Acquiring Stereotypes
We are surrounded by stereotypes, and they seem to endure. Why? One way to
understand the power and lasting impact of stereotypes is to examine how they are
acquired. Like culture, stereotypes are learned, and they are learned in a variety of
ways. The most obvious and probably the most important source is the socialization
process, which begins in the home during childhood. Although many parents
actively work to avoid teaching their children to think about things in a stereotypi-
cal manner, often they may directly or indirectly promote a stereotype classifica-
tion.^17 A child who overhears a family member say,“All those illegal immigrants
are taking our jobs,”is learning a stereotype. The socialization process continues
when a child enters school and begins to hear stereotype categorizations from their
peers. Religious and social organizations are also sources of stereotype learning.
These groups, although teaching the virtues of a particular point of view, might
intentionally or unintentionally impart stereotypes about an opposite view. For
example, by learning one specific view of religion and at the same time hearing of
the“evils of Islamic-based religious terrorists,”children might acquire stereotypes
about all Muslims.
Many stereotypes are generated by mass media and widely disseminated through a
variety of formats, such as advertisements, talk shows, movies, television sitcoms, soap
operas, and reality shows. Television has been guilty of providing distorted images of
many ethnic groups, the elderly, and the gay community, as well as others. Media
have also played a role in creating and perpetuating certain stereotypical perceptions
of women and men. Wood offers an excellent summary of television’s portrayal of
men and women:“Media most often represents boys and men as active, adventurous,
powerful, sexually aggressive, and largely uninvolved in human relationships, and
represents girls and women as young, thin, beautiful, passive, dependent, and often
incompetent.”^18 When the media highlight incidents of crime committed by illegal
immigrants or a specific ethnic group, an image is created that all immigrants or mem-
bers of that ethnic group are engaged in criminal activities. In other words, a series of
isolated behaviors by a few members of a group unfairly creates a generalized percep-
tion that is applied to all members of that group. Stereotypes can also evolve out of
fear of the unknown. People from groups that differ from one’s own and who dress
differently, speak another language, practice an unfamiliar religion, and celebrate hol-
idays different from the mainstream population can easily become targets of suspicion
and derision.Stereotypes and Intercultural Communication
Generally speaking, most stereotypes are the product of limited, lazy, misguided, and
erroneous perceptions. These misperceptions can become the source of numerous and
quite serious problems when brought into intercultural interaction. Adler points out
the detrimental effect that stereotypes can have on intercultural communication:
Stereotypes become counterproductive when we place people in the wrong groups, when
we incorrectly describe the group norm, when we evaluate the group rather than simply
describing it, when we confuse the stereotype with the description of a particular individual,
and when we fail to modify the stereotype based on our actual observations and
experience.^19390 CHAPTER 11• The Challenges of Intercultural Communication: Managing Differences
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