Stereotypes and Cultural Differences

Sep 23, 2011
Dolores Bundy

World Crossroads - worldcrossroads.jpg

An understanding of socio-cultural differences will likely be the key to eliminating stereotypes. No one person is exactly like another person. . .

One of the biggest challenges we face today is the understanding of socio-cultural differences. This diversity will likely be the key to eliminating stereotypes; through cross-cultural contact, the understanding of differences can emerge. We realize that in its purest form there is no such thing as stereotypes; no one person is exactly like another person and no individual is a carbon copy of another member of a group.

However, while cultural diversity provides different ways of thinking, ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world, beyond local and nationalistic perspectives, interacting with people from different cultures can be problematic requiring a solid understanding of how others values, attitudes, behaviors and communication styles differ.

When interacting with someone from another culture, understanding the norms of that culture is essential and enhanced communication skill is required. Unfortunately the stereotypes associated within cross-cultural generalizations among African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latin-Americans, leaves strong impressions and affects perceptions, particularly when accepting stereotypes as truths.

The African American Stereotype

Among most Americans, social identities differ between people within any given nation or culture, which is generally much greater than the differences between groups. Education, social standing, religion, personality, belief structure, past experience, and a myriad of other factors affect human behavior and culture. This is clearly seen within the African American community; there are historically many negative stereotypes. The main perpetrators of the African American stereotypes are of American origin dating back to the years of slavery. African American stereotypes include language such as servile, primitive and simple-minded. These stereotypes have created negative stigmas for African Americans and since have been upgraded and unfortunately expanded.

The current African American stereotypes include criminal, poor, athletic, religious and musically gifted. These stereotypes are mostly used to reinforce the negative perceptions people have of African Americans and are most damaging to young African Americans. When young people grow up under the stigma of negative stereotypes, it brings about what psychologists refer to as the self-fulfilling prophecy . Therefore, although some African American stereotypes are positive, these hasty generalizations perpetuate a practice that is predominately incorrect and can promote negative cultural differences.

The Asian American Stereotype

Asian-Americans and cross-cultural observations can also be easily tainted and contaminated by many stereotypical factors. Negatively perceived status differences can create barriers between cultures. As many social scientists have noted, there are two primary stereotypes that continue to affect Asian Americans. One is that all Asian Americans are the same That is, many people are either unable or unwilling to distinguish between different Asian ethnicities—Korean American from a Japanese American, Filipino American from an Indonesian American, etc. This becomes a problem when people generalize certain beliefs or stereotypes about one or a few Asian Americans to the entire Asian American population. The result is that important differences between Asian ethnic groups are minimized or ignored altogether.

The second stereotype is that all Asian Americans are foreigners. Although more than half of all Asians in America were born outside the United States, many non-Asians simply assume that every Asian they see, meet, or hear about is a foreigner. Many can’t recognize that many Asian American families have been American citizens for several generations. As a result, it becomes easier to think of Asian Americans as not fully American and then to deny them the same rights that other Americans take for granted. This amounts to prejudice and discrimination in many forms.

The Latin American Stereotype

The Latin American stereotype has also gone through many different variations, but none so demeaning as the newest stereotypical claims that all Latin Americans are in America illegally, will work for less, do not require insurance on the job, and came here to steal American jobs. Latin-Americans, according to studies cited, by scientific observer Michael Argyle, Bodily Communication (1988), state that several studies on non-verbal communications and culture noted that because of theses stereotypical stressors, Latin Americans touch more when they speak, make stronger eye contact, live in closer proximity and live together in greater numbers, just to seek assurance from each other.

According to the ongoing immigration debate, which typically allows another way to attack the Latin American people with negative stereotypes, Hispanic people were originally drug dealers, immigrants who did not know any English and crossed the border illegally to take construction workers jobs and custodian jobs from Americans. These generalizations are dangerous, especially when accompanied by the belief that if the negative stereotype is true, the negative outcome must also be true.

Inaccuracies in Reasoning

Stereotypes contaminate reasoning. Although some arguments may appear to have a sound conclusion and should be accepted, we cannot legitimately assume what we seek to prove. To assume what we wish to establish is a inaccuracy in reasoning, a construct of fallacies, and often manifests in stereotypes. Political correctness aside, there are many assumptions about people in relation to their racial backgrounds.

Stereotypes can be found for every race and ethnicity. In fact, notwithstanding any prejudicial purposes, stereotypes commonly are simple truths usually relating to a few folks that are generalized and applied most often to a whole category of people. While racial stereotyping has at times proved to be hurtful and oppressive, taken in a lighter vein, stereotyping has also proved to be the source for a good deal of satire and humor. With this in mind, we begin to move away from stereotyping with the understanding that not one of us is exactly like another one of us and no individual is a carbon copy of another member of a particular group.