Ethnic Stereotypes: Explication and Analysis

Abstract

Stereotypes can be either greater or less authentic to the phenomenon, process, interaction system, and stay in the space of bias and/ or prejudice being nourished by social myths. In the latter case, they are actual or potential threat to both the subject and object of the social activity. A large part of social stereotypes is in the space of the collective unconsciousness and can be explicated only by special socio-psychological research. The article presents the author's approach to the identification and interpretation of ethnic stereotypes basis on the cognitive and discourse analysis. The authors provide the results of an empirical study of three ethnic groups in the Khabarovsk Territory: Indigenous Peoples, non-Russians and Russians. The article reveals a contradiction between the attitude towards other nations/ethnic groups, formed within a system of education/training in Russia, and hostility towards other ethnic groups existing at the level of the archetype. The authors come to the conclusion about the ambiguity and contradictory stereotypes: high evaluation and self-esteem of representatives of non-Russian ethnic groups, the average evaluation and low self-esteem of indigenous peoples of the Khabarovsk Territory, low evaluation and self-esteem of Russians.