For a successful collaboration and equality in business, barriers and stereotypes must be removed. Professional and gender role models are anchored in the mindset at a very early stage and can often only be revised with great effort. The video gives a good insight into what this means:
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Stereotypes occur whenever we meet people
A stereotype helps to simplify a view and thus enables quick decision-making. In itself, a stereotype does not necessarily mean something negative. However, it usually leads to judgments being added. It is difficult to overcome preconceived thinking, which is why stereotypes can have lasting consequences.
A predominantly rigid conception of people or groups present in society happen based on certain characteristics such as:
- Age
- Ethnicity
- Hairstyle
- Gender
- Skin color
- Clothes
- Behavior
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Stereotypes and prejudices: Differences
Stereotypes are generally described as „opinions“. If these opinions are not constantly reconsidered and revised, prejudices arise. Prejudices, unlike stereotypes, are accompanied by emotions and have a judgmental component. Prejudices are powerful. They are neither funny nor harmless. Confronting them is necessary to make them less influential in an individual’s decisions and behavior.
Stereotypes are based on unconscious and almost automatic categorization. That is, through compartmentalization, people are sorted into certain boxes, each of which stands for different characteristics. Stereotypes may well contain neutral or positive evaluations.
Prejudices on the other hand, are based on stereotypes. There are certain characteristics that are negatively evaluated by a person. Prejudices thus express a general attitude.
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Stereotypical thinking can block careers
What starts as a harmless simplification sometimes ends up as a merciless generalization which can become a career blocker. Three areas can be identified that are particularly confronted with stereotypes in professional life: Gender, origin, names
Gender stereotypes; while men are seen as active, strong and assertive, women are seen as emotional, dependent and empathetic. The problem with such stereotypes is primarily when the person does not fulfill their role as expected. If a woman does not show the anticipated empathy, she is automatically perceived as a deviant. And what is perceived as opinionated in a man is interpreted as bitchy in a woman.
Professional disadvantages due to stereotypes also affect migrants or people with first names that sound foreign or evoke negative associations. Even today, people with a migration background are initially met with skepticism.
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Overcoming stereotypes: Is it possible?
Science knows that already from about three years children start to divide into groups. The typical characteristics are then skin color, hair color or gender. And the group to which one belongs is always judged a little better – because it is familiar to one.
Psychologists were able to demonstrate this phenomenon in the brain scanner: Test subjects were shown members of their own group as well as people of other ethnicities. The region of the brain associated with fear and flight, the amygdala, was strongly activated in the case of strangers, but significantly calmer in the case of members of the same group.
Stereotypes are apparently biologically favored. Therefore, the question arises whether they are an inevitable concomitant of all human perception or whether they can be individually controlled.
There is no general answer to this question. The fact is that every individual is familiar with the stereotypes that exist in his or her culture. Whether this gives rise to prejudice or even discrimination depends very much on the individual.
What you can do:
Engage in conversations. Stereotypes arise because of a wide variety of characteristics – even facial expressions contribute to them. Angela Merkel is often said to be in a bad mood because of slightly drooping mouth corners. Such hasty judgments are absurd, but common. So before you simply categorize a person, ask….
Gather experience. You think all Eastern Europeans steal cars? Then you should meet some in person. Of course, the same applies to all other clichés and stereotypes. Travel educates. It promotes intercultural competence and helps to break down such stereotypes, because you will discover with increasing experience that no group and no nation is a homogeneous mass.
Acquire knowledge. If you can’t travel, your stereotypes can be tested by reading. Of course, it depends on the selection. There is such a thing as a self-reinforcing effect. Stereotypes and prejudices contribute to a certain search for information that fits one’s own scheme. For example, people who get their knowledge exclusively from hate sites will learn little that is new, but rather feel confirmed in their views.
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Discuss with us and break the stereotypes
We bridge gaps, break stereotypes and unleash digital leadership. Get the resources you need to grow as individual, develop inclusion that sparks innovation and/or be a true influencer in our next discussion. Join us here: https://inunita.mn.co
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Sources: Bild Pexels, KarriereB, Education Employers, INUNITA
