You are an expat, therefore….

Anyone who hasn’t been stereotyped or prejudiced against? The answer is rarely “Me!”. So it’s highly likely that you’ll relate to what I’ll describe in this post - especially if you are among the “people on the move”; a group who gets frequently stereotyped in different cultures, if not anything as “expats”.

Last time, I wrote if you think all stereotypes are negative that’s a prejudice, but then why’s there so much negative talk about stereotypes? From one perspective they are very useful because they help us to categorize and deal with the vast amount of social information that we are exposed to. In that sense they are not too different from other beliefs or knowledge structures we have, or generalizations we make such as ripe fruits are sweet, or German cars are reliable. They help us to process and store the information we have about the world, and to make judgments’ and decisions as we go along.

From the users’ perspective there are not too many downsides to relying on stereotypes – except for making some inaccurate judgments about people from time to time, which might have serious or not-so-serious consequences. Possibly the main reason why stereotypes are treated as the bad guys is the impact stereotyping has on the targets.

We can talk about three ways in which stereotyping influences the targets. First is through the way people explain positive and negative outcomes. Imagine (and for most people – just remember) that you are a member of a stereotyped social group. You are well aware of the stereotype and you know that it includes the belief that your group is not competent in a particular domain (e.g., social skills, math, sports, academics, management). Let’s take management. You’ve just received your evaluation as a manager and it’s rather a negative one. Now, you find yourself wondering how objective your supervisor was in evaluating your performance – does the report reflect an accurate assessment of your skills; or has the stereotype related to your social group played a role? Or think of the other scenario where you’ve got a great evaluation, and you find yourself asking a similar question: Is it really me; or is it the company policy about encouraging minorities? In either case the reasons behind the evaluation will carry some ambiguity. And this ambiguity will have implications for your future motivation and performance.

The second way in which stereotyping can influence the targets is through the anxiety it creates. Typical scenario is that you – as a member of a stereotyped group – are aware of the stereotype that your group is perceived not to be that good in a domain (e.g., Math for women; intelligence and academic success for many minorities or people from lower socioeconomic status etc.,). When you find yourself in a situation that will emphasize your skills in that domain, the thought of not performing well and confirming the stereotype creates anxiety. On top of that add the anxiety about doing something that will reflect negatively on your group – now you have enough anxiety to undermine your performance! This, by now well-established effect – is called stereotype threat and its impacts have been demonstrated from educational settings to workplace.

Finally, stereotypes also have a negative impact on targets through the process of self-fulfilling prophecy. Imagine that your manager, in line with her stereotype of your social group, has low expectations of you. Therefore she assigns low priority goals or projects to you. So you get to display your skills in a limited scope; or following the reciprocity norm, you respond by low contributions to low expectations. What ensues is self-fulfilling prophecy demonstrated by a cycle of low expectations - limited contribution that perpetuates the stereotype.  

How about people’s expectations about YOU as a result of their “expat” stereotype: that you make tons of money; your employment comes at the expense of locals’ employment; you’re driving the housing process/rents up; you are living in their community just temporarily? How has being the target of “expat” stereotype been influencing you?

You might be wondering how to work around it – how to break the cycle. Here are a few suggestions:

 

• Don’t give in to your “saboteur*” who will try to undermine your successes by saying “You got the promotion because you are from Group X”; or who will make you nervous by saying “You know what they think – you’re going to fail because you’re from Group X”.

• Instead, take credit for your very own accomplishments; do your reality check with trusted colleagues. To be at your best, make sure to be honest in your self-assessments and avoid the tendency to consistently blame the stereotypes. Work with a coach to support you in dealing with self-limiting beliefs.

• In dealing with stereotype threat: make a list of times when you did succeed in the domain despite what the stereotype suggests. Enrich your list with examples from other members of your group. Make the list easily accessible for future reference so that dealing with anxiety becomes a very easy task.  

• Be aware of the expectations due to stereotypes and deliberately set targets to go beyond them. Get involved in setting goals for yourself and demand higher goals to show your skills.

• Highlight accomplishments – yours or other stereotyped individuals’ – to encourage stereotype change especially given people’s tendency to regard those cases as “exceptions” to keep their stereotypes intact. 
  

*saboteur : also known as “inner critic”, “negative self-talk”

Confirmation bias ~ how it can make it or break it for you…

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Last week I was telling my students how they would end up finding my course interesting or boring depending on their initial expectations of it. We all have a tendency to look for evidence that confirms our expectations or beliefs about people, about places, about ourselves… Cognitive psychologists call this - very well documented -  tendency confirmation bias. It can influence how you perceive the world, how you judge people or how you evaluate yourself. And why do we have this bias? Because we like being right – it makes us feel good!

That’s why I was not surprised to read one of the first tips suggested to expatriates in a recent relocation article in the Financial Times  : “Don’t go looking for flaws!” It could have likewise said, “Look for positive things!”

There are many examples of how starting out with mindsets such as “They don’t like foreigners here” or “Locals are not helpful, distant, arrogant (list can go forever)” can spoil your – otherwise can be very rewarding – international experience! You will simply end up looking for evidence that will confirm those beliefs. And will you find that evidence? You bet! There will always be some behaviors that are unhelpful or distant, but even more importantly (or shall I say, dangerously!) some that you’ll interpret as unhelpful or distant. And here you go – you set yourself up for a negative experience. Here are three ways how confirmation bias works…

First, you seek biased evidence. You’ll pay more attention to – let’s take being distant – distant behaviors and you’ll become more likely to interpret even neutral or ambiguous behaviors as distant. Here’s how. You run into your neighbors in the mornings on your way to work, and they always seem to cut the conversations short. You decide “See, they are distant – all they do is a say a few words”. Have you considered the possibility that they are in a rush, or they are not confident with their language skills if your conversations are not in the local language? On top of that somehow you fail to notice their warm greetings when you see them over the weekend.

Second, because previously you have paid attention to or interpreted incidents in line with your expectations; those will be the ones recorded in your memory. When it comes to remembering things you recall things also in a biased way. Maybe your neighbors do talk for longer some mornings, but again somehow you always remember those short conversations.  

Finally, you start believing in what psychologists call “illusory correlations” – meaning you see relationships between things where there is none. Once you have in your mind­ linked locals with distant behaviors, each distant behavior you encounter will be explained by being [insert the group you have in mind here!]. In reality, there is no such relationship because there are many warm people in the culture where you live or there are many distant people in any culture.

And here’s the icing on the cake. All this can end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy! Because by now you have found enough evidence that these people are distant, your behaviors will reflect that perception – you’ll be less talkative and warm towards them. And guess how they’ll respond to your distant behavior! Congratulations, you have really made your expectation come true!

Doesn’t sound adaptive, does it? But don’t be discouraged, the beauty of confirmation bias is that it also works in the other direction! Imagine the opposite of above example – that you start out with the belief that locals in your new host culture are warm and friendly people. It opens up possibilities for very positive experiences! Well, you know what to do ~ enjoy!