Lecture The Study of Intercultural Communication Key Terms

4.9 Negative Stereotypes. Anxiety
A second challenge in intercultural relationships is negative stereotyping. As we have already discussed, stereotypes are a way of categorizing and processing infor­mation, but they are particularly detrimental when they are negative and held rigidly. Sometimes it takes work to get individual information, information that can counteract the stereotype.
An African American professor describes the beliefs and stereotypes about White people passed along to her in her family: (1) White people are often violent and treacherous; (2) White people probably have some kind of inferiority complex, which drives them to continually "put down" Blacks and anyone else who is not White; (3) White men are usually arrogant; (4) White women are lazy; and (5) there are some good White people, but they are the exception. More im­portant, she goes on to describe how she did not let these stereotypes become a "prison" that determined how she felt about herself or all White people. And because of her open-mindedness, her beliefs changed and her reliance on stereo­types decreased. She learned that race was not a predictor of intelligence, but that income and opportunity were. She learned that all people, regardless of color, de­serve to be treated with dignity and respect. And she made definite choices about how to relate to others and about the importance of having a variety of friends, not just African Americans.
A third challenge in intercultural relationships involves overcoming the in­creased anxiety commonly found in the early stages of the relationship. (Some anxiety always exists in the early stages of any relationship.) This anxiety stems from fears about possible negative consequences of our actions. We may be afraid that we will look stupid or will offend someone because we're unfamiliar with that person's language or culture. For example, our student Sam has a lot of friends who speak Spanish at home, and he has studied Spanish for five years in high school and college. But when he visits with his friends' families, he's often anxious about speaking Spanish with them. He's afraid he'll say something stupid or reveal his ignorance in some way.
Differences of age are not usually cause for discomfort, but relationships that span differences in physical ability, class, or race may engender more anxiety.
The level of anxiety may be even higher if people have negative expectations based on previous interactions or on stereotypes. For example, some White and African American students seem to have more difficulty discussing intercultural issues with each other than they do with international students, perhaps because of negative stereotypes held by both groups. By contrast, intercultural interac­tions in which there are few negative expectations and no history of negative con­tact probably have less anxiety associated with them. For example, one student tells of traveling to New Zealand as an 18-year-old on a sports team. He had no negative preconceptions about New Zealanders and no real language barrier. While he experienced a little anxiety at the beginning, he quickly found similar­ity with people he met, and it was "truly an unforgettable experience."