Ideas of gender stereotypes in modern social psychology

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of social cognition. Mechanism of stereotypification and gender stereotypes are considered as determinants of gender subgroups interaction; a notion of a social stereotype is considered as the one close to notions of attitude and representation. Semantics of the gender stereotypes content is determined by the internal mechanism of the individual representation of the whole system of social relations. The types of gender stereotypes are identified. It is concluded that an open women’s claim for men’s social roles is pseudo-emancipation because the socio-cultural importance of femininity does not increase. Properties of gender stereotypes, their development mechanism due to the process of socialization are considered. The problem of gender verbal clichés development in culture of language is considered as well. The role of social functions of stereotypification mechanism in intergroup relations is emphasized. These functions serve for explanation, justification and preservation of the existing relations which thereby support the developed gender asymmetry. It is concluded that social stereotypes including the gender ones are backbones for the individual elaboration of a consistent and well-ordered picture of the social world.