Notas de comunicación intercultural III

Ovidi Carbonell

ESTEREOTIPOS

¿Qué son los estereotipos? Definición

El término estereotipo procede del nombre que se le daba a una impresión tomada de un molde de plomo
utilizado en las imprentas. Fue adaptado por los científicos sociales en 1922, a cargo del periodista
Walter Lippmann. De acuerdo con Lippmann, estos son "imágenes en nuestras cabezas" (p. 3) que reflejan
nuestras tendencias a pensar que las personas o cosas que pertenecen a la misma categoría comparten
características similares. A pesar de no ser psicólogo, realizó aportaciones interesantes a la Psicología
social, como que tendemos a prestar más atención a la información que confirma nuestros estereotipos, y a
hacer menos caso a la que es inconsistente con ellos, o que los estereotipos están influidos por la cultura.
Sin embargo, su aportación no tuvo en cuenta que los estereotipos también existen desde el punto de vista
de la persona o grupos que son estereotipados.
Resulta complejo dar una definición de estereotipo que englobe todas las que se han presentado en la
literatura (véase, por ejemplo, Hamilton y Sherman, 1994; Hilton y Von Hippel, 1996; Huici, 1999). Tal es
la cantidad de definiciones que se han desarrollado, que el concepto en sí ha sido objeto de revisión
teórica en nuestro país por parte de varios autores (Huici, 1999). Al menos, parece existir consenso en que
son esquemas cognitivos. […] Partimos de la concepción de McGarty, Yzerbyt y Spears (2002b, pp. 2-6),
quienes manifiestan que es necesario conocer los tres principios que han guiado la investigación sobre
estereotipos:
• Son una ayuda para explicar la realidad social.
• Son un mecanismo de ahorro de energía (véase el Cuadro 8.1).
• Son creencias compartidas sobre un grupo.

Es decir, serían las creencias compartidas sobre un grupo que sirven como ahorro de energía para
explicar la realidad social. (Morales et al. 2007: 214)

Los estereotipos como fuente de ahorro de energía.

Macrae, Hewstone y Griffiths (1993) realizaron un experimento en el que presentaban un vídeo donde aparecía una mujer
hablando de su estilo de vida. A la mitad de los participantes se les dijo que era peluquera y a la otra mitad que era doctora.
Durante su discurso (el mismo para los dos grupos) la mujer afirmaba que tenía creencias y comportamientos que pertenecían
al estereotipo de las peluqueras (le gustan las discotecas, llevar minifalda, etc.), y creencias y comportamientos más propios
de un médico (interés por la política, ir a la ópera, etc.).
Cuando los participantes se concentraban en el vídeo, recordaban mejor la información inconsistente con la supuesta
profesión de la mujer. Es decir, a los que se les decía que era una peluquera recordaban las características sobre "interés por
la política", etc., mientras que ocurría lo contrario con los participantes a quienes se les indicada que la mujer era médico.
Sin embargo, cuando tuvieron que realizar una tarea compleja que les distraía, recordaban mejor la información
consistente con el estereotipo. Esto significa que cuando estaban ocupados, lo que hacían era ahorrar recursos cognitivos,
por ello utilizaban la información consistente con los estereotipos.
Este es sólo un ejemplo. Existen otras investigaciones en las que también se demuestra que las personas se dejan llevar más por
los estereotipos cuando están "mentalmente ocupados" (Bodenhausen y Lichtenstein, 1987; Bodenhausen y Wyer, 1985; van
Knippenberg, Dijksterhuis y Vermeulen, 1999).

(Morales et al. 2007: 215)

O’Sullivan et al.

estereotipo/estereotipar *La clasificación social stereotype/stereotyping* The social classification

particularizada de grupos y personas por medio
de signos a menudo muy simplificados y
generalizados, que implícita o explícitamente
representan un conjunto de valores, juicios y
suposiciones acerca de su conducta, sus
características o su historia. * Se trata de un
concepto extraído del lenguaje de la imprenta e
incorporado al de las ciencias sociales por
of particular groups and people as often highly
simplified and generalized signs, which implicitly or
explicitly represent a set of values, judgements and
assumptions concerning their behaviour,
characteristics or history. * Initially introduced from
the language of printing into that of the social
sciences by Lippmann (originally published 1922;
1965), the concept has been developed
Lippmann (1965; originalmente publicado en
1922), que fue elaborado sobre todo en
psicología social y llegó a ocupar un lugar central
en el estudio de procesos cognitivos, actitudes y
prejuicios (véanse Tajfel, 1963, y Cau-then,
1971).
«Estereotipar» ha sido definido en gran parte de
este libro como una extensión particular del
proceso cognitivo fundamental de categorización
por el cual imponemos una estructura y darnos una
interpretación a sucesos, objetos y experiencias. En
sí mismo, este proceso exige simplificar y organizar
series complejas y diversas de fenómenos ge-
nerales en categorías rotuladas. Para ello dirigimos
la atención exclusivamente a ciertas características
identificato-rias similares o a ciertos rasgos
distintivos y los consideramos opuestos a muchas
otras diferencias. Aun así, los estereotipos
identifican no sólo categorías generales de
personas: poblaciones nacionales (por ejemplo, los
irlandeses), razas (por ejemplo, la raza latina),
clases (por ejemplo, la clase obrera), género (por
ejemplo, hombres y mujeres), ocupaciones (por
ejemplo, los contadores) y grupos desviados (por
ejemplo, los consumidores de drogas), sino que son
distintivos también en tanto portadores de juicios
indiferenciados acerca de sus referentes. Y si bien
pueden variar mucho en su apelación emocional y
su intensidad, generalmente representan
relaciones, tensiones o conflictos de poder
subyacentes (por ejemplo, los «tontos» irlandeses,
los «exaltados» latinos, la imagen del obrero «con
gorra de paño», la rubia «boba», el contador
«aburrido», o los «malvados» drogadictos). En
suma, los estereotipos funcio nan para definir e
identificar grupos de personas como parecidos en
ciertos aspectos: comprometidos con valores
particulares, motivados por objetivos semejantes,
poseedores de una personalidad y una apariencia
similares, etc. En este sentido, los estereotipos
alientan una creencia intuitiva en las suposiciones en
las que se basan, y cumplen una función central en
la organización del discurso de sentido común.
El grado en que se cree en los estereotipos, se
los acepta de una manera tácita o se los rechaza
y contraría ha suscitado muchas investigaciones en
psicología social. Trabajos recientes en estudios
culturales se han dedicado a investigar la
circulación política y social y la importancia de los
estereotipos en los medios masivos, sobre todo en
el contexto de las representaciones mediáticas de
la raza, las mujeres, las relaciones políticas e
industriales y las formas de desviación.
Tales estudios han mostrado, por ejemplo, que
las convenciones y los códigos de la producción
de noticias pueden promover formas particulares
de estereotipar, como resultado lógico de la
orientación que tienen en el interior de un contexto
institucional particular y de una serie de nuevos
valores de las noticias profesionales. La
búsqueda de lo «extraordinario» (citado como «un
valor cardinal o fundamental de la noticia» por
Hall et al, 1978, pág. 53) y las consiguientes
tendencias a la exageración y la dramatización
particularly in social psychology, occupying a
central place in the study of cognitive processes,
attitudes and prejudice (see Tajj 1963, and
Cauthen 1971).
Stereotyping in much of this work has been defined
as a particular extension of the fundamental
cognitive process of categorization, whereby we
impose structure and make sense of events, objects
and experience. This process in itself requires the
simplification and organization of diverse and
complex ranges of phenomena into general,
labelled categories. In so doing attention is focused
on certain similar identifying characteristics or
distinctive features, as opposed to many other
differences. Stereotypes, however, not only identify
general categories of people: national populations
(e.g., the Irish), races (e.g., the Latin race), classes
(e.g., the working class), genders (i.e. men or
women), occupations (e.g., accountants) and
deviant groups (e.g., drug-takers), etc., they are
distinctive in the way that the carry undifferentiated
judgements about their referents. Whilst they may
vary widely in terms of their emotional appeal and
intensity they generally represent underlying
power relations, tensions or conflicts (i.e. the 'stupid'
Irish, the 'excitable' Latins, the 'cloth cap' image, the
'dumb' blonde, the 'boring' accountant, the 'evil’
junkie and so on). In short, they operate to define
and identify groups of people as generally alike in
certain ways - as committed to particular values,
motivated by similar goals, having a common
personality, make-up and so on. In this way
stereotypes encourage an intuitive belief in their
own underlying assumption and play a central role
in organizing common sense discourse
The degree to which they are believed in, tacitly
accepted or rejected and countered, has promoted
a great deal of research in social psychology.
Recent work in cultural studies has turned their
social and political circulation and significance in
the mass media, notably in the context of media
representations of race, women, political and
industrial relations, and forms of deviance.
Such studies have, for example, pointed to the
ways in which the conventions and codes of
news production encourage particular forms of
stereotyping as a logical outcome of their
orientation within a particular institutional context
and set of professional news values. The search
for 'extraordinariness' (cited as 'the primary or
cardinal news value' by Hall et al. 1978, p. 53)
and subsequent tendencies towards exaggeration
and dramatization are capable not only of
generating stereotypes, but also of giving or
pueden no sólo generar estereotipos, sino además
dar o negar legitimidad a aquellos otros
estereotipos que ya circulan generalmente. Este
interés reciente sobre todo trajo la consecuencia
de reunir el concepto de estereotipo con las teorías
de la ideología y la hegemonía.
A pesar de su connotación de sencillez, el término
estereotipo es un concepto difícil y exigente que
plantea algunos problemas importantes y alimenta
un provechoso tema de discusión.
denying legitimacy to those commonly in circulation.
Crucially this recent attention has brought together
the concept of stereotype with theories of ideology
and hegemony. Despite its simple appeal, the
term is a difficult and demanding one which raises
some important problems, and serves as a useful
point for discussion.

La perspectiva de la lingüística cognitiva

A young man and his father had a severe car accident. The father died, and the young man was
rushed to the hospital. The surgeon at the emergency room refused to operate on him, saying: "I
can't. He is my son." How is this possible?

(Giora 2003:13)

What does that riddle tell us about the mind? What is (the mindset) ridiculed here?
It is (among other things) our inability to instantly adjust to contextual information.

CATEGORÍA

Clasificación de entidades según unas características compartidas.

PROTOTIPO

Representación mental relativamente abstracta que reúne los atributos que mejor
representan los elementos de una categoría. Es una representación esquemática de las
características más representativas (salientes) asociadas a los miembros de esa
categoría. Proporciona una estructura y organiza la categoría según criterios de
tipicidad (tipicality).

ESTEREOTIPO

Modelo cognitivo idealizado de carácter metonímico que resulta de una convención

social e ideológica. Define coherentemente la identidad de grupos de individuos o
categorías sociales en contraste con otros, estableciendo por lo general un conjunto de
creencias rígidas, articuladas por medio de una dialéctica de pertenencia / no
pertenencia, basada a su vez en características consideradas positivas (“nosotros”)/
negativas (“ellos”).

PREJUICIO

Tendencia a clasificar de modo desfavorable los individuos pertenecientes a

determinada categoría social, basada en estereotipos culturales.
(Givon 2005:46)

The articulation of the pragmatic middle-ground in both psychology and linguistics is due to the work of Eleanor Rosch
(1973a, b, 1975), building on the semantic network model of Collins and Quillian (1972) as well as on earlier work on
abstract concepts by Posner and Keel (1968). Four salient features characterize prototypelike categories:

a. Multiple criterial features:

Membership in a natural category, unlike a logical category, is not determined by a single criterial feature that is either
present or absent, but rather by a large basket of features. Some of those features may be more central to the category,
in the sense that more — or nearly all — members display them. Others may be more peripheral. Thus, for example,
shape is much more central to the category'horse' than size, and size is yet more central than color.

b. Graded membership:

The most prototypical member of a category is the one displaying the largest number of criterial features. It is,
presumably, the one that comes to mind most readily when the categorial name is invoked. That is,'horse'> 'quarter-
horse';'apple' > 'red delicious'; 'flower'> 'rose'; 'bird' > 'sparrow'; etc. But less prototypical members, those that display
fewer features, are still members of the category.

c. Strong feature association:

« The criterial features of a natural category tend to be strongly associated, so that in the majority of cases, having one
feature implies having many of the others. Thus, a miniature horse may still have most of the other salient horse
features, such as shape, color, behavior, etc.

d. Strong clustering around the mean:

As a logical consequence of (c), the vast majority of members of a natural category will tend to cluster around the
categorial mean. That is, they tend to resemble the prototype (and thus each other). Outliers, odd and ambiguous
members are a relatively small minority.
La perspectiva de los estudios culturales

Citas de Pickering (2001), Stereotyping. The Politics of Representation (London: Palgrave)

xiii

Representations consist of words and images which stand in for various social groups and categories.
They provide ways of describing and at the same time of regarding and thinking about these groups and
categories. They may also affect how their members view themselves and experience the social world
around them. Public representations have the power to select, arrange, and prioritise certain assumptions
and ideas about different kinds of people, bringing some to the fore, dramatising and idealising or
demonising them, while casting others into the social margins, so that they have little active public
presence or only a narrow and negative public image. These practices are central to the politics of
representation. Representation involves processes of 'speaking for' and 'speaking of those who are
represented. The politics of representation cover both the power to speak of and for others, whether in
news narratives, social documentaries, feature films or advertising, all of which follow their own formal
rules and conventions. The consequences of providing accounts and images of others for structures and
relations of social power are central to the analysis of any study of symbolic representations, where
questions of under-representation, over-representation and misrepresentation are necessarily high on the
critical agenda.

(2) First, we need to distinguish more clearly between categories and stereotypes. This is important if
we are to avoid using these two terms interchangeably in a way which renders one or the other of them
potentially redundant. They have separate meanings. Insisting on these provides a way of countering the
claim that we cannot live without stereotyping. As we shall see, such a claim is central to the approach to
stereotyping taken in cognitive psychology, but it is commonly made in a variety of other fields of study,
such as media and literary studies, sociology and political science (see for example, Gilman, 1985,
discussed below; also Holquist, 1989; Potter, 1998: 53; Gillespie, 1999; Glynn et al., 1999: 147-58;
Kolakowski, 1999: 139-43). Thinking in relation to categories is a necessary way of organising the world
in our minds, creating mental maps for working out how we view the world and negotiating our ways
through it in our everyday social relations and interactions. It would be difficult to imagine how the
world would seem without using categories in general speech and writing as basic tools for organising
our understanding. […]

(3) Second, we need to bring back into the frame the central dilemma at the heart of stereotyping. […]
It is, at base, to do with questions of order and power. Stereotyping may operate as a way of imposing a
sense of order on the social world in the same way as categories, but with the crucial difference that
stereotyping attempts to deny any flexible thinking with categories. It denies this in the interests of the
structures of power which it upholds. It attempts to maintain these structures as they are, or to realign
them in the face of a perceived threat. The comfort of inflexibility which stereotypes provide reinforces
the conviction that existing relations of power are necessary and fixed.

(10) One aspect of the classical view of stereotypes has already been mentioned. This is the idea that
social stereotypes exaggerate and homogenise traits held to be characteristic of particular categories and
serve as blanket generalisations for all individuals assigned to such categories. The images and notions
connected with them are then consensually shared in the interests of the social group among whom they
are widely utilised and diffused. Such images and notions are usually held to be simplistic, rigid and
erroneous, based on discriminatory values and damaging to people's actual social and personal identities.
In the classical view, stereotypes have been regarded as necessarily deficient. They distort the ways in
which social groups or individuals are perceived, and they obscure the more complex and finite
particularities and subjectivities tangled up in the everyday lives of groups and individuals. They are seen
as deficient either because they encourage an indiscriminate lumping together of people under
overarching group-signifiers, often of a derogatory character, or because they reduce specific groups and
categories to a limited set of conceptions which in themselves often contradict each other. Stereotypes are
also discriminatory because the stunted features or attributes of others which characterise them are
considered to form the basis for negative or hostile judgements, the rationale for exploitative, unjust
treatment, or the justification for aggressive behaviour. In a word, stereotypes are bad. Politically, they
stand in the way of more tolerant, even-handed and differentiated responses to people who belong to
social or ethnic categories beyond those which are structurally dominant. Intellectually, they are poor
devices for engaging in any form of social cartography, and for this reason should be eradicated from the
map of good knowledge. […]

(11) Nonetheless, the classical view of stereotyping raises certain perhaps less obvious problems. To
begin with, taking stereotypicality as indicative of a misinformed attitude, irrational value or inaccurate
representation implies that there are always firm grounds for rectifying it. It is by no means certain that
this will necessarily follow, once the critique has been conducted. Instead of assuming that it will, we
need to ask if we are faced with the rhetoric of realism, facticity, authenticity and rationality operating
imperially to guarantee the truth of arguments against bigotry and intolerance. For some, the remedy lies
in the provision of more ample information and more representative images.

(12) The reasoning behind its advocacy is that if stereotyping's error of description and judgement is
based on a lack of information, of detailed empirical evidence, then surely the error will evaporate once
such information and evidence are supplied. Maybe, but unless there is a ready predisposition to stand
corrected, this remedy amounts to little more than wishful liberal thinking. If its logical premises were
generally valid, then misogyny or homophobia would soon become as psychologically outmoded as the
four cardinal humours. […]
While the empirical demonstration of falsification does not guarantee any necessary diminution of
stereotyping, particular instances of it may of course prove vulnerable to modification or erosion. If this
was not the case the political purpose of this book would be instantly cut from under its feet. One reason
they are so vulnerable is that they always operate within a given ideological field, not for all time but in
relation to definite social needs and conditions which may change. The degree to which stereotypes of
black people or any other people have proved resistant or responsive to change has depended on the social
and historical circumstances in which they have operated, their rhetorical status in cultural processes of
meaning-construction, and the extent of the self-rewarding emotional, moral, political or other
investments which their perpetrators have had in their long-term preservation. Stereotypes remain fairly
stable for quite considerable periods of time, and tend to become more pronounced and hostile when
social tensions between different ethnic or other groupings arise. 'They do not present much of a problem
when little hostility is involved, but are extremely difficult to modify in a social climate of tension and
conflict' (Tajfel and Fraser, 1978: 427).

(14) Clearly, there are ways in which stereotypes can be shown to be inadequate as representations
when they stand in for the many aspects of social life, experience and identity which are ignored,
marginalised or distorted in mainstream culture and mainstream channels of communication. The
importance of this kind of critique is indisputable, as for instance is exemplified by the contribution of
feminist scholarship to media studies. Before this contribution was made, stereotypes of women and the
media's role in their development, reinforcement and maintenance went largely unquestioned. But while
female stereotypes are now contested, it remains the case that detailed comparison does not provide a
straight road either to the opposite of error or to its dissolution. Resting one's case on the empirical
establishment of stereotypical error considerably underestimates the play of ideological forces set in
motion by processes of stereotyping. It is not as if there is any direct, unilinear connection between
stereotypical images, social roles and relations, and patterns of enculturation. In the past, the comparative
study of stereotypes and social experience has tended to assume a pre-existent 'reality-out-there' against
which images and representations can be transparently measured and found wanting.
Underpinning the classical view, this assumption has been responsible for the empiricism inherent in
much of the thinking on stereotyping.