Stereotypes hold a peculiar place in our society. The word has particularly negative connotations to most people. Stereotypes are based on the 'normal' or 'most easily observed' characteristics.
They could often be termed more favourably as 'archetypes' or perhaps 'caricatures' or 'cartoons'.
They form the centre of many jokes common in popular culture (most mother-in-law jokes I have heard bear no resemblence to my god-send of a mother in law!) and are something that most people tend to have an understanding of. They vary culture to culture also - some people will have vastly different stereotypes of a policeman for example.
Where they are useful in an organisation is in that 'immediate recognition factor' - it is a shorthand or a terminology that can quickly and simply get the point across, which as long as it is not done abusively can be both useful and effective - the gaming industry refers to 'social gamers' as a stereotype for a market, film industry uses 'sci-fi fans' as target audience and so on.
Where it is bad - dangerous maybe - is assuming two things:
Firstly that stereotypes encompass all the features of a person - from the above example - the sci-fi fan is also a father, who likes football and works as an investment banker - all of those things are missed if we think of him solely as 'a sci-fi fan'. and we have made assumptions about him that are completely innacurate.
Übungstext:
Welcher kognitiver Ansatz wird im Artikel verfolgt?
Welches Wissen wird zum Verständnis des Textes vorausgesetzt?
An welchen Stellen gibt es 'Reibungsflächen' mit Ihren eigenen Auffassungen, bzw. würden Sie Diskussionsbedarf sehen?
Studieren Sie die verwendete Semantik,
klären Sie das Vokabular und
wechseln Sie in den deutschsprachigen Teil, um vorab Antworten auf Ihre Fragen zu erhalten.
