Coping with culture shock: a study of stressors, adjustments and stereotypes among chinese students at bangkok university

Stereotypes

The word stereotype was first used by journalist Walter Lippmann in 1922 to describe judgments made about others on the basis of their ethnic group membership. Today, the term is more broadly used to refer to judgments made on the basis of any group membership (Jandt, 2007). Psychologists have attempted to explain stereotyping as mistakes our brains make in the perception of other people that are similar to those

mistakes our brains make in the perception of visual illusions (Nisbett, 1980). Although you may think of stereotypes as being negative judgments, they can also be positive.

Some people hold positive stereotypes of other individuals based on their professional group membership (Jandt, 2007).


According to Hogg and Abrams (1988), stereotypes are generalization about people “based on category membership”. This is, stereotypes are beliefs that all members of a group have the same qualities or characteristics (Glynn, Herbst, O’keefe, Shapiro, and Lindeman, 2004). Tajfel (1981) argued it is because “stereotypes are shared by large numbers of people within social groups or entities” that they are truly social and are worth studying.

Conceptually, most social psychologists define stereotypes as “socially shared sets of beliefs about traits that are characteristic of members of a social category” (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Stereotypes tend to be shared by many members of a society, and it is not unusual for large portions of a society to agree on the stereotypes of particular groups-both in the language used to describe the group and in the way the group is treated by members of the larger society (Glynn, Herbst, O’keefe, Shapiro, and Lindeman, 2004). These stereotypes are not always the product of direct experience.

Many come to us indirectly from what we are told by other people or by the media (Glynn, Herbst, O’keefe, Shapiro, and Lindeman, 2004).

In negative effects of stereotypes, they cause us to assume that a widely held belief is true when it may not be (Jandt, 2007). Research conducted by Gordon Allport (1954), showed, for example, that the prevalent stereotype of Armenians as dishonest was proved false when a credit-reporting association gave the group credit ratings as good as those given others. Also, continued use of the stereotype reinforces the belief and stereotypes impede communication when they cause us to assume that a widely held belief is true of any one individual (Jandt, 2007). In addition, stereotypes can become a “self-fulfilling prophecy” for the person stereotyped (Jandt, 2007). Research by

psychologists Steele and Aronson (1995) has shown that a negative stereotype creates a threat that can distract the individual stereotyped and lower performance.

Conceptual Model to Coping with Culture shock: A Study on Stressors and Adjustments among Chinese Students at Bangkok University

NOTE:

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  ACCORDING TO CULTURE SHOCK CONCEPT, INTERNATINAL STUDENTS EXPERIENCE NO STRESSORS DURING HONEYMOON PHASE (0-6 MONTHS); THEY EXPERIENCE SEVERAL STRESSORS IN THE CRISIS PHASE (6-18 MONTHS); AND THEY COPE WITH STRESSORS DURING RECOVERY PHASE (18-30 MONTHS); FINNALY, THEY ADAPT TO NEW CULTURE THROUGH COPING IN ADJUSTMENT PHASE (30 MONTHS UP).
  
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  THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL IS MADE FOR THE RESEARCH BY AUTHOR
  

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