Cultural Stereotypes

Cultural Stereotypes

Cultural stereotypes are inflexible statements about a category of people. It usually oversimplified, overgeneralized and exaggerated. The world we live in is full of different groups, each of which has its own custom and features. Stereotyping is a easier way to generalize culture characters of a certain group. To some extent, it is real and reasonable.

People from different countries always have stereotypes about each other. It is absolutely natural as each culture always contains secrets. It is often covered with mystery, unreal stories and subjective attitudes. But some of existing stereotypes are correct and others are wrong. Stereotypes can prevent us from learning some aspects about the country and understanding a different culture in a more appropriate way.

Russian culture is very collectivistic and relationship oriented, so this determines human attitudes and behaviors to a large extent. A lot of stereotypes are connected with mimicry and gesticulation of Russian people. What shocks tourists most of all in Russia is that Russians seldom smile. From the first sight Russians seem very unfriendly and gloomy. And many people think that we are deeply unhappy and depressed. This is the main cause of “cultural shock” for all tourists f rom abroad. This really makes tourists feel uncomfortable and upset in our country. But after some days of living and communicating with Russians most visitors understand that this is just the feature of our character and our mentality. Smile is a culturally loaded phenomenon. Different cultures have different attitude to smiles, facial expressions and body language. For European cultures as well as for Americans, a smile is an expression of one’s politeness. A smile for Russians is something very intimate. It is a sign that a person likes to see another person, usually a close and a well known one, for example a friend or a relative. Russians perceive smile as a personal favors towards someone they know. We don’t usually smile to strangers as it can be misu nderstood.

Another popular stereotype is about our religion. Some people think that Russians are very pious. Russia is a multinational country. Although Orthodoxy is our State religion, contemporary Russia contains more than 68 religious streams and each of them more or less influences the lifestyles of Russians. Religion has always played a special role in Russian life. A survey shows that nowadays about 90 percent of all Russians are religious. But at the same time I can’t say that religion plays an important role in our everyday life as it probably played many years ago. We have a proverb about religion: “Everyone is a believer in hard times”. As for our attitude to superstitions, it seems to be inborn. Many psychologists hold that Russians have a special sense of intuition and premonition but I am inclined to believe that its just an influence of our pagan past. About 45 percent of Russians still continue to believe in signs, tokens and supernatural strength. Pagan times of our history greatly affected Russian lifestyle and further development of our culture. And now these two inter-excluding religions co-exist in Russian society.