ABSTRACT
This chapter presents that how people themselves hinder culturally mindful communication processes. A stereotype is an overgeneralized, exaggerated, and inflexible belief toward a group of people that does not take individual variation into account. The term originally referred to the thin metal plates used by French printers in the late eighteenth century. Some social psychologists argue that stereotypes are developed because they are functional; helping us makes sense of the world people live in. The human mind needs to categorize information as it perceives and those categories become stamps for new situations until new information modifies them. Culturally mindful communication is often blocked by stereotyping, prejudice, and bias. The chapter defines the obstacles and provides examples to help the reader recognize how pervasive they are in organizations. Categorization or generalization is based on a human need to process information by creating categories; stereotypes are different because they are inflexible generalizations or overgeneralizations that do not take individual differences into account.
