Page 36 - CROSS CULTURE

(Katan, 1999) Forming stereotypes of a different culture

may lead to misunderstandings as these are often based on

experience with an individual of the community and do not

regard any individual as an exception. Concerning all the
definitions stereotypes are generalized in a cognitive way and

are projections to a group of some common interest or to the

individuals of the group, based on personal experience.

Stereotypes are called idiosyncratic, if only an individual
uses them, or they are social, or collective if they are widely

shared by a group of people. In everyday use, the concept of the

stereotype is used in various contexts: usually the word

stereotype is used to refer to members of collective: firemen are

courageous, blondes are less intelligent, Italians are noisy, and
so forth. When a person makes inferences about a new person

or about some social event, they use their existing knowledge to

reduce the uncertainty in the situation. The less one knows

about the object, the more one uses stereotypical

generalizations.

Stereotypes are certain beliefs and the existing knowledge

of people regarding the qualities and traits of other individuals,

as well as events and things.(Baran & Davis, 2012)

A stereotype is a simplified concept or image and / or

standard that is common to people on another group.
Stereotypes can be positive or negative and usually occur when

we have minimal knowledge about a group of people. These

30