I encountered following situation for countless times after I studies abroad: “I’m from China.” “Oh you must be good at math then!” There seems to be a direct connection between “Chinese students” and “good at math”, I’m not denying that this is not true, but it’s not necessary. Sometimes people even think Chinese are born with superior math “ability” that we could calculate anything without a calculator, which sounds to me is simply ridiculous.

I believe we all stereotyped some one or be stereotyped by others for some times, Indians are considered as Computer Science geniuses, overweighted people are considered as eating more food that normal people, women are not as skillful as men, Vancouver isn’t a snowy city.

This phenomena popped up in my head when we were discussing about stereotyping in class, which is defined as: judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs. As there are too much information for our brain to process and form perceptions, the brain use all kinds of shortcuts to make decisions faster, that’s when stereotyping showed up. So it’s not we are always judgemental to others.

However, my point is that since we already realized our brain is misleading us when forming first impression, we should be careful to not fell into the trap. In the workplace, Incorrectly or unfairly apply a stereotype to certain person or group might have negative effect on productivity and efficiency. According to Neil Kokemuller: “Employees who act based on stereotypes rather than putting faith in the abilities and effort of coworkers impede group progress. In a work team, stereotyping can prevent an employee from asking for support or offering it to a particular employee.

Chinese are not necessarily good at math, even some of us do, it’s because they worked very hard. — Stop stereotyping and treat everyone with fairness and openness.

Reference:

Kokemuller, N. (2014, January 07). How Does Stereotyping Affect the Workplace Environment? Retrieved April 01, 2017, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/stereotyping-affect-workplace-environment-78286.html