Stereotyping in psychology. What are these, examples of family relationships

Definition of what it is

The concept of “stereotype” has been developed by many researchers throughout human history.

The definition developed from characteristics that were similar in meaning:

• archetype (C. G. Jung);
• delusion (Plato);
• incorrect conclusions, idols of the mind (R. Descartes, F. Bacon);
• prejudices (F. Nietzsche).

In foreign psychology, stereotyping was studied by M. Horkheimer, T.V. Adorno, W. Doise. In domestic science, the concept was introduced by P.A. Sorokin, who considered a stereotype as a pattern of human behavior. V.A. Yadov described the definition as emotionally charged social images.

Yu.A. Sorokin called the process of communication according to the language models accepted in society a stereotype. According to P.N. Shikhirev is a primitive, sensually colored set of qualities that biasedly reflects reality. THOSE. Vasilyeva, V.S. Ageev, I.S. Cohn defined a stereotype as a way of processing information and a model of action in different life situations.

V. Duaz identified 4 types of stereotypes:

• individual ideas of people about their environment;
• patterns that arise in the process of communication between people;
• collective models that are formed in intergroup communication;
• ideological ideas that appear under the influence of historical events.

Yu.E. Prokhorov considered a stereotype, on the one hand, as an element that preserves and transmits the culture of a given society, and on the other, as an established means of identifying “friends” in a given culture.

Types of stereotypes

All types of stereotypes are usually divided into several groups, depending on the object of stereotyping.

Classification:

1. Anthropostereotypes – refer to a person:

• personality stereotypes – characteristics of individuals;
• social, belong to a specific group - ethnic and national, racial, linguistic, class, cultural, autostereotype, gender and heterostereotypes, religious, professional, political.

1. Event-based.
2. Subject - characterize objects in the broadest sense of the word:

• real;
• conceptual.

Stereotypes are formed and reinforced at the subconscious level. Certain cognitive blocks arise that produce the desired reaction to a familiar situation.

What are there

Stereotyping is a stereotyped transfer of an image to situations and people. Surface models involve beliefs based on biased assessments of external characteristics. Deep stereotypes in psychology are transmitted in society for years and even centuries. They are formed under the influence of historical events.

Personal

Represents stereotypes that are formed by a certain individual. They can either coincide with social stereotypes or contradict them.

Objective

Stable perceptions reflect the actual characteristics of the group being stereotyped. The degree of objectivity may vary. There are no absolutely objective stereotypes, since stereotyped images are generalizations and therefore cannot correspond to real facts.

Circumstantial

Here, stereotyped characteristics are assigned to circumstances and situations.

For example:

1. It always snows in Siberia.
2. It's always winter in the North.
3. India is dirty and full of diseases.

Dynamic

This type of stereotyping is based on the idea of ​​the physical image of another person. This is an automatic position of posture, plasticity of walking and poses. It is thanks to this phenomenon that you can recognize your friends from afar.

Negative

Negative stereotypes are what are considered stereotypes in society. They are used as a means to insult other people. An example of a negative stereotype is “all blondes are stupid.” Thus, a girl who graduated from a university with honors may be subject to ridicule when applying for a job and not get the desired position due to a stereotype.

Positive

Positive stereotypes are presented as a compliment. For example, a common pattern is “all Asians are smart” or “all Asians are good at math.” Despite the first positive impression, such a judgment can be harmful. According to this, a young child of Asian descent may feel wrong or inferior if he or she has learning problems.

Neutral

The essence of this type is the reaction of specific people to judgments.

Researchers Lepore and Brown found that people with high levels of stereotyping responded more strongly to neutral phrases and adjusted them to previously learned patterns.

Accurate

Accurate stereotypes reflect objective reality, although from the outside they may seem inappropriate. For example, older people actually move slower than younger people.

Approximate

This is the name for stereotypical judgments that can be interpreted in two ways. For example, mentally ill people are dangerous to others. This is not a completely accurate statement, but it is not a lie either. Here we can say that in fact only people with certain mental illnesses can threaten the safety of others, but only in the absence of medical help.

Social

Social stereotypes are those images that are assigned to all people whom a person does not recognize as members of his group.

This type of stereotypes includes:

• ethnic - by race and nationality;
• gender – based on gender;
• confessional - in relation to people of different religions;
• age - by age (most often relate to children, adolescents and the elderly);
• aesthetic - in appearance, beauty, style;
• role-based – by interaction between people (relationships between husband and wife, student and teacher);
• household – for organizing household and leisure activities.

Social patterns are rather false. They distort people's perceptions and cause discord in relationships.

For example:

1. A man must support his family, and a woman must do housework.
2. A woman who builds a career is unhappy.
3. A woman is obliged to give birth to a child.
4. Men are naturally polygamous.
5. Women are bad drivers.
6. All Asians look the same.
7. All Germans are punctual.
8. All English people love tea.
9. All Jews are mercantile.
10. Russians love to drink.
11. All old people are grumpy.
12. All young people know nothing about life.

Why are stereotypes needed?

Established patterns and patterns of behavior greatly simplify the process of thinking and cognition. Every person has a number of conclusions that he uses unconsciously.

Features of stereotyping:

1. Projection effect
   . It is human nature to transfer one’s shortcomings to unpleasant individuals, and to endow pleasant ones with their own merits.
2. Average effect
   . All the striking personal characteristics of the interlocutor are reduced to an average denominator.
3. Order effect
   . When meeting a new person, we are accustomed to trusting the first impression, we use physiognomic and social stereotypes, and when meeting an old acquaintance, we use fresh information.
4. Halo effect
   . Often a general judgment about an individual is formed on the basis of only one good or bad action.
5. Stereotyping effect
   . Endowment of an individual with characteristic features, depending on his profession, nationality.

Stereotypes are present everywhere - these are the rules of etiquette, behavior in society, requirements for study and work. Each person has the right to decide for himself which attitudes he needs to weaken, or get rid of them altogether.

Role, functions and influence on life

The main properties of stereotypes are constancy over time, lack of dynamism, selectivity, and emotional completeness. Gradually, scientists and psychologists innovate the concept, but the basic idea does not change.

Role and functions - reduce the response time to a changing reality, speed up the process of cognition, and provide the primary basis for orientation in what is happening.

The phenomenon of stereotyping is considered from several perspectives:

• content;
• adequacy – often imposed attitudes are based on truthful information;
• origin – factors and conditions of occurrence.

True stereotypes are useful because perception needs to rest periodically. But any adequate setup can become inadequate if the data becomes outdated.

Pros and cons of stereotyping

Stereotypes make a person’s life much easier, help one navigate certain situations and avoid mistakes. Thanks to them, we know that water is wet and fire is hot; if you throw a stone into the river, it will create circles.

But on the other hand, such thinking is often limited; attitudes contain many outdated and inaccurate ideas about people, phenomena, and events.

Positive and negative sides

Without stereotypical simplified thinking, a person would have to figure out everything with his own mind every time; all life would turn into a process of endless learning.

Reasons and processes of formation

Stereotyping is, in psychology, the formation of judgments through the interaction of elements of the psyche. Stereotypes appear when referring to individual or group life experiences. The formation of stereotypes occurs in the second signaling system and includes 3 phases.

W. Quasthoff noted that the functions of stereotypes are necessary for the normal functioning of the psyche and consciousness - social existence, internal psychological stabilization, and information processing.
The process of stereotype formation involves such mental actions as attribution, categorization, selective attention, concept formation, and evaluation. The stereotype is based on 3 components:

• cognitive – a person is aware of information about objects;
• affective – expresses evaluative feelings about objects;
• social – shows a program of actions in relation to objects.

Stereotypes arise for various reasons. The main one is protecting the brain from overload with information. The mechanism of stereotyping is based on simplifying the thought process. The psyche does not react to stimuli with all the fullness of experiences every time, but transfers them to already learned models. A constant flow of new information loads the brain, so the body independently classifies incoming stimuli, fitting them into familiar images.

Thus, the process of cognition does not exceed the ordinary level, relying on everyday experience formed through the generalization of ideas. At the same time, the surrounding world itself contains similar, monotonous, repeating elements to which a person reacts with stereotypical actions. Refusal of stereotyping would lead to constant work of the psyche to differentiate and classify information. Thus, template thinking simplifies the knowledge of the world and facilitates the work of thinking.

Stereotypes are learned through enculturation and socialization. The patterns themselves are part of the culture. A person remembers many groups of stereotypes from childhood and takes them out of his family and environment. The consolidation of images occurs at the age of 12-30 years, after which they practically do not change. As a result, the finished models reflect the understanding of not only their own group, but also the understanding of other groups about their own.

The formation of images occurs in communication with loved ones who are most often present in life. These are family, friends, teachers, colleagues. But sometimes stereotyped thinking also manifests itself in private contacts. For example, if a person is cheated on a market by a seller of a certain nationality, then in the end the buyer will transfer his judgment to all persons of this nationality.

The media also participate in the assimilation of stereotypes, since for many people they are an authority. Opinions broadcast in the media often crowd out personal beliefs.

This happens for several reasons:

1. If a person does not have sufficient knowledge about the subject of discussion, then he relies on information from the news or newspapers without critically evaluating it.
2. The status of the source plays an important role in the stereotyping process. The judgment of a famous public figure or politician is considered more significant.
3. Relying on the opinion of the media indirectly removes responsibility for decisions made. A person accepts the point of view of an authoritative source and considers it correct and fair.

Physiognomic reduction

In its essence, it is an attempt to assess the internal psychological characteristics of a person, his actions and predict his actions based on the typical appearance features of his group. This mechanism functions very actively in interethnic interactions. Physiognomic reduction also works very successfully in the simplest social relationships.

Positive role and influence

Stereotyping is, in psychology, stable, emotionally charged ideas among a group of people. These behavioral patterns have different impacts on people's lives. The positive effect of stereotypes is to free the psyche from performing various processes aimed at scanning the environment.

This is how consciousness directs its work to solving other problems. A person learns most of the stereotypes in childhood. Therefore, patterns are used to distinguish bad from good and assess the safety of a space.

Functions

G. Tajfel identified four tasks that stereotyping solves. This:

1. Selection of public information.
2. Formation and maintenance of a positive “I-image”.
3. Creating and maintaining a group ideology that justifies and explains its behavior.
4. Formation and maintenance of a positive “We-image”.

The first two functions are performed at the individual level, the latter at the group level.

Negative influence and harm

Stereotyping is a form of perception of people or objects in psychology. The negative role of a stereotype is that such ideas are often based on false subjective information. Templates are used to mislead or manipulate people. Stereotypes introduce disagreements into communication and give rise to conflicts.

False ideas disrupt the understanding of correct life guidelines and set a person against others based on their gender, race, or appearance. Instead of finding similarities, stereotypes focus on differences and divide society into “us” and “outsiders.”

In addition, negative stereotypes often become the source of stigma, discrimination and xenophobia. Such attitudes arise in people who use templates out of fear of losing their social identity. Through negativism and intolerance, they strengthen their position in the group they occupy and feel psychological comfort.

Examples of stereotyping

Even if you hear this term for the first time, this does not mean that a specific phenomenon is alien to you. Stereotyping is such a massive and ubiquitous phenomenon that it can be difficult to separate it from your own conclusions.

National stereotypes:

• Jews are a greedy people;
• Italians are hot-tempered;
• Moldovans are stupid;
• Estonians are slow;
• Russians are drinkers;
• the British are prim and conservative;
• Ukrainians love lard;
• Germans are very punctual;
• gypsies are nomadic thieves;
• Caucasians are very hot people, etc.

Stereotypes about professions:

• doctors have illegible handwriting;
• journalists love to lie and fantasize;
• sellers steal;
• programmers do not take care of their appearance;
• firefighters are always asleep;
• shoemakers are drinkers;
• psychologists see right through people, etc.

How to disobey and get rid of

Stereotyping is a formed image in psychology that manifests itself in response to a specific stimulus. To get rid of the influence of stereotypes, you need to consciously work on yourself. You need to understand which patterns and ideas are useful and accepted, and which are negative. Stereotypes that a person has formed from his own experience, without relying on the opinion of society, are considered necessary. They can also include social images, but those that the individual has passed through himself.

To do this kind of work, you need to write out the most famous representations and read them several times. Every phrase has an emotional response. It is the sensually colored sensations that show the attitude towards the stereotype. There are also several methods for getting rid of stereotyping.

Stopping the stereotype

The mechanism of this method is based on stopping the structures that support the stereotype, for example, stable images and reactions, emotional and bodily fluctuations. From the very beginning, it is necessary to track such psychophysical reactions, consider them separately, and highlight the most striking ones. Therefore, the first step is observation and analysis.

For example, a stereotypical action is scratching the back of the head in response to a stimulus. Here, stopping is considered to be directed attention to the movement of the hand, which destroys the sequence of manifestation of the pattern. A separate part of this process can be called an attempt to stop the internal dialogue at the moment of the strongest resistance.

Replacing a stereotype

Consists of replacing one representation with another. As in the previous example, getting rid of a stereotype occurs according to a monotonous pattern - at the moment of manifestation of the reaction. In this case, the action must be replaced by a manifestation of a similar form.

Stereotype transformation

The stereotypical action changes through the transformation of the way of its manifestation. In this method, it is necessary to consciously seize the initiative at the moment of revealing the structures, and then endow the established elements with new properties. Using the example of a physical stereotype, transform scratching the back of the head into performing another action not related to the body.

Going beyond the stereotype

It differs from previous methods in that it does not use a direct influence on the structure of the stereotype.

The method consists of 3 stages:

1. Awareness of one of the constituent parts of a stereotype.
2. Awareness of all patterns' structures.
3. Awareness of the integrity of the parts of the stereotype at the moment of manifestation.

Here, the response to a stimulus in the form of scratching the back of the head is experienced before the motor manifestation of the pattern. The person is aware of the playing out of the stereotype, but does not show it physically, as a result of which the action fades.

The following ways of working with stereotypes in interaction with other people are also identified:

• awareness – naming a behavior pattern;
• finding out the reasons for behavior - talking through the objective and subjective reasons for using the template;
• discussion - proof of the unproductiveness of using the template and problems in communication because of this;
• analysis – discussion of past experience on the basis of which the stereotype appeared;
• re-evaluation – analysis of the reasons for using the model and assessment of its value;
• informing – communicating complete information about a judgment;
• projection screen – ignoring the stereotype;
• switching attention - transferring attention to other stimuli;
• congruence - playing along until the influence of the stereotype ends;
• copying - repeating the behavior of a partner (sometimes it is necessary for him to notice it, and sometimes not);
• external dissociation – separation of a person from his judgment, communication only with that part that interests the interlocutor.

Stereotyping is an important process that saves brain effort and relieves the psyche. Stereotypes make it possible to navigate the world and understand the values ​​of a particular society. At the same time, ideas in psychology sometimes carry a negative message and are perceived as insults. Therefore, you need to understand which patterns are part of your worldview and use them with caution so as not to offend your interlocutor.

general characteristics

Various social communities, ideal (professional) and real (nations), develop stable explanations for certain facts and create habitual interpretations of phenomena. This process is quite logical, since stereotyping is a useful and necessary tool for understanding the world. With its help, you can quickly and at a specific level simplify a person’s social environment. In this way, things become understandable and therefore predictable. The mechanism of stereotyping is associated with the limitation, selection, and categorization of a huge amount of social information that concerns a person every minute. The motivation for this instrument is evaluative polarization directed in favor of one’s own group. It gives the individual a feeling of security and belonging to a specific community.

In-group favoritism

It represents a tendency to favor members of one's own group in comparison with other groups. Simply put, “ours are better than not ours.” This explains the fact that in a foreign city people are very happy with fellow countrymen, and in another country - with compatriots. However, this phenomenon does not always occur. Favoritism is not characteristic of every group, but only of those that are developing successfully, have a positive system of internal values, and are distinguished by cohesion. In teams where there are conflicts, disintegration, and restructuring of goals, there may be no time for favoring tendencies. Moreover, the exact opposite phenomenon is also possible. It will manifest itself in favoritism towards members of the other group.