Stereotyping is the process of forming a stable idea or image of any people, events, and phenomena. It is characteristic of representatives of one or another social community. Let us consider in more detail how stereotyping of perception occurs.
general characteristics
Various social communities, ideal (professional) and real (nations) develop stable explanations for certain facts, create familiar interpretations of phenomena. This process is quite logical, since stereotyping is a useful and necessary tool for understanding the world. Using it, you can quickly and at a specific level simplify the social environment of a person. Thus, things become clear and therefore predictable. The mechanism of stereotyping is associated with the restriction, selection, categorization of a huge amount of social information that pertains to a person every minute. The motivation of this tool is the estimated polarization, aimed in favor of their group. It gives the individual a sense of security and belonging to a particular community.
Functions
G. Tajfel identified four tasks that stereotyping solves. It:
- Selection of public information.
- The formation and preservation of a positive "I-image."
- Creation and maintenance of the ideology of the group, justifying and explaining its behavior.
- Formation and preservation of a positive "We-image."
The first two functions are performed on an individual basis, the last on a group level.
The emergence of images
Stereotyping is a process that is associated with certain situations in society. In each specific case, a certain image successfully completed the tasks indicated above, and, accordingly, took a stable form. However, the social conditions in which the life of the group and the people entering it change, change faster than the stereotypes generated in it. As a result, a stable image begins to exist separately, independently. Along with this, it affects the development of relations of this group with other communities, a specific person - with other people. When stereotypes occur, they often go through the stage associated with the pattern of formation of “public pronouns” - “they-we-I”.
Negative content
At the household level, there are persistent myths regarding stereotypes. The first is that a stable image is considered as a model of ideas about another group, containing mainly hostile, negative characteristics. This provision is a fallacy. Stereotyping in psychology is a response to real relationships between groups of people. Stable images that arise in this case are saturated with those emotions that are characteristic of specific existing interactions. In one situation, the tendency to subjective increase in differences between groups can be reduced to almost zero. In this case, sympathy arises, attractive images of other groups are formed, possibly even with a touch of light, harmless irony. In another situation, relationships are expressed in a stereotype in the form of evil sarcasm, negative and sometimes humiliating characteristics.
Dogma
The second myth relates to the perception of the stereotype itself. A person who thinks in stable images is often recognized as the bearer of meager and unpromising mental models. Stereotyping in psychology is a phenomenon that cannot be characterized as bad or good. Another thing is that the capabilities of this sustainable image are local. They are limited by the limits of the situation of role, intergroup perception. When transferring stable models into events of interpersonal understanding, replacing them with finer tuning tools by other individuals, distortion and destruction of communication and interaction occur.
Physiognomic Reduction
In its essence, it is an attempt to evaluate the internal psychological characteristics of a person, his actions and to predict his actions on the basis of typical appearance features inherent in his group. This mechanism is very active in interethnic interactions. Physiognomic reduction works very successfully in the simplest social relations.
Intra-group favoritism
It represents a tendency to favor members of their own group in comparison with other groups. Simply put, "ours is better than not ours." This explains the fact that in a foreign city people are very happy for fellow countrymen, and in another country - for compatriots. However, this phenomenon does not always occur. Favoritism is not peculiar to every group, but only to those that are successfully developing, have a positive system of internal values, and are united. In groups where there are conflicts, disintegration, restructuring of goals, there may not be a tendency to favor. Moreover, the exact opposite is also possible. It will manifest itself in favoritism towards members of another group.
Stereotyping effect
According to Snyder, stable images can form their own reality. In this case, they direct social interaction in such a direction that a person perceived stereotypically begins by his actions to confirm the corresponding impressions of himself of another individual. Such an image, which is able to give rise to a new reality, has received the corresponding name. It is called the "stereotype of expectation." The observer, in accordance with his perceptual (sensory) research, forms his strategy of behavior relative to the object of observation and begins to implement it. The latter, in turn, builds its own line of activity, but is based on the indicated model and, consequently, on the subjective opinion that develops about it. If the observer is an authoritative person, then the observed will tend to fit into the proposed strategy. As a result, a subjective assessment will begin to operate.
Stereotyping, identification, empathy
The process of forming stable images within groups was discussed above. There is also the phenomenon of identification. It is an assimilation to another individual. This is manifested in an attempt to understand the mood, condition of a person, his attitude to himself and the world, putting himself in his place, merging with his "I". Related in a sense is empathy. It is a comprehension of the emotional background of the individual. Currently, this term is used in different meanings. The basis of empathy is the ability to correctly imagine what is happening in the soul of another person. And in the first, and in the other case, stable images formed in certain groups, to which the observed persons can belong, can be of no small importance.