Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Interpersonal and Intergroup Relations

Kamalova Oksana Maksimovna Student at the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Moscow 117198, Russia, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 9, building 4 mak-kom25@mail.ru Other publications by this author

In order to learn about the world around us and observe the rules of behavior in society, a person is daily confronted with stereotypes in interpersonal and intergroup interaction, which in turn affect the successful activity of a person and guarantee stability in the development of relationships. Stereotypes are an integral property of the human psyche having an objective nature, which is formed on the basis of generalized ideas about events and facts of previous life experience.

Domestic and foreign scientists such as V.S. Ageev, G.M. Andreeva, V. Duaz, A.A. Bodalev, U. Lippman, G. Teshfel, T. Shibutani, V.A. Yadov and other scientists conducted research in the field of studying the peculiarities of the emergence, functioning and disappearance of stereotypes.

According to W. Lippman, a stereotype is a preconceived idea of the objects and phenomena of reality, consisting of one's own life experience arising on the basis of an indirect perception of a person. In addition, stereotypes are ordered, schematic, culture-determined "pictures of the world in a person's head that save his efforts in perceiving complex social objects and protect his values, positions and rights" ^{[6, p. 95]}.

G. Teschfel understands stereotypes as the perception of people, their group affiliation and believes that changing stereotypes is possible only through changing intergroup relations ^{[7, p. 122]}.

According to V. Doise, there are four levels of development of stereotypes:

1.        Individual psychological representations of a person about their social environment;

2.        Representations are social education that develop in a situation of interpersonal interaction.

2. 3. Collective representations are social formations that are formed in an intergroup relationship. The social stereotype originates and functions precisely at this level.

2. 4. The highest level is ideology, which develops under the influence of certain historical conditions of a given society. The upper level determines the underlying ones ^{[3, p. 244]}.

V.S. Ageev notes that the undifferentiated idea of the social and psychological functions of a social stereotype is due to a mixture of levels of scientific analysis, which leads to an unambiguously negative assessment of social stereotypes as a phenomenon not only of a social, but also of a psychological nature. The content of intergroup representations reflects part of the objective characteristics of the group's position in the immediate social environment ^{[1, p. 56]}.

The need to replace destructive, negative stereotypes with those that would not activate intergroup aggression and would not hinder the establishment of relationships on the use of compromise strategies in decision-making, and thus "protected" from stereotypes, i.e. did not eliminate stereotypes, but replaced them with constructive and loyal ones, G.M. points out in his works. Andreeva ^{[3, p. 274]}.

In the process of people's cognition of each other, stereotypes lead to a simplification of the process of cognition and are a simplified approach to human cognition of the world based on previous social experience and represent a picture of social reality. In addition, they carry out a protective function that facilitates the interaction processes.

Stereotypes can be divided into positive and negative:

Positive stereotypes are based on the life experience of previous generations, which help to accelerate a person's perception of the surrounding world formed on social values. Most often, positive stereotypes are aimed at socially useful values and perform positive functions that support interpersonal and intergroup relations.

Negative stereotypes are irrational components of individual and social consciousness that form false knowledge and have a negative impact on the knowledge of the surrounding world by a person. Stereotypes with negative coloring lead a person astray and to the emergence of prejudices leading to certain behavior, in addition, they have a negative impact on the psychological state of a person: mood, emotional state, attitudes, expectations. 

The emergence of stereotypes in interpersonal and intergroup relations have an impact on the formation of a person's beliefs in various spheres of his life. So, in interpersonal relationships, stereotypes have an emotional nature and arise on the basis of certain feelings that people experience when interacting with each other. In intergroup relations, a stereotype arises regarding a person's group affiliation, for example, his belonging to a group. People's ideas about each other are formed during interpersonal and intergroup interaction and act as social stereotypes. The purpose of forming social stereotypes is to form a simplified approach to social phenomena that simplify, schematize, or even directly distort the vision of social reality. A social stereotype is a relatively stable and simplified image of a social object – a person, group, phenomenon or event. These are also general opinions about the distribution of certain traits in groups of people ^{[6, p. 295]}.

Most often, social stereotypes arise regarding a person's group affiliation and are considered as traits inherent in any representative of a particular profession, under the influence of personal experience, beliefs and preferences. It is worth noting that all these three parameters are purely personal, that is, subjective. The formation and change of social stereotypes occurs at various levels of intergroup and interpersonal interaction, which in turn depend on the duration of development and experience of intergroup relations that are built in the process of human perception, namely in the process of stereotyping.

The relevance of studying social stereotypes primarily arises when considering the features of their occurrence, functioning and disappearance. Despite the fact that social stereotypes are the result of information received through various sources and are only generalized representations of social reality. In conditions of information scarcity, the social stereotype most often turns out to be false and plays a conservative role, forming people's erroneous ideas about what is happening, deforming the process of interpretation and the nature of interpersonal interaction. Any social stereotype that turns out to be correct in one situation may turn out to be incorrect in another and, therefore, ineffective for solving the problem of orientation of the individual in the surrounding social world.

          The tendency of a person to form a stable image when evaluating people, the use of cliches according to their belonging to a category (gender, age, skin color, etc.) leads to stereotyping. Stereotyping is the perception, classification and evaluation of social objects (events) by spreading the characteristics of a certain social group on it on the basis of certain ideas — social stereotypes ^{[6, p. 295]}. Most often, stereotypes arise regarding group affiliation. When people interact with each other, stereotyping leads to a certain simplification of the process of cognition and carries an estimated load from acceptance to non-acceptance of a person. The complex nature of the process of interpersonal relations suggests the need to study the perception of a person by a person. In modern conditions, stereotyping in socio-psychological terms is considered as a sense of social solidarity, cohesion, so they often do not lend themselves to change or correction.

The problem of stereotyping in interpersonal and intergroup relations arises in the process of human activity, in which stereotypes are formed and the level of stereotyping of both the group and the individual is determined. With the development of information and telecommunication technologies, stereotypes are currently predominantly negative, distorting the vision of social reality and preventing adequate mutual understanding of people. Negative stereotypes hinder the integration of both intergroup and interpersonal relationships and lead to increased interpersonal tension.

In the process of human life, an important role is assigned to professional stereotypes, which give a generalized idea of the members of any professional group. Canadian psychologist J. Godefroy believes that stereotypes are rarely the fruit of our personal experience, we acquire them from the group to which we belong, as well as from the mass media, which usually give a simplified idea of those groups of people about whom we have insufficient information ^{[5, p. 137]}. Many professional stereotypes arise due to the information once received and appear not only as malicious entities, but also perform useful functions. In a difficult situation, the use of stereotypes when interacting with representatives of other professional groups provides generalized standards and explanations about a particular profession.

Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that initially the stereotype is a person's subjective information about the object of cognition, reflecting only the superficial qualities of the object and are formed in a person in the process of his mental activity based on life experience, and accepted in the process of interaction with other people.

In order to study social and professional stereotypes in modern society and their impact on interpersonal and intergroup relations in the organization, an author's questionnaire was developed, with the help of which a questionnaire was conducted on the basis of the fire service.

40 firefighters-rescuers (men) aged 25 to 50 years and 9 employees of the administrative apparatus of the fire service detachment (3 men and 6 women) took part in the survey. The results of the study of the stereotypical perception of representatives of the administrative apparatus by firefighters and rescuers are presented in Table 1 and Figure 1.              

Table 1

Stereotyping of firefighters-rescuers in relation to the administrative apparatus

pp

Fig.1. Stereotyping in relation to the administrative apparatus

Firefighters-rescuers (100% - men) believe that a woman cannot be the head of a fire department - 89.9% and 10.1% - found it difficult to answer. Commenting on this issue, they explained that due to the complexity of professional activity (often actions take place in extreme conditions), it is assumed that the leadership of the personnel should be strictly male managers, since professional activity requires them to have physical endurance, quick reaction in decision-making, clarity, logic and exactingness to subordinates when performing set tasks. According to the opinion of firefighters-rescuers (men) these qualities are more inherent in men.

The survey results also showed that 82.3% of rescue firefighters agree with the stereotype that employees of the administrative apparatus receive more privileges and incentives than rescue firefighters (wages, bonuses, etc.). At the same time, 15.3% of rescuers disagree with this opinion, and 2.4% found it difficult to answer.

54.4% of respondents agree with the statement that employees of the administrative apparatus do not fully perform their professional duties. At the same time, 44.3% of respondents disagree with this opinion and 1.3% found it difficult to answer.

Answering the question about the requirements for firefighters-rescuers, 56.3% of firefighters-rescuers did not agree with the statement that employees of the administrative apparatus make excessive demands on firefighters-rescuers in the performance of their official duties, 15.1% of respondents found it difficult to answer and 28.6% agree with this opinion.

When assessing the ethical qualities of administrative staff, 73.3% of respondents disagree with the statement that administrative staff are arrogant, indifferent, irritable, 9.4% found it difficult to answer and 17.3% believe that administrative staff are arrogant, indifferent, irritable.

Answering the question about their activities, firefighters-rescuers, comparing their work with the work of administrative staff, 47.4% do not consider their work difficult and responsible, 44.1% - Note that the work of rescuers is more difficult than the work of the administration and 8.5% found it difficult to answer.

Thus, the representations of firefighters and rescuers have a high rate of stereotyping in relation to the administrative apparatus, i.e. they consider their work more difficult, but having less privileges than the work of the administrative apparatus.

The study of the stereotypical perception by the administrative apparatus of employees of the fire department (firefighters-rescuers) is presented in Table 2 and Figure 2.

Table 2

Stereotyping by employees of the administrative apparatus of firefighters and rescuerspp

Fig.2. Stereotyping in relation to fire rescuers

The results of the study of the administrative apparatus (women -60%) showed the following results, so 87.5% of employees believe that a woman cannot be the head of a fire department. The administrative staff explained that the professional activity of a firefighter-rescuer is associated with a risk to life and is carried out in emergency conditions, and therefore a woman cannot be the head of a fire department. At the same time, 12.5% believe that women can also do this work.

85.3% of employees of the administrative apparatus do not agree with such a stereotype as firefighters-rescuers receive more privileges and incentives than employees of the administrative apparatus (wages, bonuses, etc.). However, 1.4% believe that firefighters-rescuers have more privileges and 13.3% - found it difficult to answer.

86.7% of respondents disagree with the statement that firefighters and rescuers do not fully comply with the requirements of the administrative apparatus, 8.1% abstained. 5.2% agree with the statement that firefighters and rescuers do not fully comply with the requirements of the administrative apparatus.

94.2% disagree with the statement that firefighters have more work and responsibility than the administrative apparatus, however, 1.2% agree with the statement and 4.6% found it difficult to answer. During the conversation, the staff of the administrative apparatus explained that the work of a firefighter-rescuer in extreme conditions is episodic and the rest of the time they are relatively free compared to the activities of the administrative apparatus carrying out daily work.

Employees of the administrative apparatus (94.3%) agree with the statement that fire rescuers fully perform their professional duties, and only 3.2% believe that fire rescuers do not fully perform their duties and 2.5% of respondents found it difficult to answer.

When assessing the ethical qualities of fire rescuers, 43.3% of respondents disagree with the statement that fire rescuers are characterized by rudeness, irritability, while 45.3% of administrative staff found it difficult to answer. However, 11.4% believe that fire rescuers are often rude and irritable.

The results of the study showed that the stereotypical representations of the administrative apparatus in relation to firefighters and rescuers have a low indicator of the presence of stereotypes. At the same time, in the responses of the administrative apparatus and firefighters, the perception of a female leader is stereotypical.

Thus, according to the results of the study, it can be concluded that the presence of high indicators of social stereotypes among firefighters and rescuers is the result of a lack of information about the professional activities of the administrative apparatus and the list of duties performed. Low indicators of the presence of stereotypes in the administrative apparatus indicate a high level of awareness and awareness of the specifics of the professional activities of firefighters and rescuers.

The indicator of social stereotypes of firefighters and rescuers suggests that they have erroneous ideas about the activities of the administrative apparatus. Representatives of the administrative apparatus coordinate the professional activities of the fire department, their activities are distinguished by responsibility in organizing the activities of the organization as a whole, material and technical support of work, in the documentation of the fire department, etc. 

Based on the conducted research, it can be concluded that the formation and functioning of stereotypes directly depend on a person's awareness of social and professional reality, since the absence or false information complicates the process of interpersonal and intergroup interaction.

 When people interact with each other, stereotyping carries an evaluative burden and occurs in the course of a person's professional activity, being mainly a negative phenomenon. A distorted vision of social reality prevents adequate mutual understanding of people and integration of both intergroup and interpersonal relationships, which leads to increased interpersonal and intergroup tension.