, as one of the most interesting and important areas in the functioning of society, have been studied by many researchers over the centuries, such as U. Lippmann, T. Shibutani, V.P. Trusov, L.Kh. Strickland, A.A. Bodalev, V.A. Yadov and others.
In foreign psychology and sociology, various interpretations of the concept of “social stereotype” were widespread. The term “social stereotype” was first used by the American journalist and political scientist W. Lippman in 1922 in the book “Public Opinion.” According to Lippman, stereotypes are ordered, culturally determined “pictures of the world” in a person’s head, which, firstly, save his efforts when perceiving complex social objects and, secondly, protect his values, positions and rights. Since then, a huge number of specific definitions of social stereotype have been proposed. Depending on the theoretical orientation of the author, the relevant aspects of this socio-psychological phenomenon come to the fore. Thus, Kimball Jung understood a stereotype in the form of “a false classification concept, which, as a rule, is associated with some social sensory-emotional tones of similarity and difference, approval or condemnation of another group” Babaeva A.V. Male and female behavior in the history of culture. From this judgment we can conclude that a stereotype was understood as something obviously false or incorrect. A stereotype has come to act as an erroneous assessment or preconceived opinion about phenomena or groups. T. Shibutani defines a social stereotype as “a popular concept denoting an approximate grouping of people in terms of some easily distinguishable characteristic, supported by widely held ideas regarding the properties of these people.”
Tajouri defines a social stereotype as “the tendency of the perceiver to easily and quickly place the perceived person into certain categories depending on his age, gender, ethnicity, nationality and profession, and thereby attribute to him qualities that are considered typical of people in that category.”
Tashfel summarized the main findings of research in the field of social stereotyping:
1) people easily demonstrate a willingness to characterize large human groups (or social categories) with undifferentiated, crude and biased characteristics;
3) social stereotypes can change to some extent depending on social, political or economic changes, but this process occurs extremely slowly;
4) social stereotypes become more distinct (“pronounceable”) and hostile when social tension arises between groups;
5) they are acquired very early and used by children long before clear ideas about the groups to which they belong arise;
6) Social stereotypes are not a big problem when there is no obvious hostility in group relations, but they are extremely difficult to modify and manage under conditions of significant tension and conflict.
The study of social stereotypes occurs in domestic and foreign psychology and sociology. Thus, in Poland, historical and general theoretical approaches dominate (A. Schaff, A. Bondar, A. Bartsikovsky, A. Koloskowska, etc.). Much attention in the works of scientists in Germany and France is paid to stereotyping as a process of forming stereotypes. We are talking about adherence to stereotypes, a tendency to use them in certain situations. A limitation of these studies is that attention to stereotyping issues is limited to theoretical issues, without establishing a connection between stereotypes and specific action. In Western European social psychology, there is a widespread point of view according to which social stereotypes and a number of other phenomena of group and social consciousness should be combined into a general conceptual scheme of society.
In Russian psychology, the problem of social stereotype was most studied by P.A. Sorokin; he did not coin the term “stereotype”; he described the process of its functioning in a sociocultural group. “A number of processes and behaviors are pre-fixed in one form or another and are carried out by the majority of group members.” Sorokin P.A. pointed out that “in each group there is a certain order of relationships. This official group pattern of behavior represents, as it were, the “backbone” of the group, on which other, more detailed patterns of behavior are further derived.” The integral factor of all social life here is the collective reflex. It is important to note that he viewed social life as an endless chain reaction. Pointing out that “every social group always has “dissidents” in its midst, but they very often behave according to “official” norms.”
Thus, Sorokin P.A. described the concept of “stereotype of behavior”, the mechanism of their action in sociocultural groups. He also considered the problem of changing behavior patterns, noting that “an instant, simultaneous and identical change in behavior patterns for all members of the group... is almost impossible.” In the late 50s - early 60s, works of critical content began to appear in Russian science, which addressed the problems of stereotyping and stereotyping. At the same time, for the first time in Russian science, attempts were made to define the concept of “social stereotype”. V.A. Yadov understood stereotype as “sensually colored social images.” I.S. Kohn gives the following definition: a stereotype is “prejudiced, i.e. not based on a fresh direct assessment of each phenomenon, but derived from standardized judgments and expectations, an opinion about the properties of people and phenomena.” Yu.A. Sorokin defines a stereotype as a certain process and result of communication (behavior) according to certain linguistic (semiotic) models, the list of which is closed due to certain semiotic-technical principles accepted in a certain society. At the same time, the semiotic model, as a system of “correct” communication, is implemented at the social, socio-psychological levels (standard) or at the linguistic, socio-psychological levels (norm). The standard and norm exist in two forms: 1) stamp - an overly explicit (explained) complex sign; 2) cliche - an insufficiently explicit complex sign. In Soviet literature, the study of the problem of stereotypes is associated with the names of Shikhirev P.N., Sherkovin Yu.L., Gadzhiev K.S., Kona I.S., Yadov V.A., Zak L.A., Kondratenko G.M. and others. These authors were based on a class approach when studying the problem of stereotypes; most often they defined a social stereotype as an “image” or “set of qualities”, as a rather primitive or emotionally charged idea of reality that inadequately reflects objective processes. Currently, most Russian and Western scientists take a more cautious approach to defining a stereotype, considering it mainly a complex formation and assessing its content not only from the negative side. Highlighting that a social stereotype performs an objectively necessary function, allowing one to quickly and reliably categorize and simplify the social environment of an individual.
Thus, it is important to note that during its history of development, the social stereotype has had many concepts and definitions that consider it from both a positive and negative point of view. But in the process of historical development, most scientists are now inclined to believe that a social stereotype performs an important function of generalization, simplification and schematization of the surrounding reality.
cognitive emotional sociocultural stereotype
Characteristics and specificity of the stereotype
As noted earlier, the social stereotype has been studied and considered by different scientists and at different times. Consequently, all researchers noted various features of social stereotypes, their properties, functions and types. There are different types of stereotypes.
Basically, a distinction is made between autostereotypes, which reflect people’s ideas about themselves, and heterostereotypes, which reflect ideas about another people, another social group. For example, what is considered a manifestation of prudence among one’s own people, is considered a manifestation of greed among another people. People perceive many stereotypes as models that must be met. Therefore, such fixed ideas have a fairly strong influence on people, thus influencing the formation of character traits that are reflected in a given stereotype.
Stereotypes can be individual and social, which express ideas about an entire group of people. Social stereotypes are characterized by fairly high persistence. Very often they are passed down from generation to generation, even if they are far from reality.
All stereotypes can also be divided into behavioral stereotypes and consciousness stereotypes. Stereotypes of behavior are stable, regularly repeated behavior of a sociocultural group and the individuals belonging to it, which depends on the value-normative system functioning in this group. They are in close connection with stereotypes of consciousness. Stereotypes of consciousness, as fixing ideal ideas of a value-normative system, act as the basis for the formation of behavioral stereotypes. Stereotypes of consciousness create models of behavior, stereotypes of behavior introduce these models into life.
When analyzing stereotypes, it is necessary to take into account both the negative and positive psychological consequences of stereotyping. On the one hand, the pattern of judgment about another person derived from a stereotype often acts as a prejudice. Emerging in conditions of a lack of information, a social stereotype often turns out to be false and plays a conservative role, forming erroneous ideas of people about what is happening, deforming the process of interpreting what is happening and the nature of interpersonal interaction. Any social stereotype that turns out to be true in one situation may turn out to be false in another and, therefore, ineffective for solving the problem of orienting an individual in the surrounding social world.
On the other hand, the presence of social stereotypes plays a very significant role in social life for the simple reason that without them, in the absence of comprehensive information about what is happening or observed, neither an adequate assessment nor an adequate forecast would be possible.
Firstly, a stereotype allows you to sharply reduce the reaction time to a changing reality; secondly, speed up the process of cognition; thirdly, to provide at least some primary basis for orientation in what is happening. Stereotypes make it easier to understand, for example, the more stereotypes there are in a text, the easier it is to understand. Despite simplification and schematization, stereotypes perform a necessary and useful function in the psychological regulation of processes of interpersonal understanding. This turns out to be possible because in a stereotype the volume of true knowledge often exceeds the volume of false knowledge.
Thus, “stereotypes of understanding regulate communication processes: if a person who has not fought and a veteran have similar ideas about the personality of “Afghans,” then this contributes to the emergence of mutual understanding between them. And also, a stereotype is a way of structuring the experience of an understanding subject, a way of organizing knowledge used to understand another person.”
Psychologists, in the process of various empirical studies, have identified the main properties of a stereotype:
1) Underdeveloped cognitive component;
2) Polarization of assessment (overestimation occurs through an autostereotype, underestimation through a heterostereotype);
3) Rigid fixation of the stereotype, stability, which manifests itself in different situations and is, in the opinion of many researchers, the main characteristic of the stereotype;
4) Intensity of emotional manifestation;
5) Concentrated expression of the properties of social attitudes (a clear regulator of group behavior.
There are various classifications that consider and highlight the various functions of stereotypes.
G. Tezhfel identifies four functions of stereotypes that can be implemented both at the individual and group levels:
functions of a stereotype at the individual level:
Cognitive (selection of social information, schematization, simplification);
Value-protective (creation and maintenance of a positive “I-image”);
functions of a stereotype at the group level:
Ideologizing (formation and maintenance of a group ideology that explains and justifies the group’s behavior);
Identifying (creating and maintaining a positive group “We-image”).
According to Tajfel, the study of the last two functions of stereotypes may be a decisive factor in creating a theory of social stereotypes. He emphasizes that social psychology, history, cultural anthropology, and simply everyday experience have already accumulated a large amount of empirical material indicating that at the group level, social stereotypes actually perform these functions.
German researcher U. Quasthoff identifies three main functions of stereotypes:
Cognitive - generalization (sometimes excessive) when organizing information - when something striking is noted. For example, when mastering a foreign culture in foreign language classes, it is necessary to replace some stereotypes (regulating the interpretation of speech) with others;
Affective - a certain measure of ethnocentrism in interethnic communication, manifested as the constant highlighting of “one’s own” as opposed to “someone else’s”;
Social - differentiation between in-group and out-group: leads to social categorization, to the formation of social structures that are actively oriented towards in everyday life.
Within the framework of linguistic research, stereotypes are interpreted as special forms of storing knowledge and assessments, i.e. concepts of orientation behavior. Researchers see stereotyping as the core of the mechanism of tradition and the ethnic uniqueness of culture. Mental stereotypes are fixed by language or other semiotic code (for example, visual images). These stereotypes distinguish the main functions:
Cognitive, consisting of generalization when processing information;
Affective - contrast between “one’s own” and “alien”;
Social - the distinction between in-group and out-group, which leads to social categorization and the formation of structures that people focus on in everyday life.
It is necessary to emphasize one feature of the problem of studying stereotypes - this is the fact that the phenomenon of stereotyping attracted the attention of sociologists much earlier than the attention of psychologists. This is what had a decisive influence on the meaningful interpretation of the functions of stereotypes in psychological research itself. As V.S. emphasizes Ageev, “an undifferentiated idea of the social and psychological functions of a social stereotype, due to a mixture of levels of scientific analysis, leads to a clearly negative assessment of social stereotypes as not only a social, but also a psychological phenomenon.” Despite this fact, psychologists are currently trying to approach this problem more objectively, relying on positive facts.
As is known, a social stereotype functions on the border of the conscious and unconscious in human behavior, so the question of the relationship between stereotype and attitude is debatable. Some researchers consider a stereotype as a cognitive element of an attitude, others identify these two concepts, and others consider a stereotype a form of expression of an attitude.
Attitudes exist in social psychology, in the sphere of human relationships. “When faced with a person belonging to a certain class, profession, nation, age group, a person already expects certain behavior from him in advance, and we evaluate a particular person by how much he corresponds (or does not correspond) to this standard. Psychologists call such a biased opinion, that is, not based on a fresh, direct assessment of each phenomenon, but an opinion derived from standardized judgments and expectations about the properties of people and phenomena, a stereotype.”
In our country, the theory of attitude was developed in detail by D.N. Uznadze. He derived his definition of attitude. In his opinion, an attitude is a holistic dynamic state of the subject, which is determined by two factors: the need of the subject and the corresponding objective situation.”
Unlike a conscious impulse (motive), an attitude is involuntary and is not realized by the subject himself. But it is precisely this that determines his attitude towards the object and the very way of perceiving it. A person who collects bindings sees in a book, first of all, this aspect of it and only then everything else. A reader, delighted to meet his favorite author, may not pay attention to the design of the book at all. In the system of attitudes, unnoticed by the person himself, his previous life experience and the mood of his social environment are accumulated.
According to the dispositional concept of regulation of social behavior of an individual, a person has a complex system of various dispositional formations that regulate his behavior and activities. These dispositions are organized hierarchically. This division is based on D.N.’s scheme. Uznadze, according to which an attitude always arises in the presence of a certain need, on the one hand, and a situation of satisfying this need, on the other.
The concept of installation in the understanding of D.N. Uznadze and the concept of social attitude are not identical. A social setting (attitude) is defined as “an individual’s psychological experience of the value, meaning, meaning of a social object,” or as “an individual’s state of consciousness regarding some social value.” The social attitude is characterized by a more complex structure and functions. A social attitude, as a psychological phenomenon, is the willingness to perceive groups of people and other social objects in a certain way. It gives the cognitive element of a social stereotype content, and determines its intensity, the degree of its emotional saturation. First, a person develops an attitude, and then the stereotype is filled with content corresponding to this attitude. Since a stereotype acts as a manifestation of group consciousness, which in turn is corrected, social attitudes directly affect the perception and assessment of reality.
The attitude in the sociocultural environment is manifested in customs. Based on the assimilation of customs and following them, a system of stereotypical behavior is formed.
Thus, it is important to note that attitudes, through the customs existing in a given sociocultural group, influence the formation of behavioral patterns, from work practices to etiquette. Along with this, the formation of social stereotypes of consciousness, ideas about one’s own group or about other social groups that differ from one’s own according to a number of criteria occurs.
Cognitive processes as the basis for the creation of social stereotypes
Social stereotypes appear as a result of psychological processes that naturally and inevitably lead to their formation and maintenance. The source of the formation of social stereotypes can be both a person’s personal experience and norms developed by society. Different social groups, real (nation) or ideal (professional group), develop stereotypes, stable explanations of certain facts, habitual interpretations of things. This is quite logical, since stereotyping is a necessary and useful tool for social cognition of the world. It allows you to quickly and at a certain level reliably categorize and simplify a person’s social environment. Make it understandable, therefore predictable.
Thus, selection, limitation, categorization of the huge mass of social information that bombards a person every minute is the cognitive basis of stereotyping. Evaluative polarization in favor of one's group, which gives a person a sense of belonging and security, is the motivational basis of this mechanism. The mechanism for the formation of stereotypes is also other cognitive processes, because stereotypes perform a number of cognitive functions - the function of schematization and simplification, the function of forming and storing group ideology, etc.
In his daily life, a person constantly encounters many stimuli, namely, objects of the surrounding world; with the people he meets; with what he hears and says - and it is almost impossible for him to track them all.
That is, when our consciousness creates mental images of all the people, places, events, situations and actions that we encounter, it is impossible to represent all these stimuli as single, independent blocks of information. Therefore, we form concepts through which we can mentally represent these events, situations, places and people so that our consciousness can work with them. A concept is a mental category that we use to classify events, objects, situations, behavior, or even people according to what a person perceives as general properties. “We form concepts so that we can evaluate information, make decisions and act accordingly. We use these common properties to help us in classification or categorization, the process by which psychological concepts are grouped together.”
It is much easier and more efficient to create concepts or categories of information, and to evaluate and act on those categories, than to process each individual element. In psychology, the study of concept formation involves the study of how people classify or categorize events, objects, situations, and people into concepts.
Categorization is “the mental process of assigning a single object, event, or experience to a certain class, which can be verbal and non-verbal meanings, symbols, sensory and perceptual standards, social stereotypes, behavioral stereotypes.”
Categorization is seen as fundamental to the processes of perception, thought, language and activity. When we identify and label an object as something (a book, an animal, a tree), we are categorizing. In the vast majority of cases, categorization is automatic and does not require conscious activity. Concept formation and categorization give us the opportunity to organize the diversity of the world around us in the form of a finite number of categories. Typically, a category is understood as a grouping of two or more distinguishable objects that can be treated in similar ways. Categories impose order on the complex diversity of the stimulus world and, thanks to this, allow you to effectively interact with it. Classifying various objects into categories serves as a guide to action for a person. With its help, the path to determining the behavioral strategy is shortened, and this reduces this process to the shortest option.
However, categorization, along with positive aspects, also includes negative ones. It is not always possible to grasp the subtlest nuances of objects and the dynamics of their change. By isolating and making the characteristic of an object static, a person immediately gives it a moment of inertia, leading to insufficiently fast recording of changes that have occurred or inaccuracies in the reflection.
Thus, a person creates in his consciousness a real basis for the subsequent emergence of a stable image of a selected object, a stereotypical idea of it. The process of social categorization is influenced by values, culture, and social perceptions, and they have a “tuning and filtering effect” on people's perceptions. People tend to reinforce their beliefs about the social world. What is remembered about a person is influenced by the category in which they are placed. In addition, expectations formed about individuals are based on knowledge of the category into which the individual is placed, and individuals tend to behave in accordance with expectations about them.
Social categorization influences the social schemas that individuals apply in intergroup contacts; it identifies a person, object, or event as a member of a distinct category. Social schematization provides the content of categories, and demarcates the categorization process into future perceptions, memories, and assumptions.
Stereotypes are the content of categories that apply to people. They can therefore be viewed as "special types of role schemas that organize an individual's prior knowledge and expectations about other people who fall into specific socially defined categories." Role schemata can be based on factors such as gender, race, age, or occupation, to name just a few. Individuals belonging to a stereotyped group are believed to be similar to each other and different from other groups in a number of attributes. Social stereotypes and associated attributes are activated in social situations. Social stereotypes are most closely associated with individuals who are perceived as typical of a particular group.
Thus, social categorization is one of the main mechanisms for the formation of stable ideas about various social groups, in particular, social stereotypes, prejudices and prejudices.
As the categorization of a person, event or situation occurs, schematization is included in the socialization process - finding a corresponding scheme in experience. The most common definition of schema is knowledge about concepts or types of stimuli, including their attributes and the relationships between them. Schemas are a series of interconnected thoughts, ideas, social attitudes and stereotypes that provide the ability to quickly recognize objects in the presence of limited information resources. In their most general form, they represent some generalized ideas based on individual experience regarding objects and situations, applied to their rapid assessment and prediction of the possible development of relationships.
Cognitive schemas organize people's representations in relation to specific aspects of their environment and create the basis for orientation and selection of the optimal treatment strategy. The circuits are very similar to the prototypes and are often used interchangeably.
In many cases, when faced with a situation or a specific object, a person already has a certain schematized structure of ideas about the object, the situation and the possible logic of the development of events, which he constantly adheres to, and which constitute his basic behavior. Each idea of an object has an element of uncertainty, filled with available information resources presented in existing diagrams. A number of schemas can be combined with each other into semantic networks. The closer the circuits are to each other, the more likely they are to activate simultaneously, providing useful information. Having the ability to draw conclusions and make generalizations for the future, people recorded in experience in the form of schemes receive additional resources for optimal functioning. Subsequent verification of the correctness of a given scheme leads to an increase in the likelihood of its future reproduction.
The main types of schemas include: personality schemas and role schemas.
Personality schemas are individualized structures of knowledge about specific people and their characteristics. Essentially, in relation to any person, a certain implicit theory of personality is formed, which is presented in experience in the form of a diagram that subjectively reflects the most significant or significant characteristics. It is at the stage of formation of this idea of a person that the scheme is saturated with one’s own judgments, which subsequently take root in the form of social stereotypes. When meeting a person, in most cases we do not carry out a detailed study of him, but rather search for the most suitable scheme, which will serve in the future as a guide for the development of relationships. The detail of the scheme is largely determined by the degree of familiarity with the person and his typicality.
Role schemas are structures of knowledge about the requirements for certain social roles. Each of us has ideas about what a person who occupies a certain position in society should do, what he should be like, i.e. fulfilling a corresponding social role. These perceptions may vary from person to person and from situation to situation, but they nonetheless define our expectations. On the basis of such ideas and expectations, a social stereotype is formed, which is based on an attitude - a kind of predestination to various assessments and interpretations.
In the process of selecting schemes, preference is generally given to schemes that are more easily identified and activated, based on individually relevant indicators. An important role is played by the habitual use of schemes to evaluate a person and the subsequent schematization, at least, of the most prominent ones. Basically, schemas are acquired from direct or indirect experience of interaction with the social environment. It is through direct experience that the formation of the basic repertoire of schemes occurs.
The mechanism of stereotype formation involves not only schematization and categorization, but also other cognitive processes, primarily causal attribution - the subject’s interpretation of the interpersonal perception of the causes and motives of other people’s behavior.
Attributions perform important functions in our lives. They allow us to organize information in psychologically meaningful ways. This mental organization is necessary, at least because of the number of events happening around us. Attributions are associated with control, therefore, people who strive for control make attributions more often than others. Attributions also help people organize new information about the world and resolve inconsistencies between new and old ways of understanding others' intentions and behavior.
In the process of attribution, the causes of behavior and achievements of individuals are attributed on the basis of group membership. People explain behavior by the influence of internal (personal, subjective) and external (situational, environmental, objective) factors. At the same time, they tend to explain their successes by their internal qualities, and their failures by external circumstances. On the contrary, the successes of others are more often explained by external factors, and failures by internal factors. This phenomenon is inextricably linked with the function that the “I-image” performs in the psychological structure of the individual, which develops as a result of the interaction of a person’s basic evaluative attitudes towards the world, himself and other people. This function consists of protecting positive self-esteem in a variety of ways: from inflating one’s self-esteem to underestimating others.
As a rule, stereotypes arise on the basis of rather limited past experience, as a result of the desire to draw conclusions on the basis of limited information. It is in this way that stereotypes often arise regarding a person’s group membership, for example, his belonging to a certain profession. Then the pronounced professional traits of representatives of this profession encountered in the past are considered as traits inherent in every representative of this profession. Here there is a tendency to “extract meaning” from previous experience, to draw conclusions based on similarities with this previous experience, without being embarrassed by its limitations. Stereotyping in the process of people getting to know each other can lead to two different consequences. On the one hand, to a certain simplification of the process of knowing another person; in this case, the stereotype does not necessarily carry an evaluative load: in the perception of another person there is no “shift” towards his emotional acceptance or non-acceptance. What remains is simply a simplified approach, which, although it does not contribute to the accuracy of constructing the image of another, often forces it to be replaced with a cliche, is no less necessary for the topic in some sense, because it helps to shorten the process of cognition.
In the second case, stereotyping leads to prejudice. If a judgment is based on limited past experience, and this experience was negative, any new perception of a representative of the same group is colored by hostility. The emergence of such prejudices has been documented in numerous experimental studies, but it is natural that they manifest themselves especially negatively not in laboratory conditions, but in real life, when they can cause serious harm not only to people’s communication with each other, but also to their relationships. Ethnic stereotypes are especially common when, based on limited information about individual representatives of any groups, preconceived conclusions are drawn about the entire group.
Thus, selection, limitation, categorization of the huge mass of social information that bombards a person every minute - cognitive is the basis of stereotyping.
The influence of emotional states and social processes on the social stereotype
Emotions are a mental reflection in the form of a direct biased experience of the life meaning of phenomena and situations, determined by the relationship of their objective properties to the needs of the subject. Emotions are an integral and important part of our ordinary, everyday life, being the most important motivators of human behavior. Emotions are essential output devices that tell us on demand how we interpret events and situations around us. Emotions are also important interpersonal markers that inform us about the state of our relationships with other people.
The role of emotion or mood in the formation of various types of judgments may be greatest when participants are engaged in substantive information processing, which requires them to select, assimilate, and interpret new stimuli and relate this information to existing knowledge. The positive emotions of the stereotyping process reinforce these processes and the sense of “I” that contains it. Thus, it appears that emotion plays a role in the process of stereotyping.
Frustration is a mental state that arises as a result of a real or imaginary obstacle that prevents the achievement of a goal. Defensive reactions to frustration are associated with the appearance of aggressiveness, avoidance of a difficult situation, and a decrease in the complexity of behavior (sometimes to the level of deep aggression). Blocking the achievement of a goal often breeds hostility. When our frustration is caused by fear or uncertainty, we often redirect our anger.
Frustration thus generates hostility, which people then take out on other people, and sometimes direct more directly at rival groups. In these cases, social stereotypes are formed to an extreme degree of emotionality, that is, prejudices are formed.
Stereotypic behavior may also appear in frustrating situations. Human behavior often becomes stereotypical when there is a tendency to invariably repeat a chain of certain actions, both external, objective, and internal. The tendency to fixate behavior appears when the same frustrating situations are repeated. Under the influence of such repeated situations, a person performs the same actions again and again, although they turned out to be maladaptive.
The formation of ethnic consciousness and culture as regulators of human behavior is based on both innate and acquired factors in the process of socialization - cultural and social stereotypes. They are acquired from the moment a person begins to identify himself with a certain ethnic group, culture, or a certain social group and recognize himself as an element of them.
The concept of social identity goes back to the two sciences that form social psychology. On the one hand, social identity is part of a person’s identity, or “Self-concept,” one of the elements of a person’s personality structure. On the other hand, identity is understood as the result of the identification of a person or group of people with a social community, and is a sociological concept. Social identity can be referred to as the label that a person puts on himself, assessing his relationship to the outside world. It acts, along with “universal” and “personal” identity, as a cognitive structure in which those connections, relationships, and assessments that structure the place of a given individual in society are intricately connected. And among the types of social identity, those social groups are inevitably represented, belonging to which has one or another value for society - sexual identity, ethnic, professional.
On the other hand, each of these types of identity acts not only as an “internal classifier”, but also as a regulator of human activity, a system-forming element. Depending on what kind of identity a person has, it is possible to predict with varying degrees of certainty his behavior, accepted and rejected values and norms, interests and principles, stereotypes and attitudes. Since social identity is the awareness of one’s belonging to a social group, then, therefore, it is also the acceptance of values, attitudes, stereotypes and norms that are significant in this group.
The hierarchy of values is not constant; it is restructured over time depending on the identity that is currently relevant, just like the behavioral models being implemented. From this perspective, current social identity is one of the mechanisms that generalizes, structures behavior and internal schemes, evaluation and categorization criteria, a mechanism closely related to objective social connections and relationships. Identity actualization sets the structure of behavior and cognitive patterns of a person in accordance with the set of norms, values and stereotypes of the group with which the identity is relevant.
Thus, it can be argued that social identification with a group that is relevant for various individuals is one of the specific psychological mechanisms for the formation of social stereotypes in them, assimilated by individuals along with a set of norms, values and ideas that are common in a given group.
Conformity is a person’s tendency to change his behavior under the influence of other people in such a way that it corresponds to the opinions of others, the desire to adapt it to their requirements. Conformity is fixed where there is a conflict between the individual’s own opinion and the opinion of the group to which he belongs, if this conflict is overcome by agreeing with the opinion of the group.
There is a distinction between external conformity, when the opinion of the group is accepted by the individual only externally, but in fact he continues to resist it, and internal (sometimes this is what is called true conformism), when the individual actually assimilates the opinion of the majority. Internal conformity is the result of overcoming conflict with the group in its favor. Conformity plays a role in people's acceptance of social stereotypes of one group in relation to another. Once formed, a stereotype is preserved mainly by inertia. If it is socially acceptable, many people will take the path of least resistance and conform their behavior to that stereotype. They will treat other groups according to a stereotype, and act in certain ways due to the need to be liked and accepted in the group that is important to them.
In studies of conformity, another possible position was discovered - negativism, an individual’s resistance to group pressure, denial, at all costs, of all group standards. However, negativism is not true independence. On the contrary, we can say that this is a specific case of conformity: if an individual sets as his goal to resist the opinion of the group at any cost, then he actually again depends on the group, because he has to actively produce anti-group behavior, an anti-group position or norm, i.e. to be attached to group opinion, but only with the opposite sign (numerous examples of negativism are demonstrated, for example, by the behavior of adolescents). In these cases, in the process of such resistance to the group, it is possible for the individual to accept social stereotypes that are contrary to the group’s opinion.
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