Culture, Stereotypes, and Social Behaviour

Every culture provides to society a compass to comprehend, classify, and give meaning and sense to the world that surrounds it. But cultures tend to reflect, defend, and reproduce the status quo. They change slowly. They resist because they provide the illusion of some kind of certainty in a world that, if rapidly developing, will seem difficult to understand. Nesting within these pockets of resistance are prejudices, often activated to defend privileged positions. Ultimately, therefore, in support of these processes of production, conservation, and reproduction of prejudices, there is an underlying attempt to affirm or maintain partisan interests. This is why it is so important to learn how to recognize and to contrast them.