Barrier 5: Stereotypes and Prejudices

Below you see an example of prejudices, one of the many examples you may find on internet. In trainings you might do an exercise in which you have to guess the nationality of people, photographed against a neutral background. Time and time again this exercise shows that we have ideas on how certain people would look like but we actually do not know.

Human beings have in their way of thinking a tendency to put information in categories or boxes. The value of the information may be limited (superficial) but neutral; stereotypes. Or the information may be limited but have a negative connotation; prejudices. Next to that we have of course also verified information. The point is that we all work with stereotypes and prejudices, subconsciously and the trick is to become aware of them as much as possible.