Boris Janík (560856)
Stereotypes in my communication (essay)
In my essay, I address the topic "Stereotypes in my communication". This essay follows
on from a reflective journal on the topic of the same name, which I wrote during the winter
semester. In the introduction to my work, I develop and describe my experiences with
stereotypes during my study stay at Masaryk University in Brno, later I write about whether I
managed to overcome this obstacle in communication and, if so, in what ways I achieved it.
When writing, I use the knowledge gained during visits to seminars on Intercultural
Communication, and I also use various book and Internet professional resources.
To analyse my reflective journal, I will first return to the topics I described in it. The
main goal of the reflective journal was to describe the stereotypes I experienced (or did not
experience) during my study stay in Brno. I focused mainly on three stereotypes: 1/ Czechs like
to wear socks with sandals. 2/ Czechs are very cold and emotionless. 3/ Czechs do not have a
sense of humour, or they have a specific sense of humour.
Regarding the first stereotype, I said that when I see a person in socks and sandals in
Brno, I usually behave in a superior manner when communicating with such a person,
unfortunately. However, this stereotype was disproved by my stay in Brno, where I didn't meet
many people wearing socks in sandals, I could count them on the fingers of one hand.
I confirmed the second stereotype based on my morning trips to school by tram. On the
tram, no one smiled at me, and everyone was looking at their phone or reading the newspaper.
This stereotype was also refuted by my classmate, with whom I attended Auditing courses, who
started a conversation with me on the tram. We didn't know each other very well until then, but
after a while I concluded that maybe he also found the environment on the tram gloomy and
had a need to talk to someone. And since he recognized me from Auditing by face, he started
talking to me. The result of this whole situation is that after the course and Erasmus stay ended,
we got in touch on a social network.
It may be worth noting that, based on the ranking (clearlycultural.com), Czechs are a
nation that identifies itself as more individualistic, and the people traveling on this tram were a
clear example of this - they were not interested in looking people in the eye, they did not talk
to each other, and if they did, their conversation was very brief (Hofstede G.J., Pedersen,
Hofstede G., 2002).
In the third case, it was that I experienced an awkward feeling when watching
contemporary Czech comedies, when I probably didn't understand the point of a funny situation
well enough and I didn't find it funny at all, and from that I concluded that they had no sense of
humour, or rather, they had a very specific one.
If I had to say where these stereotypes that affect intercultural communication between
me and the other communicator come from, it is certainly the historical context, since the
common Czechoslovak state existed for more than half a century. Since the beginning of the
existence of the common state, members of the Slovak and Czech nationalities have compared
which nation is better, more advanced, and this comparison persists to this day. And it is from
this comparison, in my opinion, that the stereotypes that Slovaks think about Czechs arise.
When we look at the basic aspects of stereotypes, which are three: 1/ we categorize
others based on easily identifiable characteristic; 2/ we assume that certain attributes apply to
most or all of the people in the category, and that people in the category are different than people
in the other categories with respect to these attributes; and 3/ we assume that individual
members of the category have attributes associated with their groups (Gudykunst, 2004); we
can apply all three to the aforementioned stereotypes. All three of the stereotypes were created
based on an easily identifiable characteristic that can be used to classify people into a certain
category. In our cases, these are socks in sandals, situations in a film and people's reactions to
this film, and finally, the facial expressions of people on the tram. We can also apply the second
aspect, and we could call it "generalization" in one word. If we see several people for whom
this stereotype applies, we apply it to an entire group of people who differ from other groups.
In this case, based on the small group of people for whom these stereotypes apply, we concluded
that we could apply them to the entire group of residents of the Czech Republic. Finally, we can
also identify the third aspect in these cases, since these are fixed characteristics that we attribute
to the entire group.
As Zdeněk Janík (2005) states, stereotypes develop quite naturally, and it is impossible
to avoid generalizing people and putting them in boxes. However, we can do everything to at
least try to avoid stereotypes. Janík states that a person does not have to automatically accept
the judgments of others but can be sceptical of what second-hand experience offers us.
According to Janík, an important step is also discussing your experiences with others, which I
consider to be the best way to avoid stereotypes; and it is also important to constantly work on
your ability to tolerate and improve it.
If I return to my cases of stereotypes, the results of which I have also stated, I can say
that discussion helped me a lot in overcoming these stereotypes, for example, in the case of
"boring tram ride", a discussion with a classmate helped me overcome the stereotype. Also, in
the case of "specific humour", I found out in a discussion with Czech classmates that sometimes
they don't laugh at Czech comedies either and it's just a matter of taste. It's a simple
consideration, but at first it was probably easier for me to form a certain judgment based on
observation in the cinema than to think about this problem more deeply. As Janík writes, people
create stereotypes to "make their lives easier," which is exactly my case.
Finally, I would like to draw a conclusion and make any personal recommendations for
effective intercultural communication without stereotypes. After arriving in Slovakia, I started
thinking back on my study stay in Brno and discovered that I no longer think about the
stereotypes and other ones that I thought about Czechs, and I try to refute them to other Slovaks.
And they do not affect me in any way in conversations with Czechs. Therefore, I can say that
in addition to the acquired knowledge and experiences with new people, a student can also take
away from the study stay more tolerance and new skills in intercultural communication without stereotypes.
In connection with stereotypes and overcoming them, in my opinion, perhaps the best
advice is the Slovak proverb "You won't believe it until you see it with your own eyes." If we
don't convince ourselves that things look different, we must realize that stereotypes are
unverified ideas that we should not spread further, but rather see for ourselves "with our own
eyes" what things really look like, and therefore visit the country in question, get to know the
culture and, above all, talk to members of this foreign culture.
References:
1. Individualism [online] Clearly Cultural. Making Sense of Cross Cultural
Communication,
https://clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-
dimensions/individualism/
2. Hofstede, Gert J., Pedersen, Paul B., Hofstede, Geert. Exploring Culture: Exercises,
Stories and Synthetic Cultures. Maine: Intercultural Press, 2002, pp. 94.
3. Gudykunst, W.B. Bridging Differences. Effective Intergroup Communication. 4th
edition, London: Sage Publications, 2004, p. 121.
4. Janík, Zdeněk. Stereotypes: Are they unavoidable? [online] 2016, [cit. 3.1.2025]
5. Janík, Boris: Stereotypes in your communication (reflective journal)