All people exist in a society in which certain norms of behavior have been developed. But often they flow into clichés called stereotypes. And in order to wallow in inertia, you need to know what stereotypes are.

Where do modern stereotypes come from?

Stereotypes are not the trend of the present time. They have always existed, because the public was just as eternal. But it is precisely under its influence that a tendency to averaging and simplifying appears. So it is easier for a person to predict his own behavior, so as not to get into trouble. And he begins to expect the same from other people, starting to think more limitedly.

What are the stereotypes?

It is quite difficult to clearly answer what stereotypes exist. After all, you can find a great many of them.

Scientists, when asked what stereotypes are, offer the following classification:

• positive;
• negative;
• generalized-simplified;
• approximate;
• accurate.

In addition, stereotypes are divided into social and ethnic. The first group is household stamps. These are, for example, ideas that a woman should be weak, that a man should not cry, that carbohydrate food is an absolute evil, etc. The second group is a stable image of a certain nationality. For example, the Japanese think that they are eternal workaholics, the French are obsessed with fashion, and so on.

stupid stereotypes

There are also frankly stupid clichés, the limitations of which everyone knows, but, nevertheless, continue to believe in them. This should include the myth that all blondes are fools, that in Russia everyone wears earflaps, etc. The opinion that everyone likes thin girls, which provoked a surge in anorexia, cannot be called anything other than stupid. And about inflated men, they often think that their intelligence is at an extremely low level, although this is often far from the case.

Below we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the works of the American photographer Joel Pares, which most eloquently show the work of the stereotypical. After all, we often give a hasty assessment of a person based on his appearance, nationality, gender, age, etc.

What are stereotypes? I think that these are some generalizations (generalizations) of certain human experience, and they arise due to the fact that we live in society. By the way, initially this concept came from ancient Greek and consisted of two words "solid" + "imprint". This was the name of a printing device in a printing house, and then this concept began to be used in relation to ways of thinking. After such an analysis of the origin of the meaning of the word - it already becomes extremely unpleasant! No, I agree that stable life positions are very important for personal development and just for a normal human life. But this is in the case when you have fully thought through them, realized and can even justify them. However, stereotypes are usually a rigid phenomenon, often very unconscious and, meanwhile, strong - a kind of rooted part of thinking. Stereotypes do not even need to be specially trained, unlike other knowledge.

Examples of stereotypes

Simple common examples: “A beautiful and interesting woman must already have a man”, “By the age of 25, every normal girl should already be married and have a baby”, “Men don’t cry”, “A man should be the first to ask for a date and declare his love” , "What is expensive is definitely better than what is cheaper", "Every normal person should go to work", etc. and. etc. You yourself can remember more than one or two such examples, and maybe even tell about cases from your life when you suffered from the influence of stereotypes. For example, if a girl is already about 30 years old, then she is probably tired of hearing from friends and not so, from close and distant questions on the topic: "When will the stork visit you?" Unfortunately, this happens all the time, affecting our lives in a variety of ways - someone gets married in a hurry, someone cannot get to know someone they like (because that person: “Too handsome / rich / old / young ...”), someone daily literally drags their feet to boring work - and all this in order to be like everyone else, to save themselves from bewildered conversations and glances. As a result, many people feel unhappy... In addition - if you do something that does not give you pleasure, but you cannot stop because you are afraid of judging others, then very soon you risk losing yourself among these others - Alas.

What can be recommended in order to get rid of the influence of stereotypes? Many psychologists will give very simple advice that at first glance seems complicated: “Be yourself!” What does it mean? It means to believe in yourself, trust the world, and instead of listening to others, do what you think is right (unless, of course, this is connected with something socially dangerous). Hear yourself, your needs, use creativity and, most importantly, be happy! An unhappy person is not able to develop, and without development there is no life. Therefore, discard all stereotypes that prevent you from being happy! Although, if you really want to, then leave a couple of useful ones - protecting you from something bad (if you are really sure that it is bad)

And, finally, I will add - take responsibility for your life already. to myself!

We live in a world full of stereotypes, we are constantly surrounded by “should”, “should not”, “what will people say?”, “not like people”. Stereotypes often limit our freedom. Sometimes we do things without even realizing whether we do it because we want to or because the society in which we live wants it.

It became interesting to me what this concept of “stereotype” generally means and when this word appeared. And this is what the Internet told me about this: “a stereotype is an established attitude to current events, developed on the basis of comparing them with internal ideals.” For the first time the concept of "stereotype" was introduced by the American journalist Walter Lippman in 1922. This is the date of the appearance of the term "stereotype", while the stereotypes themselves appeared much earlier.

The life of a stereotype can be measured in tens, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of years. With the development of society, stereotypes also change, some remain in the minds of people for a long time, others disappear without a trace and new ones appear in their place. In our seemingly modern world, there are stereotypes that were born hundreds of years ago.

Examples of modern stereotypes

"Women are the weaker sex". An example of a stereotype that was probably born along with humanity. It may have been so in the past, but now it is not always the case. With the fact that men are created physically stronger, no one argues. But in the modern world there are many examples of strong women who have to pull on their shoulders not only their children, but also their husbands (the stronger sex), and sometimes the whole country.

"All women want one thing - to get married". And no one ever wondered if the girls really want this or is this desire imposed on them by others? If a girl is over 25, and she is not yet married, then she has to hear: “Are you married? Not! And why? It is high time!". After such words, repeated every day, the girl has an invincible desire to get married.

And how many stereotypes associated with the wedding. “They didn’t play a wedding - rednecks”. Why is everyone supposed to get married? And if the bride and groom do not want this, because this is their holiday, and not relatives, friends and neighbors.

"After school to college". Yes, the institute gives a lot, but the institute, unfortunately, is not a guarantee of a successful life. In our life there are many examples of successful people who have never studied anywhere.

"Woman driving like a monkey with a grenade". This stereotype appeared when the first woman got behind the wheel. According to statistics, women are 12% more likely to be involved in road accidents than men. But men are 3 times more likely to be involved in fatal accidents, and the damage from “male” accidents is much greater.

"Beauty and intelligence in a woman are not compatible". I don’t know where this stereotype came from, but personally among my acquaintances there are many beautiful and at the same time smart girls. And it seems to me that these things are absolutely independent of each other, and, moreover, are not mutually exclusive.

It is very important to distinguish between your own desires and desires imposed by stereotypes. Because, obeying the latter, you can miss your happiness or lose your chance.

I would like to end this article with the words of Stephenie Meyer:

“Be that as it may, we all live in the power of stereotypes. And the more interesting it is when life gives us the opportunity to destroy them ... "

Every day of our lives, we listen to the people around us when their opinion on a particular problem is important to us. They share their emotions, feelings and experiences with us or simply answer our questions. And at the same time, we most often believe the words of others, although we understand that their judgments are subjective. In the same way, we try to extract information from newspapers and magazines, books and television programs. But this is how stereotypes are born: a certain level of knowledge is superimposed on a person's emotional attitude to some object or phenomenon. Moreover, we begin to encounter social stereotypes that become known through the media, family, friends, religion from childhood.

In psychology, social stereotypes are considered as stable and emotionally colored representations within a group of people, which together constitute a person's worldview. In other words, the stereotypes recognized by us are a kind of picture of the world, which consists of our interests, desires, habits. According to I. S. Kohn, “stereotyping consists in the fact that a complex individual phenomenon is mechanically brought under a simple formula or image that characterizes a class of such phenomena.”

Everything that surrounds a person is involuntarily compared with his inner ideals. That is why stereotypes can be positively or negatively colored, for example, “all children are pure in soul” and “women are more stupid than men”, respectively. All stereotypes reflect the peculiarities of perception and simplify the process of cognition of reality by individuals. But this reality in most cases is not objective, because a stereotype is a preconceived opinion. Then on what basis can we conclude whether the stereotype is a positive phenomenon or not?

For quite a long time, stereotypes were considered a negative social phenomenon, but today, the analysis takes into account not only their negative, but also positive features and consequences. The reason for this is that Western and domestic researchers have identified important functions of stereotypes that are implemented both at the group and at the individual level. These include the identification of groups, the formation and maintenance of their ideologies, and, of course, the simplification of thinking. It must be understood that the essence of a stereotype - positive or negative - depends on the current situation, since under some conditions a stereotype can be true, and under others - completely untrue. Stereotypes appear under the influence of certain circumstances, which can change at any time, and then prejudice will still exist for many years.

On the one hand, stereotypes often help a person to make a choice or make a decision that is necessary for him without any extra effort. Every person in modern society is sure that it is necessary to respect the elders, protect the little ones, help others. Such stereotypes have become norms of human behavior in society, rules, and no one thinks about why an educated person will behave in this way and not otherwise. But this is not the only manifestation of the good side of stereotypes. It can be quite difficult to give an adequate assessment of an event or social phenomenon about which there is no necessary information. Accordingly, when there is no opportunity to be based on their personal beliefs, people often resort to stereotypes already entrenched in society, the use of which does not require individual decisions and, as it were, removes responsibility from a particular person. It turns out that if they are true, stereotypes sometimes “save” us: accelerating the processes of cognition, they create the basis for the opinion that is formed in a person, help to predict the line of behavior of the people around.

On the other hand, a social stereotype based on false knowledge imposes a certain model of behavior, which may already be incorrect from the very beginning. We begin to involuntarily avoid public attention when we are constantly told: “Don’t stand out, you need to be like everyone else!” And the words “You will no longer be respected for this” sound completely threatening. This means that through stereotypes, one can mislead an individual or a group of people, manipulate them, which can lead to both personal failures and social disagreements and conflicts, fear, contempt, and discomfort. False stereotypes not only do not help to determine the correct life guidelines, but also set up a person with hostility towards other people: their race, nationality, appearance or lifestyle. Stereotypes do not reveal similarities between groups of people, but focus on their differences, as a result of which people are divided into "bad" and "good", "us" and others.

It turns out that the influence of stereotypes on a person can be extremely negative, and in fact most of them contain precisely false knowledge and become prejudices. Suffice it to recall such stereotypes as "a smart woman cannot be happy in her personal life", "all the French are arrogant and illegible" or "all children are good when they sleep with their teeth against the wall." These judgments are easy to believe, however, they impose on us false ideas about different groups of people.

For example, gender stereotypes are already so firmly entrenched in the minds of people that today men and women are assigned certain social roles, which makes gender equality almost impossible. From almost every man you can hear that women do not know how to drive, they are poorly versed in technology, politics, and the only thing they do in the best way is housekeeping and raising children. And at the same time, few people think that among women there are truckers, and programmers, and politicians, and men often cook well and take care of children. You can recall another stereotype: "women only need money from men." Guided by this social stereotype, some men perceive women as illusory, that is, they do not try to understand what their loved one really wants. They do not say warm and affectionate words to them, do not show concern, preferring material things to all this as a means of expressing their feelings. The words "I love you" or "I'm sorry" are often replaced with gifts. But gold and diamonds are far from the only thing women want. And sooner or later, any woman can get tired of relationships and end them, despite the numerous gifts from the man. It turns out that such a social stereotype can have a very detrimental effect: when an image is “tried on” for a certain person, the opportunity to discern individuality in it, to understand the desires and needs of this person disappears, which means that such a stereotype does not allow building relationships or maintaining them.

All of the above allows us to conclude that social stereotypes play a significant role in the life of a modern person. An infinite number of examples of the influence of stereotypes on modern man can be cited. However, it is impossible to give an unambiguous assessment of this phenomenon. As a positive phenomenon, a true stereotype structures certain knowledge, which can be important and sometimes even necessary in order to understand the current situation. False stereotypes, directing our behavior, in many ways program us to destroy communication and understanding with other people that have not yet been established. And at the same time, society will never be able to get rid of all stereotypes and prejudices, since a person is not physically able to carefully think over and weigh each of his decisions or actions every time. The negative influence of stereotypes can only be weakened by acquired experience and acquired knowledge. If a person tries to check the information received from the outside about something, and does not believe everything he hears or reads at the same moment and does not draw unfounded conclusions, he may well limit this influence, which means turning stereotypes into positive phenomena for himself, extracting from the contained they have a certain amount of knowledge usefulness.

Bibliography:
1. Ageev V.S. Psychological study of social stereotypes // Questions of psychology. - 1996. - No. 1. 95s.
2. Kon I.S. "Sociology of Youth" In the book: "A Brief Dictionary of Sociology" - M. - 1988. - 164 p.

Although some perceive this as discrimination, there is some kind of established opinion about almost all nations. Often, it is erroneous, with only a small fraction of the truth. But this opinion has spread so widely all over the world that it has become an inveterate stereotype, according to which I perceive the whole country and its culture.

There are an incredible number of such stereotypes about different nationalities. Where they come from remains a mystery. But over time, these stereotypes turn not only into jokes and anecdotes, but become the hallmark of the entire nation. We offer you to get acquainted with some of the most common stereotypes about various nations.

1. Mandatory tea break

The tradition of drinking tea at five o'clock, despite all the worries and work, is perhaps the main stereotype that exists about the British. But this sweet tradition, today, is dead for 99% of the British.

Due to daily problems, work and other important things, they simply do not have time for such luxuries. The tea tradition has always been more popular among the aristocratic segments of the population. Perhaps they still have preserved in their original form the ancient tradition of the “tea schedule”. In general, the British drink no more tea than any other nation in the world.

But as far as milk is concerned, this is a very real stereotype. In all cafes, restaurants, houses, if you ask for tea, it will be served with milk. So, if you prefer a regular drink, you need to warn in advance.

2. All English people are very polite

Politeness is the main feature of the entire English nation. And this is not a stereotype, but a reality. But their politeness comes not from benevolence, but from incredible restraint. The British cannot openly show their feelings, because of this they have more complexes than all other nationalities. First of all, public opinion obliges them to be polite. In their hearts, they may hate you, despise you, love you, but they will never show it.

3. England - a country of eternal fog

Although the weather in England is not always perfect, this stereotype is completely false. Probably, it was imposed on us by films about Sherlock Holmes.

But what the British like to say about the weather is true. They use the topic of the weather as a sign that they are interested in you and want to continue the conversation. In addition, this is one of the few topics where controversy can be avoided. And the British hate conflicts and try their best to avoid them.

4. Hindus are poor, stupid and unscrupulous

This stereotype arose because of the difficult history of India, which included many years of slavery and disregard for human rights. And although today most of the Indians live very poorly, the level of development of the country is increasing every year.

India's economy is developing so rapidly that the country is already a leader in the manufacture of medicines and software, as well as in the film industry. So do not believe that Indians are stupid and have no education.

Apart from the homeless and very poor people, Hindus are very clean when it comes to themselves or their housing. But they don’t worry about cleanliness on the street, so they have garbage everywhere and it stinks terribly.

5. Americans are the dumbest nation

All other nations like to feed this stereotype, justifying the low level of education in America.

They can’t download a thesis from the Internet and have to write it for years, you can’t write off a test, and for failing exams, they can easily be expelled from an educational institution. American education is devoid of most unnecessary subjects. Because of this simplification, many people think that Americans are stupid.

But in fact, they receive only the information that can really be applied in real life. As a result, children who know what cotangent is and write calligraphically cannot always realize themselves in life. But "stupid" Americans rank first in the world for the number of scientific discoveries. In addition, in the entire history of the existence of the Nobel Prize, 326 Americans have received it.

6. Americans are obsessed with fast food, which is why they are overweight.

Sadly, Americans actually rank first in the world for obesity. But most of these people are not natives, but immigrants or their children (Hispanics and African Americans).

Most Native Americans are obsessed with healthy eating and sports. The addiction to fast food is experienced by visitors who go to America for work and do not have time to cook. Moreover, fast food is not cheap, and Americans prefer not to spend their money on it.

7. Italians only eat pasta.

Macaroni, or as they are called - pasta, is considered a national dish in Italy. The skill of its preparation is so high that ordinary strips of dough turn into a culinary masterpiece under Italian sauce.

But Italians don't eat pasta every day. They replace it with rice with vegetables, soups and many other foods. Since Italians tend to be overweight, they simply cannot afford to eat a lot of starchy foods every day.

8. Italian families are the biggest

Once upon a time, a really ordinary Italian family consisted of at least 7 children. Now the Italians are subject to the European tradition - to have children after thirty years. Because of this, in Italy, the problem of fertility and population decline is in the first place.

9. German girls are very ugly.

This is a very common stereotype. In contrast to our always smart girl, the Germans are dressed simply, modestly, but comfortably. They are not trying to stand out from the others and look like a prince will appear in front of her at any moment.

Young people, as in other countries of the world, follow fashion trends and choose stylish clothes for themselves. But older girls who are busy with work prefer to spend money on recreation and useful things rather than cosmetics and outfits.

10. Russians drink vodka for breakfast and dinner.

The main stereotype about Russians, after bears on the street, is vodka. Everyone drinks it, both children and adults. with or without, morning, afternoon and dinner.

It's all ridiculous, but Russia actually ranks first in alcoholism in the world. Most drink only the poor or people in the villages. Although young people are increasingly adopting this tradition from adults.

11. Ukrainians do not eat anything but fat

Until recently, the main stereotype about Ukraine was that no one knew where it was. But since this nuance was corrected, we were glorified by the tradition - there is fat three times a day. Perhaps this was the case in the past, because in the villages the peasants always kept pigs. But now, most young people are in favor of a healthy lifestyle and even vegetarianism. So lard is a rare luxury at the dinner table.

12. Every Spaniard Can Dance Flamenco

This stereotype is imposed on us by films. Not every Spaniard knows how to dance it. Besides, flamenco is not the only popular dance in Spain. Each region of the country is famous for its special dance: chotis, muneira, sardana and others.

13. The main spectacle of Spain is bullfighting

This is another stereotype inspired by romantic films about Spain. Now bullfighting is banned in most regions of the country. It is opposed by both animal welfare organizations and human rights activists.

14. The daily food of the Japanese is sushi

This is another false stereotype. Perhaps sushi is the only popular Japanese dish in our country. But the Japanese in everyday life eat more rice, vegetables, soups, fish and meat.

15. French women are always feminine and stylish.

Since Paris is considered the center of world fashion, it seems to many that Parisians even go to the store in tight dresses, high heels, with red lipstick on their lips.

In fact, the French, like all Europeans, dress modestly, and most importantly, comfortably. Girls, for the most part, wear jeans and sweaters. But what they are very attentive to is makeup. It should always be light, without defiant excesses, and emphasize beauty.