Man cannot exist outside of society - this fact has long been proven. And this means that throughout life people have to constantly encounter each other: with parents, classmates, colleagues and even passengers of minibuses. To simplify the process of perception of others, a person derives various classifications. Sometimes they are objective when sex, age, profession, and nationality are at the base. However, overly systematizing people is fraught with the danger of cliché thinking, when personality traits are attributed to a person only on the basis that he falls into a particular social group.
What is a stereotype?
Initially, stereotypes were called topographic printing forms for repeated repetition of text. Actually, in Greek “stereos” means “solid”, and “topos” means “imprint”. However, at the beginning of the 20th century this word received a different, broader meaning. For the first time, what a stereotype is in terms of thinking, perception and human behavior, said W. Lippman - journalist and political observer. It was he who established that there are stable ideas about the behavior and cultural characteristics of various social groups that apply to all of its representatives.
A kind of picture arising in the human brain. Moreover, stereotypes are usually formed on the basis of not personal, but someone else's experience. At the same time, they are quite tenacious. Even in a situation where a person is convinced that the stereotype does not work, he writes off everything in case or appeals to the well-known “exceptions confirm the rule”. Meanwhile, reality is always more complex than stereotypes, which are often partially or completely false. Everyone knows that a person’s personality is multifaceted, that there are no two identical people. However, with the help of stereotypes, an individual drives an entire social group into one sentence. Moreover, he often believes that it is in relation to his cliché that they don’t work, that he is the same “white crow”.
Types of stereotypes
There are so many clichés. For example, stereotypes based on age separation look like this: young people are ill-mannered, do not want to study, work, do not respect elders. Usually after this follows: "But nowadays …". Is that familiar? But the first such statements were voiced in antiquity. And each generation again and again pronounces the same words to their successors. On the other hand, do not the young people of old people consider grumpy conservatives unable to cope with progress? And everyone can not point a finger at the grandmother dressed up in the latest fashion? It is not supposed to be!
Probably, everyone knows about what a gender stereotype is. "All the women do … all the men are to …"! Who does not know this “true” statement? However, there are gender stereotypes that impose on us social roles: a man is a breadwinner who must earn a lot of money. The woman's place is in the kitchen, her mission is to give birth to children and to please her husband. The girl has nothing to do in the garage, the man has no right to embroider a cross … Those who go against stereotypes often encounter some malice: you will not cook cutlets for your husband - he will leave you. The fact that the husband, perhaps, does not like cutlets, and knows how to cook himself, is usually not thought of. Because living according to stereotypes is more convenient and more familiar.
And here are examples of religious stereotypes: Islam - the religion of terror, Christianity - mercy, forgiveness. At the same time, medieval crusades are often forgotten. Needless to say, that any faith that differs from the generally accepted is immediately perceived as a sect.
National clichés are no less popular: Russians are drunks, Germans are racists, Americans are down to earth (yes, that’s the same “well, dumb-eee!”). And there are stereotypes and on a professional basis. Locksmith? So he drinks! The accountant is cheating with taxes … and indeed cheating. The janitor always swears. A housewife, especially if she has been on maternity leave, must necessarily “stupidly” and “fuck up, ” and God forbid she doesn’t like TV shows! But there are thousands of similar examples! Although in everyday life we do not even suspect how stereotypes have taken hold of our thinking. However, why do such affirmative cliches arise?
The benefits and harms of cliché
Stereotypes are by no means useless and, of course, did not arise from scratch. Their undoubted advantage is that they allow you to strain less, not to spend mental strength on the knowledge of new information. For example, when the Pythagorean theorem was long ago deduced for you, it only needs to be learned, but not rediscovered. So with the stereotype: if someone has already proved that all blondes are stupid, then why burn yourself? After all, it is known that it is easier to learn from the mistakes of others.
So what is a stereotype - evil or good? And yet, rather evil. The cliche’s problem is that they give us too simplified knowledge, as if they were dividing the world into black and white, but everyone who has already gone through the phase of youthful maximalism knows that this does not happen. By the way, not all teenagers are uncontrollable, rebellious creatures. A stereotype exists. Therefore, clichés harm the normal interaction of people, they are misleading regarding representatives of another social group. In addition, sometimes they are constraints to progress. After all, if you be sure that it is impossible to make money without start-up capital, then you should not try. That is why an individual who thinks with stereotypes is, as a rule, a person who is superficial, short-sighted, guided and incapable of his own opinion.
Yes, cliches save you from collecting unnecessary information, but they tie their hands, block mental, creative activity, play the role of the shell, which seems to be comfortable and safe, but behind it lies the whole world - you just need to break through.
