What is a stereotype and whether it is necessary to get rid of it

A person can not exist outside society - this fact has long been proven. And this means that throughout life people have to constantly face each other: with parents, classmates, colleagues and even passengers of minibuses. To simplify the process of perceiving others, a person displays different classifications. Sometimes they are objective, when the basis is sex, age, profession, nationality. However, excessive systematization of people conceals the danger of clichéing thinking, when the personality characteristics begin to be attributed to a person only on the grounds that he falls into one or another social group.

What is a stereotype?

Initially, stereotypes were called topographical printed forms for repeated repetition of the text. Actually, in translation from Greek, "stereos" means "hard", and "topos" means "imprint". However, at the beginning of the 20th century this word received a different, broader meaning. For the first time, what is a stereotype from the point of view of thinking, perception and behavior of a person, said W. Lippman - a journalist and political observer. It was he who established that there are stable ideas about the behavior, cultural characteristics of various social groups, distributed to all its representatives.

A kind of picture that appears in the human brain. In this case, 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 for the occasion or calls out 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, the individual drives a whole social group into one sentence. At the same time, more often considering that it is against his own cliche that they do not work, that he is the "white crow".

Types of stereotypes

There is a huge variety of cliches. For example, stereotypes based on age division look like this: young people are ill-mannered, do not want to study, work, do not respect the elders. Usually after this it follows: "But in our time ...". Familiar? But the first such statements were voiced in ancient times. And each generation again and again utters the same words to address their successors. On the other hand, do not the young people of the old people consider grumpy conservatives who are not able to cope with progress? And everyone can not point a finger at the grandmother dressed in the latest fashion? It's not supposed to be!

It is known to everyone about what a stereotype is based on gender. "All the women do .., all the men to ..."! Who does not know this "truthful" statement? However, there are gender stereotypes that impose social roles on us : the man is an earner who must earn a lot of money. The woman's place is in the kitchen, her mission is to give birth to children and indulge her husband. The girl has nothing to do in the garage, a man has no right to embroider a cross ... Those who go against stereotypes often face a certain malice: you will not cook cutlets for your husband-he will leave you. The fact that the husband, maybe, and cutlet does not like, and he knows how to cook, usually does not think. Because to live by stereotypes is more convenient and habitual.

And here are examples of religious stereotypes: Islam is the religion of terror, Christianity is mercy, forgiveness. In this case, medieval crusades are often forgotten . Needless to say, any belief that differs from the generally accepted one is immediately perceived as a sect.

No less popular are the national cliches: the Russians are drunkards, the Germans are racists, the Americans are down to earth (yes, that's the "stupid-ee!"). And there are stereotypes and on a professional basis. Locksmith? So he drinks! The bookkeeper deceives with taxes ... and generally deceives. The janitor invariably curses. A housewife, especially if she was in the decree, must necessarily "stupefy" and "bewitched," and God forbid she does not like TV shows! But there are thousands of such examples! Although in everyday life we do not even suspect how stereotypes took over our thinking. But why are there such approving cliches?

The benefits and disadvantages of cliches

Stereotypes are by no means useless and arose, of course, not from scratch. Their undoubted advantage is that they allow less strain, do not spend mental forces on learning new information. For example, when Pythagoras' theorem has already been deduced for you for a long time, you only need to learn it, but do not reopen it. So with the stereotype: if someone has already proved that all blondes are silly, then why burn? It is known that it is easier to learn from other people's mistakes.

So what is a stereotype - is it evil or good? And yet, rather evil. The problem of the cliche is that they give us too simplistic knowledge, as if they divide the world into black and white, but everyone who has already passed the phase of youthful maximalism knows that this does not happen. By the way, not all teenagers are uncontrollable, mutinous creatures. A stereotype exists. Therefore, the cliche is harmed by the normal interaction of people, they are misleading concerning representatives of another social group. In addition, sometimes they are limiters of progress. After all, if you are sure that you can not earn without starting capital, then you should not try. That is why an individual thinking of stereotypes is, as a rule, a superficial person, narrow-minded, driven and incapable of his own opinion.

Yes, clichés are saved from collecting unnecessary information, but they also bind hands, block thinking and creative activity, play the role of a shell, which, like, is comfortable and safe, but there is a whole world behind it - you just need to break through.