Much of the communication behavior during the first stage of a relationship is designed to reduce uncertainty about the relational …show more content…
85-90). Almost century later, Walter Lippman defined stereotypes as “pictures in our heads” and stated that stereotypes are not merely description of others, but include an affective component that is driven by one`s self-respect and value orientations (Lippman, 1992). Recently, the world stereotype started to have negative connotations. In 1998, Richard Schaefer defined stereotypes as “exaggerated images of the characteristics of a particular group held by prejudiced people who hold ill feelings towards that group” (Schaefer, 1998). Gudykunst and Kim define stereotypes as “cognitive representations of another group that influence one`s feelings about the group” (Gudykunst & Kim, 1997).
Stereotype is a quite strong topic in modern society. People will be hesitant to admit it, but all of them stereotype. Stereotyping is natural and universal information – processing strategy. Overall stereotyping should be seen as a normal and essential process that is useful for processing information. The main difficulty arises when stereotyping carry on negative connotation and are used to overgeneralize negative traits to an entire group of people when, in reality, few members of the group actually possess such …show more content…
Some communicative situations, especially intercultural communication, have higher information rates than others and require the interactant to reduce more uncertainty than usual. Human beings, for the most part, process information similarly. Although culture impacts the types of information we process, all humans take in, store and recall information in much the same way. Culture`s role in this process leads us to make different kinds of interpretations about the information we process. All people categorize, stereotype and to some extent are ethnocentric with the information they process (Neuliep J. W., 2000, pp.