The influence of professional stereotypes on professional self-determination

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

Karavanova Lyudmila Zhalalovna Doctor of Psychology Professor, Department of Social Pedagogy, Institute of Foreign Languages, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 9, office building 4 karavanova-lzh@rudn.ru Other publications by this author

Of great importance throughout a person's life is the choice of profession and his professional self-determination, which is the basis for a person's self-affirmation in society. At various periods of his life, a person determines his future – makes a choice of professional development.

At the present stage, the main task for a person is self-determination when choosing a profession, most often this choice occurs in adolescence. The choice of a particular profession by teenagers is greatly influenced by professional stereotypes. Every teenager makes a choice: who to be, where and with whom to work.

In the process of professional self-determination, a person begins to form ideas about the future professional activity in which he could express himself. The formation and functioning of professional stereotypes directly depend on the degree of awareness of a person about social and professional reality.  A person in modern society constantly faces stereotypes in interpersonal and intergroup interaction, which are an integral part of the human psyche and manifest themselves in the process of professional perception of each other by people. At the same time, stereotypes make it possible to facilitate the processes of interaction, helping a person to navigate in professional activities, regulate his behavior.

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, culturally 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]}.

Foreign scientists T. Adorno, D.L. Hamilton, G. Teschfel, D. Taylor, S.T. Fiske, T.K. Treler believe that stereotyping is a cognitive process and refers to a type of personality characterized by authoritarianism, intolerance, lack of tolerance ^{[7, p. 122]}.

V.S. Ageev notes that the content of intergroup representations reflects only some objective characteristics of the group's position in the immediate social environment. The mechanism of stereotyping is a necessary and useful tool of social perception, and of its subspecies, which has been designated as "intergroup perception" ^{[1, 56]}.

Scientists note that stereotypes are an effective tool for studying the socio-psychological patterns of people's behavior in their professional activities. The presence of stereotypes in interpersonal and intergroup interaction have an impact on the choice of a person's profession, on the effectiveness of activities and guarantee stability in both interpersonal and intergroup relationships.

Currently, professional stereotypes are defined as simplified, schematized, emotionally colored social and professional values. The formation of stereotypes influences the formation of a person's beliefs in various spheres of his life, including in his professional activity.

Professional stereotypes characterize not only a person's willingness to solve the tasks presented to her, but also actively choose these tasks and regulate their own behavior in accordance with them. Thus, in the professional stereotypes of a person, all the experience of solving life tasks at the stages of previously passed mental development is concentrated.  

Under the influence of social and professional stereotypes, there is a danger of making an erroneous choice of profession. Negatively formed stereotypes can affect a person's idea of a profession and distort information. Therefore, each person needs to take into account and analyze the information received from various sources, including those received directly from professionals.

Most often, a professional stereotype is part of a broader gender stereotype, this phenomenon can be noticed when it comes to "male and female professions". Men and women are credited with different sets of properties that determine which professions they can choose. Often you can hear the following opinions: "If a woman is a driver, wait for an accident", "If she works as a firefighter, then she does nothing." These conclusions are a stereotype of people's perception of professions.

Stereotypes accompany a person's professional activity, accumulated unconscious experience and attitudes interfere with the implementation of professional choice. People's perception of professional activity, which they do not know or know superficially, leads to the sterotypization of this profession and the transfer of this information to other people.  In the event of non-standard situations, a person acts on the basis of professional skills, supported by individual and personal characteristics. Professional stereotypes based on prejudice have a negative effect on intergroup and interpersonal relationships.

Professional stereotyping contains intergroup representations and reflects the characteristics of the group's attitude to a particular profession. Representatives of the same professional group have similarities of values, as well as qualitative characteristics of personality, which is the most desirable and necessary for a person.

Thus, a professional stereotype in the public consciousness is perceived both positively and negatively, depending on a person's understanding of this type of activity.  In the process of interaction, people get to know each other and perceive other professional activities, which positively or negatively affects the perception of the specifics of professional activity. Stereotypes lead to a simplified knowledge of the world by a person. Negative stereotypes lead to prejudice, mislead a person, have a negative impact on the psychological state of a person.

The relevance of studying professional stereotypes primarily arises when considering the features of their occurrence, functioning and disappearance. Professional stereotypes are the result of information received through various sources and are generalized ideas about the profession. In conditions of a lack of information, the professional stereotype most often turns out to be false and forms erroneous ideas of people about the profession and interferes with the process of interpretation in interpersonal interaction. The tendency of a person to form a stable image, the use of cliches according to their professional affiliation to any category 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 — stereotypes. In the socio-psychological context, stereotyping can be considered as a mechanism of social perception in the plane of intergroup relations, which flows into interpersonal mechanisms of perception ^{[6, p. 295]}.

Stereotypes often arise in relation to a person's belonging to a particular profession. When people interact with each other, stereotyping carries an estimated load from acceptance to non-acceptance of a person. The complex nature of the relationship process suggests the need to study the perception of a person by a person. In modern conditions, stereotyping is seen as a sense of social and professional solidarity, cohesion, so they often cannot be changed or corrected.

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.

Thus, it can be concluded that initially the professional stereotype is a person's subjective information about the profession and reflects only its superficial qualities. A professional stereotype is formed in a person in the process of his mental activity on the basis of the information received in the process of interaction with other people.

Based on the analysis and in order to determine the influence of professional stereotypes on adolescents when they choose a profession, we conducted a study to identify the presence of professional stereotypes regarding the professional activity of a firefighter-rescuer.     

The study of the formation of professional stereotypes was conducted on the basis of the Children's Development Center "Constellation". 27 teenagers aged from 14 to 17 years (12 boys and 15 girls) took part in the survey.

In order to determine the stereotypical perception of the profession, teenagers were offered stereotypical statements regarding the professional activity of a firefighter. The results of the study on the perception of professional stereotypes by adolescents are presented in Table 1 and Figure 1.

Table 1

Teenagers' perception of professional stereotypes

According to the results of the study, indicators of teenagers' perception of professional stereotypes regarding firefighters and rescuers were obtained (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Teenagers' perception of the firefighter-rescuer profession

According to a study conducted among teenagers, a gender stereotype showed a high result, since 98% of teenagers claim that a woman cannot be a firefighter and only 2% disagreed with this statement. As the teenagers explained, the work of a firefighter is associated with a risk to life, the equipment with which the fire is extinguished is very heavy, and therefore a woman, due to her physiological characteristics, will not be able to be a firefighter.

Also, a high result of stereotyping among adolescents was shown by the statement that fire destroys all traces on the ashes - 81.3%, 1.8% of adolescents disagreed with this statement, 16.9% of them found it difficult to answer.

Low results of stereotyping were shown by statements related to the professional activities of firefighters.  

So, 82.1% of teenagers disagree with the statement that when there is no fire, firefighters sleep or watch TV, 9.3% - agree with this statement, 8.6% - found it difficult to answer.

91.4% of teenagers disagree with such a statement as there is no water in the tanks of fire trucks, however, 5.6% of teenagers agree with this statement and 3% of teenagers found it difficult to answer this statement.

81.4% of teenagers disagree with the stereotype that firefighters have little work, they rest more time - at the same time, 18.6% agree with this statement.

Also, 79.9% of teenagers disagree with such a stereotype as firefighters and rescuers are different professions, while 17.7% agreed with this statement and 2.8% found it difficult to answer. The guys explained that in the course of their professional activities, firefighters save people and their property, and therefore they believe that firefighters are also rescuers.

During the study, teenagers explained that in order to further choose a profession through the Internet, they watched documentaries related to the work of a firefighter. Describing the work of a firefighter, the teenagers told what happens in extreme conditions and requires physical endurance, reaction speed from firefighters, and therefore, in their free time from fires, they play sports, prepare cars, etc.

During the survey, the teenagers showed great interest in the work of a firefighter, animatedly discussed this profession resorting to the Internet. According to the results of the survey, such statements as the fire destroys all traces on the ashes and the fact that a woman cannot be a firefighter received high results. The stereotyping of these statements indicates a lack of information received about the impact of fire on certain objects during a fire.

Thus, based on the conducted research, it can be concluded that even with the current availability of information about the activities of firefighters and other professions, teenagers are still insufficiently informed about the specifics of the professional activity of a firefighter.

The results of the study conducted among adolescents showed that many professional stereotypes formed earlier are not relevant. Professional stereotypes about firefighters formed earlier now tend to disappear. Thus, misconceptions in the perception of professions by adolescents, formed earlier, prevent an objective understanding of the specifics of performing certain tasks by various professions, which in turn can lead to erroneous actions when choosing a profession by adolescents. Professional stereotypes help a person to navigate when choosing a professional activity and have a direct impact on his professional self-determination.