The Development of Stereotypes
“Do stereotypes facilitate or hinder effective communication across cultures?” Discuss.
In the era of globalisation, it is important to maintain intercultural communication so that interactive skills can be developed so that economic exchange between nations can take place. Intercultural communication can be defined as a communication method that can help people with different communication methods to exchange and share information, knowledge, sentiments and experiences. Intercultural communication also plays a crucial role in establishing favourable intergroup relations. In order to ensure that proper intercultural communication is maintained, various researches were conducted to identify the linguistic and cultural barriers that may hinder the progress. Stereotyping is one of the topics that can be considered as a barrier to communication. It is ironic considering the fact that stereotyping was considered as a source that can motivate inimical attitudes towards culture. The essay highlights the effectiveness of stereotypes in maintaining intercultural communication. Critical analysis is conducted on the role played by stereotype in facilitating and hindering cultural communication.
The development of stereotypes that focus mainly on the communication pattern that exists between intergroup relations and conflicts has been explored by various researches. Stereotyping has a set of definitions that start with the concept that it is a set of social beliefs that are shared by a group of people over other groups. The beliefs are developed based on the characteristics that exist among the people and the difference it has with the people that perceive them in a different manner. The stereotypes among the people occur due to the social stigma and negative perception that occurs based on factors such as self-esteem academic achievement, health and popularity. At the same time, stereotypes shape the development of identity, discrimination and intergroup conflict. In this regard, it can be said that stereotypes are the centre of every social interaction as well as cognitive development.
Stereotypes can be considered as an important schema of social categories that deal with the ethnicity as well as the nationality of the people. Debate can be made about the positive and negative effect stereotyping may have on the communication between intercultural people. For example, some of the negative influences that stereotyping may have on the development of intercultural communication is that it may lead to misunderstanding between people. Stereotypes normally occur due to the categorising of an individual. A judgement is made based on the feelings one have over the other. This leads to the development of an image that is based on the standards perception of a group of people. For example, the Japanese people are often perceived as being collective and are treated like the Chinese people. Although the treatment is mainly based on the physical features that exist between both the cultures, the communication plays an important role while sharing information.
Positive and Negative Effects of Stereotyping on Intercultural Communication
The misunderstanding that is cause due to the stereotype may cause distorted views about various communication methods. The existence of race or nationality can be the main cause for stereotyping but it does not cause a single dimensional image for a particular person or group. For example, Asian women may be considered as good in subjects like mathematics by people of other countries, but are considered as weak by some of the people due to the gender. These things cause a hindrance or barrier in inter cultural communication, as the sharing of information may cease to stop based on either notion that are possessed by the people. Therefore, it can be said that stereotypes result in prejudice that provides advantage to one class of people over another. Such examples can be seen by the perception that American businesspersons perceive their Asian co-employees as assertive as well as lacking any skills of leadership.
At the same time, the prejudice may have a positive impact on intercultural communication. For example, Israelis consider Indians as trustworthy businesspersons. Therefore, based on this particular stereotyping nature, the improvement of intercultural communication can be perceived as a positive side by many scholars. It has been seen that stereotyping often motivates the rise of prejudice among people. Excessive attack on the emotional nature of an individual may bring about negative feedback among people. For example, one of the most traditional matters that exist in the stereotyping business is the discrimination between whites and blacks. The hindrance on intercultural communication can be based on the fact that the black people feel that the white people are ignorant due to the fact that they communicate more on matters that are trivial. At the same time, individual performance may be hampered due to the existence of stereotyping.
It has been suggested that the application of stereotyping often leads to the failure of performance among individuals. An example of this can be the fact that Asian people are normally provided with softer roles in an organisation, while people belonging in the European or African origin are provided with job roles that require strength that is more based on physical development. Therefore, this affects intercommunication as well as performance as the level of intellect or physical power may not be the same for every people belonging to the stereotyped class. The cultural communication in this regard can be hindered by the fact that approaching these people can be a cause of concern. For example, communication topics with Asian people need to be refined and presented in a manner that does not hurt the sentiments of the people. This is not one of the concerns while communicating with the people belonging to the same culture.
Hindrance on Intercultural Communication due to Stereotypes
Stereotyping plays an important role in the intensifying the social distance that exists between the people of two communities as well as cultures. For example, immigrants in a country may consider themselves to be inferior than the natives mainly due to the number they hold in a society. There may exist animosity between the local residents and the immigrants based on the existence of intercommunication culture. It has been stated that communication and sharing of information helps in establishing a common ground between the people belonging to different cultures. Meeting with other people of a different culture undergoes perception within the group members that certain stereotype may exist. For example, meeting with any people that belong to the Muslim religion often spurs suspicion on the Americans that they may be terrorists. Until 1960s, the identification of terrorists were diverse and had covered possibilities that people from any powerful nation are capable of causing terrorist attacks.
Therefore, it can be said that in order to maintain effective intercultural communication, stereotyping plays a crucial role in providing the resources required for communication. For example, British people activate stereotype by starting to communicate with people of other culture by talking about the weather. Therefore, this provides an idea to other people about the nationality of the person concerned and accordingly makes communication based on the topic and avoid stereotype. It can be said that the stereotyping does not always encourage negativity among people as it helps to avoid inappropriateness among the people. Therefore, it can be said that the effective use of stereotyping can be done to explain social events among the people. One of the important things that stereotyping helps is people gets to protect the social nature and the group in which they belong. Various social events are developed based on the application of stereotyping that helps in the communication with people of other cultures.
It has already been stated that stereotyping presents typical characteristics based on a cluster of perception. Individuals establish target people so that communication can be maintained between the people belonging to different cultures. For example, Swedish people are considered as tall and based on the physical characteristics social events consisting of tall people are normally considered as Swedish. At the same time, social events that provide indication of a specific country also provide a potential of improving the intercultural communication. Stereotyping helps in preserving the value of groups and this provides an indication about the value people have on the group and the activities that are undertaken in the culture. This also provides an understanding of the fact that several groups can be formed as people of similar culture may not share the same tastes. This leads people to be considered as outsiders and make way for changed perception among other people.
Stereotyping for Effective Intercultural Communication
Therefore, it can be said that stereotypes are responsible for arousing the social events so that different cultural people can come together to continue working with another. The analysis shows that most people prefer to use stereotypes that help in explaining the collective actions. It has been established that humanity has a psychological need to fulfil the demand made by the people of different society. The fact that social groups as well as individuals gain an identity in the society provides as an advantage for most people. Stereotypes help in providing multidimensional references so that the similarities and dissimilarities between the social groups are not established. At the same time, the positive quality of stereotypes helps in preserving the culture of the people. Abundance of research has proved that stereotyping is impossible to eliminate, as it is a part of society. Based on this particular evidence, it can be said that the stereotyping can influence positive as well negative characteristics among people.
For example, while communicating with people belonging to Asia, people may tend to avoid sensitive topics, as the Asian people are considered as emotional. This may prove, as a hindrance in the communication between cultures as topics need to be chosen carefully and maintaining proper coordination particularly during work cannot take place. For example, topics such as food or lifestyle need to be avoided while talking with people of Indian or Korean origin. Hence, this particular stereotyping may lead to discomfiture and hinder the communication process. The tag that is put on Chinese people about their ability to think and react to situations indicates that stereotyping has a negative effect on the intercultural communication. Stereotyping can also be related to maintenance, as most people belonging to the European countries prefer to maintain the type of stereotype that exists within the self. For example, political parties promote the negligence of racial discrimination in areas that offer working opportunities and other selective opportunity.
Stereotyping can be formed from an early childhood such as interaction with people in the classroom. However, this may be considered interschool or inter social stereotype as the intercultural interaction are not always present. Stereotypes circulate with the medium that are developed from school and based on the development communication between people and group are hampered. This culminates into being stereotypical in the future and provides empirical evidences that stereotyping has a bad impact in the society. The positive factors that exist among different group members due to the stereotyping are normally because the cultural heritage of the people exists. However, the passing of information has one disadvantage that is the passing of information may take different perspective once it is being transferred from one person to another. Hence, it can be said that cultural stereotypes cannot be dismissed easily and it continues to be a part of society and country.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that stereotyping is an ancient thing and continuous to grow with the growth of population. Despite the fact that stereotypes have a cognitive belief, it plays an important role for the development of intercultural communication. The relativity to the cultural background of individuals and the need to categorise social beliefs provide important evidence for the development of intercultural communication. The negative side of stereotyping may result in the misunderstanding between the people and cause major barriers in the intercultural communication. Recommendations can be provided that highlight manner by which such stereotyping can be reduced. Methods such as raising the awareness among cultures can have a positive influence among the people in a particular group. Therefore, conclusion can be made the stereotyping can be valuable for preserving the cultural identity of a group and maintain the characteristics that define people of different culture. Utilization of stereotypes in practise can be considered for further research.
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