Ethnocentrism & Stereotypes

What would you think about these people???

Ethnocentrism the tendency to view the world through one’s own cultural filters everyone in the world is ethnocentric everyone learns a certain way of behaving, and in doing so learns a certain way of perceiving and interpreting the behaviors of others This way of perceiving and making interpretations about others is a normal consequence of growing up in society ethnocentrism per se is neither bad nor good It reflects the state of affairs—that we all have our cultural filters on when we perceive others.

Ethnocentrism as a consequence of Socialization & Enculturation As we grow up, we learn about rules and norms We also learn how to perceive others, how to interpret the behaviors of others, and how to make judgments of those behaviors Because we share a set of rules with a certain group of people, we develop a set of expectations about the kinds of behaviors people should exhibit.

Culture exists in each and every individual as a set of psychological rules, attitudes, values, and beliefs, and strong associations exist between those rules and our emotions and judgments of morality and personality.

Flexible ethnocentrism: to learn about others’ ethnocentrism Inflexible ethnocentrism: to view others using our own ethnocentrism

Stereotypes Stereotypes are generalized images that we have about groups of people, particularly about their underlying psychological characteristics or personality traits

Characteristics of Stereotypes Stereotypes can be either positive or negative. For example, a common positive stereotype is that Asians are hardworking, the “model minority.” Another positive stereotype is that Germans are industrious and scientifically minded. Stereotypes can be generally true or completely false. Stereotypes based on some degree of “factual” observation are called sociotypes but stereotypes can also be totally baseless. People hold stereotypes about their own groups as well as about other groups. Stereotypes about one’s own group are called autostereotypes; stereotypes about other groups are called heterostereotypes.

Development of stereotypes Selective attention Selective attention refers to the process by which we filter out many of the stimuli that bombard our senses, thus receiving a more meaningful, finite amount of information that we can then process.

Appraisal Refers to the process by which we evaluate the relevance of stimuli in terms of their meaning to our lives. On the basis of the appraisal process, we have emotional reactions, then make decisions concerning appropriate behavioral responses. The process of appraisal is relevant to stereotypes because it provides a psychological mechanism by which we actively operate on incoming stimuli and process them in terms of their meaning to us.

Concept formation and categorization It provides us with a way to organize the diversity of the world around us into a finite number of categories. Those categories, in turn, are based on particular properties of the objects that we perceiveor deem to be similar in some psychologically meaningful way. Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986)

Attribution Refers to the process by which we infer the causes of our own and other people’s behavior. For instance, in a study of junior high school students, girls were less likely than boys to attribute their academic success to high ability, but were morelikely than boys to attribute failure to low ability (Stipek & Gralinski, 1991). These attributions could reinforce the stereotypes these adolescents have aboutappropriate gender roles and expectations.

Emotions Emotions are important motivators of our behaviors, telling us to run when we are afraid and fight when we are angry. Emotions are important readout devices (Buck, 1984), telling us how we are interpreting the events and situations around us at a moment’s notice. Emotions are also important interpersonal markers, informing us about the status of our relationships with others.

Memory refers to our ability to remember past events, actions, people, objects, situations, learned skills, and so forth. It also refers to how we store such information. Semantic memory is a special type of long-term memory for rules, ideas, and general concepts about the world, including other people; it is usually based on generalizations or images about events, experiences, and learned knowledge. Semantic memory can also be based on verbal knowledge communicated from one person to the next without any basis in actual experience or interaction with the target of the memory. It refers to knowledge that is gathered over a long period of time and continually modified or reinforced as the individual engages with related facts, events, or experiences.