中西文化之鉴 跨文化交际教程

Chapter 3: Making Generalizations

When people have little information about a group of people they are likely to think of them in a very general way. If the other people with whom they interact also lack information about that group, they are likely to share an overly generalizing based on limited or inaccurate information is called stereotyping.

We all make generalizations

Everyone generalizes every day just to make sense of his experience. No one can respond to every situation as if it were entirely new and unique. A student anticipating a class taught by a teacher he has never met, generalizes from his experience that teachers have certain typical behaviors, opinions, and expectations. The student interacts with the new teacher he meets based on the generalizations he has made from his previous teachers. This is normal and sensible. The student may have a problem, however, if the generalization he makes is too broad or is based on inadequate or outdated information. Such an inappropriate generalization can get him into trouble.

Some generalizations are too broad, out-of –date, or inaccurate

When I was asked to give a lecture to a second year intensive reading class about the American character I was faced with a complex problem of generalization. First of all, are all Americans alike? Do they all have the same character? Of course not, but it is possible to say that Americans tend to have this or that attitude or speak in this or that way. People with a shared experience and shared history do have things in common.

The students had been reading an essay by the respected American historian Henry Steele Commager. In my lecture I was supposed to expand on what Commager had said about the American character. The essay was written in the 1960’s and I was lecturing in the 1990’s. Surely much had changed in that time. Another problem was that Commager was comparing American culture to European cultures. While his generalizations may have been appropriate at the time the essay was written and for his intended audience, it was not as useful a generalization for Chinese university students reading it in the 1990’s.A further problem was that Commager was describing what have come to be called dominant culture Americans. There was no mention of subcultures, regional or social class differences. I realized that Chinese students who formed their generalizations about Americans from Commager’s essay would have many misconceptions.

Some generalizations include positive or negative judgments

In my lecture I tried to point out these problems and caution the students about making generalizations, but usually that does not happen. Thousands, if not millions, of Chinese university students have read that essay and consider it a reliable source. If was reliable for its time and for its intended audience, but it isn’t necessary