Editorial: Stereotypes and intercultural relations: Interdisciplinary integration, new approaches, and new contexts

Frontiers in Psychology. 2021. Vol. 12. No. 728048. P. 1–4.

Grigoryev D., Berry J. W., Zabrodskaja A.

This special issue was inspired by Grigoryev, Fiske and Batkhina’s work (2019) on ethnic stereotypes and Berry’s approach to the psychology of intercultural relations (e.g., Berry, 1998, 2005; Berry et al., in press). Since individual behaviors are shaped in particular cultural contexts, we interested in what happens when individuals who have developed in different cultural contexts meet and interact in culturally diverse settings. Stereotyping is a cognitive mechanism that underlies all aspects of intercultural processes: the way individuals perceive members of other groups shapes their attitudes and behavior towards them, influencing their various types of intercultural interaction and perspectives. While many of the papers in this volume incorporate these cognitive functions of stereotypes, they go beyond these basic acts of perception, categorization, attribution, and generalization that give meaning to intercultural interaction and intergroup anxiety. They deal also with the processes of evaluating members of the groups (having general prejudice towards others, and attitudes towards specific groups), and then to acts ranging from discrimination to inclusion as the static and dynamic aspects of intercultural relationships. All these individual psychological processes are embedded in the general sociopolitical group contexts that incorporate the history of intergroup relations, their mutual images, the extant institutional and systemic values, and the established collective practices that may act against some groups but privilege others. This special issue consists of 13 articles by 46 scholars from 15 countries that address both personal and cultural stereotypes for which insights from the Stereotype Content Model (SCM; Fiske et al., 2002) and Behavior from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes (BIAS; Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007) are mainly used. Each paper focuses on its set of contexts and analyzes contradictory forces of cultural meanings, as socially constructed and emergent, experienced and expressed in intercultural encounters.

Keywords: acculturation, cultural diversity, intercultural relations, stereotype content model, ethnic stereotypes, intercultural communication

Publication based on the results of: Attitudes of intercultural and socio-economic interaction: cross-country and intergenerational analysis (2021)