A stereotype is a expectation or belief many people have about a thing or group, based upon how they look on the outside. It may be untrue or only partly true. Stereotype happen when people are being categorized unfairly, and then judged by ignorance and ill-founded knowledge.
Stereotyping affects communication in several ways.
False Assumption
Stereotyping may lead to inaccurate assumption and misunderstanding. For example, I assume all Indian can take spicy food. I bought an Indian friend to a Indian restaurant to celebrate his birthday. But when we arrive at the Indian restaurant, my Indian friend says he can’t take spicy food. Luckily, the Indian restaurant has some non-spicy dishes or else it will be very awkward and left a bad impression about me.
Fear of appearing ignorant & Egocentric
Another stereotype is being a leader needs to know or do everything, being dominant and must be a male. It can promote fear of appearing ignorant , egocentric and close off leadership to female. The fear of appearing ignorant forces the leader to give an answer even through it is the wrong one. Another example, when his teammate figure out the leader’s instructions are incorrect. He tried to explain, but the leader brush him off out of embarrassment and fear others views him as incompetent. The leader is shows signs of egocentric behavior. He is focusing on his own perception and opinion, inability to recognize needs of others, worry of how others might view them.
Passive listening
Passive listening is when a person doesn’t focuses 100% on what is said; he only keeps the general track of it. After the leader brushes his teammate off, he issues new instructions to his teammates. His teammate just react by nodding his head to acknowledge the leader’s instruction. This is due to the teammate is annoyed by the leader’s remark on his explanation.
Stereotype prevent the completion of an objective and distort the original intent to convey from sender to the receiving party. For my Indian friend case, I’m unable to convey my well wishes to celebrate his birthday and well bring. While the leader believe in the stereotype, is unable to fulfill his purpose by leading and motivating others.
My past experience with stereotype
When I was working as an IT Support. It was stressful as I have to be able to resolve different types of computer related problems, sometimes even IT Support themselves. For problem, we are not able to solve we need to explain why to our users and supervisor. Sometimes we get scolded because we can’t fix the computer on time as we delayed user’s work to be completed.
Working as the IT Support, we are expected to knows everything about IT, able to solve PC issues within a few working days. However this expectation is not realistic, I realized that everyone including me would stereotype people unintentionally. It is important to know that stereotypes can go both ways, but how you deal with it would affect the communication with the individual.
What are the implications of such events occurring in your social life?
It will have an implication on our social life as we will put a distance or a defensive barrier between ourselves and those people who are stereotyped, this does not allow us to know more about them or understand them. We may end up offending others and cast an bad impression upon ourselves. Individual performance may be affected adversely, knowing being judged could adversely affect my confidence and concentration, and with that my overall performance.
References
Leonard, K. (2018, November 5). How Does Stereotyping Affect the Workplace Environment? Retrieved January 31, 2020, from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/stereotyping-affect-workplace-environment-78286.html
Stereotypes Communication – Eric: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1065727.pdf
Stereotype: Definitions and Examples. (2017, September 16). Retrieved from https://literaryterms.net/stereotype/
Clarke, J. (2019, June 29). Do You Have an Egocentric Person in Your Life? Look for These Signs. Retrieved January 29, 2020, from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-egocentric-4164279
James's Blog 
3 replies on “Stereotype”
Hi James. I like how you linked back to the other Business Communications topics, particularly on psychological barriers to effective communication. I also have to admit, that I have fallen into the trap, of making false assumptions of others, which has led to many an awkward situation. However, I feel that you could have elaborated more on your past experience in IT. For example, other stereotypes you encountered and how you and your peers managed it. Also, adding a few images could help enhance some of your points and explanations. Anyway, good job and I am looking forward to reading your next post.
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Hello James!
I like how you have stated a few specific examples on how stereotypes can affect the way of communication. However, i feel like you could have added more pictures in the post to show what your point is trying to mean as it felt quite plain just reading words. Look forward to reading your next post! Keep up the good work!
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Hey James! Reading about your take on stereotype is interesting. Everybody have different ways to describe and give examples on stereotype, so I think that it is also something they came across before or something they experienced. The way you explain about stereotypes are interesting and not something I can think of. I totally agree with your experience and storyboard, people tend to stereotype those that work in the IT industry as people that can fix anything related to technology. Your blog was overall very pleasant to read. Your conclusion is short and direct. It goes straight to the point instead of lots of explanation which is good. Thank you so much for sharing with us your thoughts! Will be looking forward to your next post!
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