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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Stereotypes summarize
information about
various groupsMost people have been victims of stereotypes. Others put them into a category such as Anglo male, Japanese-American, Republican, or athlete on scholarship.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Then these others use information from the stereotype in making judgments. When people are the targets of stereotypes, others do not make efforts to move beyond group labels and to treat people as individuals. People complain that their unique qualities are being ignored when others treat them according to some label. Further, people may not agree that a certain imposed category label is at all applicable to them.
When I give talks in the community about workplace behavior in Hawaii, issues surrounding stereotypes are frequently the topic of questions. Many people do not like to hear discussions of ethnic groups in Hawaii that are based on stereotypes. They sometimes ask me how stereotypes can be eliminated. While I agree with them about the overly frequent use of stereotypes, I have to point out that attempts to eliminate them would be like tilting with windmills.
Stereotypes are a special type of category, and people need categories to organize the thousands of specific pieces of information that they have in their memories. Examples of categories include edible foods, criteria of effective schools, good workplace conditions, and interesting leisure time activities. When faced with a new piece of information, people use their existing categories. If a new food resembles something that people have enjoyed in the past, they might eat it. When faced with a new job offer, they can consult their category that summarizes information and preferences concerning attractive working conditions. Using their existing categories, people do not have to do extensive original research on each new piece of information. Even if people had the inclination for such research, they often do not have the time.
Stereotypes are categories about groups of people. We could use the phrase "people category," but "stereotype" is a 20th century term that has entered the English language and achieved widespread use. When others meet people for the first time, they don't have to do the long and hard work of getting to know the people as individuals.
Rather, they can assign stereotypes based on readily available information. People's physical appearance leads to guesses about their ethnic group.
Their language use gives clues about their socioeconomic background. If they mention a few things about themselves during early encounters, such as their political affiliation, additional stereotypical information becomes available.
Stereotypes cannot be eliminated but decision-making based on group characteristics and images can be countered. If people know about stereotypes, they can resist the temptation to use them when thinking about an individual whom they have just met
They can remind themselves that they should seek out information about a person's unique qualities and should not depend on facile and often erroneous generalizations.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of
human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount
of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and
it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as
people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration,
University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the
College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu
