As we all know the shortest distance between A to B is a straight line, but the fastest way is the crooked line. Today traveling the fastest way from Amsterdam to Istanbul felt like a pretty straight line: by car to airport, within the airport by feet, to the crowded plain. The plain was filled with a big party going on a Hajj. Interesting to see your own mind working there: a lot of man in white gowns and women with white gowns and white veils. First you thing: fundamentalists. Obviously in psychology the straight line is the fasted: straight from observation to stereotype. I had a long chat with three of them. The talking quickly switched my thinking to: nice and friendly people, taking their faith serious. They quickly change from a category to human. Interesting to see their minds working: they told me Mekka was the center of the earth. I laughed and said: in your world maybe, but not in mine. Two straight lines crossing. Two dutch fellow travellers laughing at the ’silly’ persons and shaking their heads, uttering sounds of disgust. Without the opportunity of meeting the stereotype is taken for moral truth.
For some reason this little story stayed alive all day. Had an interesting conversation with Dutch Marketing Researchers about the phenomenon on the ESOMAR Qualitative Congres welcome drinks. If you do qualitative research you meet an awful lot of people and you see your own stereotyping challenged on a daily basis. The intersting thing is that this does not stop your stereotyping enging from running. The interesting thing is that stereotyping can only be changed by actual meeting. That is more that a physical meeting, you need to be open a little as well. Modern society gives us both a huge opportunite to meet and open up and an opportunity to hide in your own fortified walls of fixed opinions.
The frighting thing is that in research amongst young islam youth, they told me they didn’t suffer from racism, in their view this was not big in Holland, but they suffered strongly from stereotyping.
Jochum
Tags: Stereotyping