The Negative Impact of Positive Stereotypes

At some point in our lives we will all experience being stereotyped, some of us more frequently than others. No matter your characteristics there’s always seemingly a stereotype that exists about who you are or, more accurately, who people think you should be. They are hard to avoid sometimes as we see them in characters in films, television and other media, but thankfully the trend of over-stereotyped characters seems to be on the decline.

I recently had a conversation with Sheri Crosby Wheeler for Episode 15 of my ‘Why Care?’ podcast about the effects stereotyping can have on young people including setting pre-determined expectations about their life trajectory. This conversation caused me to think about the ways in which people still get affected by assumptions made from stereotypes, especially in the workplace.

The harmful effects of stereotyping

Stereotypes can be small assumptions that are largely harmless. For instance, if you’re a working-class, heterosexual man it might be assumed you will love football. I recently spoke to a man who has the build of a security guard and loves playing rugby who people constantly show surprise to learn he’s gay. Yet, larger stereotypes exist that are often underpinned by things like sexism or racism, such as women being seen as too emotional to handle high-stress jobs.

These stereotypes can lead to people being denied job opportunities because the hiring managers have already made an assumption of how they would perform in the role, or their co-workers look down upon them and treat them as unfit for work despite any actual performance basis.

A lot of work has been done to address these negative stereotypes, and it is thankfully common now to view them as being discriminatory and bigoted. However, there are a group of stereotypes that are often under-addressed that are referred to in social psychology as ‘positive stereotypes’.

Positive stereotypes?

Positive stereotypes are just that, stereotypes that assign ‘positive’ traits to groups of people. The classic three examples of these are:

1.     Asian people are good with numbers and maths.

2.     Black people are naturally more athletically inclined.

3.     Women are more ‘warm’, empathetic and socially skilled.

At first glance these stereotypes may not seem very harmful, after all they’re assumptions that you’re good at something! The reality, though, is that these assumptions fuel how people with these diversity characteristics are treated in the workplace, and the type of work they have the opportunity to undertake..

These stereotypes mean that Asian, Black and female members of a team could be assigned extra work, whether it’s the maths/heavy lifting/breaking bad news to people (delete as appropriate), as it’s assumed they’ll be better and quicker with it. This work can add up and before long the employee is burdened with either living up to an expectation that they don’t necessarily fit or attempt to push back against the stereotype in order to be who they truly are. Either way, its mentally, physically and emotionally draining.

The risk if they don’t live up to the stereotype is also high – if an Asian person is bad at maths, a Black person is not athletically inclined, or a woman demonstrates more ‘masculine’ traits rather than traditionally feminine ones. They face a lack of acceptance within the workplace or indeed by their peers and this can diminish their self-worth with a detrimental impact on their wellbeing.

How can we prevent stereotypes having an effect?

It’s human nature to use stereotypes. Our brains use stereotyping as a shortcut to make quick judgements about people so we can protect ourselves with speed if need be, but this doesn’t mean they’re just.

To prevent stereotypes being used to harmful degrees, employees and decision-makers need to be aware of the existence of stereotypes, particularly ‘positive’ ones, and the effects they can have. The key is to raise people’s level of self-awareness so they are listening to the little voice in their head that might be triggered by someone saying or doing something that goes against (or confirms) a belief we have. Once people are aware, they have a greater chance to stop themselves acting on it and try to be unbiased in their decision-making.

Here at Avenir we offer a number of inclusion programmes, including our “Privilege, Bias or Merit?” and “Subtle Acts of Exclusion” workshops, that bring awareness to biases and stereotypes and help leaders increase their self-awareness to be able to identify when they’re acting through a biased lens.

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