Everyone is vulnerable to stereotyping





Stereotypes have positive and negative impact on the individual’s relationships and professional life.  Positive stereotypes, which are favourable beliefs about people from a particular group, can hasten interpersonal and intergroup relations. One of my friends prefers to hire Polish tradespeople because they are known to be hardworking and trustworthy. When I was living in Australia, I heard these same stereotypes from employers of AbC (Asian-born Aussies). These positive stereotypes contribute to and perpetuate systemic differences in privileges and outcomes. Negative stereotypes, on the other hand, such as the rigid Germans and flamboyant Italians, have negative emotional and interpersonal effects (sometimes financial consequences). A lot has been written about severe negative impact of stereotyping of immigrants from developing countries and people of colour.

Jacqui Hutchison and Douglas Martin (Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology pp 291-301), on their research on ‘The Evolution of Stereotypes’ have stated “Stereotypes are template-like cognitive representations whereby membership in a social group is associated with the possession of certain attributes (e.g., scientists are geeky, Scottish people are miserly, women like the color pink)”. According to them, “stereotypes have the capacity to influence how cultural information evolves and how changes in the cultural environment have, in turn, influenced the content of stereotypes”. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-12697-5_23 seen 01/08/19).

Everyone is vulnerable to stereotype either as the doer/enforcer or the target/victim.  How can we avoid stereotyping?  Well, we should do the thinking and analysing as individuals, i.e ourselves, and stay away from generalisations; e.g. Luxembourgers are rich and French are snub. Though the majority of people in one social, cultural or national group may have something in common, it does not mean that all of them are the same — this message should be repeated at home and at school. At work, interaction between all employees from different backgrounds and a clear directive from management on fair treatment of every worker can prevent and stamp out negative stereotyping.

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