[House Hearing, 117 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] THERE'S NO PRIDE IN PREJUDICE: ELIMINATING BARRIERS TO FULL ECONOMIC INCLUSION FOR THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY ===== VIRTUAL HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION _____ NOVEMBER 9, 2021 . Prejudice refers to irrational judgments passed on certain groups or individuals (Flinders 3). But, of course, all things are not equal when intergroup biases may be operating. In many such cases, the higher status person has the responsibility of evaluating the performance of the lower status person. Andersen, P. A., Nonverbal Communication: Forms and Functions (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1999), 57-58. Another motivation that may influence descriptions of outgroups falls under the general category of impression management goals. Ng and Bradac (1993) describe four such devices: truncation, generalization, nominalization, and permutation: These devices are not mutually exclusive, so some statements may blend strategies. The pattern of using abstract characterizations that maintain negative stereotypes of outgroups but support positive views of the ingroup has been termed the Linguistic Intergroup Bias (Maass, Salvi, Arcuri, & Semin, 1989). Prejudice Oscar Wilde said, "Listening is a very dangerous thing. If they presume the listener is incompetent, communicators might overaccommodate by providing more detail than the listener needs and also might use stylistic variations that imply the listener must be coddled or praised to accept the message. Stereotypes are oversimplifiedideas about groups of people. Presumably, Whites are concerned about being prejudiced in cross-race feedback settings. Gender roles describeand sometimes prescribesocial roles and occupations, and language sometimes betrays communicators subscription to those norms. The research on cross-race feedback by Kent Harber and his colleagues (e.g., Harber et al., 2012) provides some insight into how and why this feedback pattern might occur. Ethnocentrismassumesour culture or co-culture is superior to or more important than others and evaluates all other cultures against it. Treating individuals according to rigid stereotypic beliefs is detrimental to all aspects of the communication process and can lead to prejudice and discrimination. An examination of traditional morning and evening news programs or daily newspapers gives some insight into how prejudiced or stereotypic beliefs might be transmitted across large numbers of individuals. Generalization reflects a preference for abstract rather than concrete descriptions. Thus, at least in English, use of the masculine signals to women that they do not belong (Stout & Dasgupta, 2016). But not all smiles and frowns are created equally. Curtailing biased communication begins with identifying it for what it is, and it ends when we remove such talk from our mindset. Cultural barriers can broadly be defined as obstacles created during the communication process due to a person's way of life or beliefs, including language (whether from two different countries or . This type of prejudice is a barrier to effective listening, because when we prejudge a person based on his or her identity or ideas, we usually stop listening in an active and/or ethical way. What people say, what they do not say, and their communication style can betray stereotypic beliefs and bias. Although this preference includes the abstract characterizations of behaviors observed in the linguistic intergroup bias, it also includes generalizations other than verb transformations. Not surprisingly, then, first-person plurals are associated with group cohesiveness such as people in satisfied marriages (Sillars, Shellen, McIntosh, & Pomegranate, 1997) as well as people who hold a more collectivisticas opposed to individualisticcultural orientation (Na & Choi, 2009). Communication maxims (Grice, 1975) enjoin speakers to provide only as much information as is necessary, to be clear and organized, to be relevant, and to be truthful. (Pew Research Center, Ap. But ethnocentrism can lead to disdain or dislike for other cultures and could cause misunderstanding and conflict. For example, the metaphors can be transmitted quite effectively through visual arts such as propaganda posters and film. Beyond Culture. There is some evidence that, at least in group settings, higher status others withhold appropriate praise from lower status outgroup members. Historically, the lions share of research on prejudiced communication has focused on how members of historically powerful groupsin higher or at least equal status positionscommunicate about or to members of historically less powerful groups (e.g., citizens talking about recent immigrants; a White supervisor chastising Black employees). Broadly speaking, communicators may adjust their messages to the presumed characteristics of receivers (i.e., accommodate; Giles, 2016). How we perceive others can be improved by developing better listening and empathetic skills, becoming aware of stereotypes and prejudice, developing self-awareness through self-reflection, and engaging in perception checking. All three examples illustrate how stereotypic information may be used to ease comprehension: Stereotypic information helps people get the joke or understand the message in a limited amount of time. Arguably the most extreme form of prejudiced communication is the use of labels and metaphors that exclude other groups from humanity. Crossing boundaries: Cross-cultural communication. Pew Research Center, 21 April 2021.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tanhem-is-rising/. Because it is often difficult to recognize our own prejudices, several tests have been created to help us recognize our own "implicit" or hidden biases. They may be positive, such as all Asian students are good at math,but are most often negative, such as all overweight people are lazy. Prejudice can lead to a lack of interest or attention to the message, leading . If you read and write Arabic or Hebrew, you will proceed from right to left. In intercultural communication, assume differences in communication style will exist that you may be unaware of. If receivers have limited cognitive resources to correct for the activated stereotype (e.g., they are cognitively busy with concurrent tasks), the stereotype may influence their judgments during that time period (cf. Treating individuals according to rigid stereotypic beliefs is detrimental to all aspects of the communication process and can lead to prejudice and discrimination. Although the persons one-word name is a unique designation, the one-word label has the added discriminatory value of highlighting intergroup differences. and in a busy communication environment sometimes may not be accorded appropriate scrutiny. . To dismantle ethnocentrism, we must recognize that our views of the world, what we consider right and wrong, normal or weird, are largely influenced by our cultural standpoint and that our cultural standpoint is not everyone's cultural standpoint. Elderly persons who are seen as a burden or nuisance, for example, may find themselves on the receiving end of curt messages, controlling language, or explicit verbal abuse (Hummert & Ryan, 1996). A high level of appreciation for ones own culture can be healthy; a shared sense of community pride, for example, connects people in a society. This pattern is evident in conversations, initial descriptions from one communicator to another, and serial reproduction across individuals in a communication chain (for reviews, see Kashima, Klein, & Clark, 2007; Ruscher, 2001). This ethnocentric bias has received some challenge recently in United States schools as teachers make efforts to create a multicultural classroom by incorporating books, short stories, and traditions from non-dominant groups. Although you know differently, many people mistakenly assume that simply being human makes everyone alike. 11, 2021) Mexican Americans and other Latinx groups are alsotargets, both of citizens and police. Examples include filtering, selective perception, information overload, emotional disconnects, lack of source familiarity or credibility, workplace gossip, semantics, gender differences, differences in meaning between Sender and Receiver, and biased language. and the result is rather excessive amounts of exposure to stereotypic images for people in modern society. Although the dehumanizing metaphor may include a label (as discussed in the earlier section), the metaphor goes beyond a mere label: Labeling a group as parasites also implies that they perpetuate moral or physical disease, evince swarming behavior by living in unpredictable bands of individuals, and are not true contributing members of society (i.e., parasites live off a host society). Define and give examples of stereotyping. Or, more generally, they might present the information that they believe will curry favor with an audience (which may be congruent or incongruent, depending on the audiences perceived attitudes toward that group). Have you ever felt as though you were stereotyped? Consequently, when the writer allegedly is a Black student, Whites tend to praise a poorly written essay on subjective dimensions (e.g., how interesting or inspiring an essay was) and confine their criticisms to easily defensible objective dimensions (e.g., spelling). More broadly, prejudiced language can provide insight into how people think about other groups and members of other groups: They are different from us, they are all alike, they are less worthy than us, and they are outside the norm or even outside humanity. Negativity toward outgroup members also might be apparent in facial micro-expressions signals related to frowning: when people are experiencing negative feelings, the brow region furrows . You may find it hard to drive on the other side of the road while visiting England, but for people in the United Kingdom, it is normal and natural. Furthermore, the categories are arranged such that the responses to be answered with the left and right buttons either fit with (match) thestereotype or do not fit with (mismatch) thestereotype. Organizations need to be aware of accessibility issues for both internal and external communication. A member of this group is observed sitting on his front porch on a weekday morning. For example, an invitation to faculty and their wives appears to imply that faculty members are male, married, and heterosexual. These slight signals of frowning can distinguish among people high versus low in prejudice toward a group at which they are looking, so even slight frowns do communicate prejudiced feelings (for a discussion, see Ruscher, 2001). Similarly, humor that focuses on minorities from low-income groups essentially targets the stereotypes applied to the wider groups (i.e., middle- or higher-income minorities as well as low-income individuals from majority groups), although on the surface that humor is targeted only to a subgroup. Although not as detrimental as ethnocentrism or stereotypes, anxiety can prevent us from making intercultural connections that will enrich our lives. Unwelcome foreigners and immigrants also may be dismissed with quick impatience. Dehumanization relegates members of other groups to the status of objects or animals and, by extension, describes the emotions that they should prompt and prescribes how they should be treated. But other motivations that insidiously favor the transmission of biased beliefs come into play. More implicit attitudes and beliefs may be leaked through variations in sentence structure and subtle word choices. Students tended to rely on first-person plurals when referencing wins, but third-person plurals when referencing losses. When we listen, understand, and respect each others ideas, we can then find a solution in which both of us are winners.". There are many barriers that prevent us from competently perceiving others. Overcoming Barriers to our Perceptions. "When people respond too quickly, they often respond to the wrong issue. Finally, most abstract are adjectives (e.g., lazy) that do not reference a specific behavior or object, but infer the actors internal disposition. Prejudice Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one's membership in a particular social group, such as gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, religion, sexual orientation, profession, and many more (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Overaccommodation can take the form of secondary baby talk, which includes the use of simplified or cute words as substitutes for the normal lexicon (e.g., tummy instead of stomach; Caporael, 1981). 27. The LibreTexts libraries arePowered by NICE CXone Expertand are supported by the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of the Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot. Using Semin and Fiedlers (1988) Linguistic Category Model, there are four forms of linguistic characterization that range in their abstractness. It can be intentional, hateful, and explicit: derogatory labels, dehumanizing metaphors, group-disparaging humor, dismissive and curt feedback. Reliance on shared stereotypicand even archetypicalimages essentially meets the communication goals discussed earlier: A story must be coherent, relevant, and transmitted in a finite amount of time. Many barriers to effective communication exist. Further research has found that stereotypes are often used outside of our awareness, making it very difficult to correct them. In 2017, 35.5% of people with disabilities, ages 18 to 64 years, were employed, while 76.5% of people without disabilities were employed, about double that of people with disabilities. In one of the earliest social psychology studies on pronouns, Robert Cialdini and colleagues (1976) interviewed students following American college football games. Prejudiceis a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on ones membership in a particular social group, such as gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, religion, sexual orientation, profession, and many more (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). For example, communicators may speak louder, exaggerate stress points, and vary their pitch more with foreigners than with native adults. Effective listening, feedback, problem-solving, and being open to change can help you eliminate attitudinal barriers in communication. Intercultural communication anxiety is partially due to communication obstacles such as a student's language ability, differences in . Conceivably, communicators enter such interactions with a general schema of how to talk to receivers who they believe have communication challenges, and overgeneralize their strategies without adjusting for specific needs. Gilbert, 1991). Surely, a wide array of research opportunities awaits the newest generation of social scientists who are interested in prejudiced communication. This chapter addresses both theoretical and empirical gaps in the literature of stereotypic beliefs and prejudiced attitudes as noticed in everyday communication. When first-person plurals are randomly paired with nonsense syllables, those syllables later are rated favorably; nonsense syllables paired with third-person plurals tend to be rated less favorably (Perdue, Dovidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990). 4. Interestingly, periodicals and postage stamp portraits show greater focus on the face for men and Whites (i.e., rational, powerful) than for women and Blacks (i.e., emotional, less powerful). Knight et al., 2003), it will be important to consider how communication patterns might be different than what previously has been observed. For example, humor that targets dumb blondes insults stereotypically feminine characteristics such as vanity about physical beauty, lack of basic intelligence, and kittenish sexuality; although such humor perpetuates negative stereotypes about women, its focus on a subgroup masks that broader (not necessarily intentional) message. What is transmitted is very likely to be stereotypic, brief, and incomplete . Thus, although communication of stereotype-congruent information may have priority in most circumstances, that tendency can be undercut or reversed under the right conditions. Sometimes different messages are being received simultaneously on multiple devices through various digital sources. Another important future direction lies with new media. Communicators may betray their stereotypically negative beliefs about outgroups by how abstractly (or concretely) they describe behaviors. (Nick Ross). Americans tend to say that people from England drive on the wrong side of the road, rather than on the other side. We also acknowledge previous National Science Foundation support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057, and 1413739. ), Cross-cultural psychology: Contemporary themes and perspectives (pp. The Best Solution for Overcoming Communication Barriers. Butte College, 10 Sept. 2020, https://socialsci.libretexts.org/@go/page/58206. This hidden bias affects much more than just non-offensive language, influencing the way we judge people from the moment they open their mouths.. Communicators also use secondary baby talk when speaking to individuals with developmental cognitive disabilities, but also may use this speech register when the receiver has a physical disability unrelated to cognitive functioning (e.g., an individual with cerebral palsy). 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