barriers and culture shock文化冲突.docx

Barriers of cross-cultural communication a) Stereotypes, Ethnocentrism and Prejudice StereotypesHuman beings have a tendency to organize perceptual cues to impose meaning, usually by using familiar experiences. It is quite common for people to draw on their personal experiences to understand and evaluate the motivation of others. Stereotypes are a form of generalization about some group of people. A generalization that goes beyond the existing evidence, an inaccurate or overgeneralization is a stereotype. Positive stereotypes: members of certain group have good qualitiesNegative stereotypes: members of the group have undesirable characteristics.Stereotypes are general ideas of a person, created without taking the whole person into account. When we stereotype a group of people, we depict all of the individuals within that group as having the same characteristics even though they are probably all very different. Stereotypes are perceptions or beliefs we hold about groups or individuals based on previously formed opinions and attitudes. When stereotyping, we assign a number of characteristics to a group to formulate its standardized image. Stereotype refers to a shared conception of characters of a group. When categorized as a group, people are thought to possess relatively same beliefs and exhibit similar behaviors. Stereotypes describe the behavior norm for a particular group, rather than individual behavior. Stereotyping is a natural process. We all stereotype because of an instinctive inclination and cannot avoid being viewed by others according to their stereotypes of our culture. 1. Stereotypes keep us from being successful as communicators because they are oversimplified, over-generalized, and exaggerated. 2. Stereotypes can have a negative effect when people use them to interpret behavior. They are one of the most difficult stumbling blocks to overcome in cross-cultural communication.3. Parents, teachers, limited personal contact and the media (movies, TV progr