I’ve just had a paper published which describes some research
about prototypical social identities – the image that we conjure up in our
minds’ eyes when we think about a ‘typical’ member of a particular profession.
As a society, we have become quite wary of stereotypes. We
know that they can be inaccurate and can foster discrimination and so we try to
eradicate them. But actually, stereotypes are a very natural and normal part of
human cognition. Our brains have developed all sorts of mechanisms to maximise
the amount of information they can process, and minimise the amount of effort this
takes. Stereotypes are one such mechanism and whilst it is clearly wrong to set
too much store by them, it’s important to recognise that they are inevitable,
and therefore I think we need to learn a bit more about them.
The study
I gathered some students together for some focus groups (24
psychology undergraduates in four focus groups) and asked them to close their
eyes and imagine a typical member of four different professions: primary
teacher, organisational psychologist, clinical psychologist and social worker.
I then asked me to describe these prototypes. Their stories were fascinating.
The first surprising thing was the amount of detail my
participants were able to give me. I was keen to push them to see how far they
could go with their descriptions. Although they were a bit slow to start, once
they got warmed up, they were able to give me all sorts of details about their
prototypical characters. They told me what their prototypes looked like, what
they wore, what their homes were like, how they spent their holidays, their
weekends, their money, who they were living with, what their children were like,
what they ate, what they drank, etc etc etc.. I pushed them hard but they met
me step for step, and I couldn’t find a question they weren’t able to answer.
How amazing to think that they all had this wealth of data about these
professions, lurking in the back of their minds!
The second strange thing was that they seemed much more fluent
when talking about their imagined prototypes outside work, than in work. A
couple of them voiced concerns at the start about their lack of knowledge about
the jobs – they said that they didn’t know what an organisational psychologist
was, so weren’t sure that they would be able to contribute to the discussions.
I told them not to worry, but just to close their eyes and see what came up. And
despite not knowing any details about the job itself, they were able to tell me
that their imagined organisational psychologist lived in Clapham, had a golden
retriever, enjoyed skiing, lived with someone who worked in finance and liked a
cocktail bar. It was intriguing to me that these personal stories could be so
vivid, when the knowledge of the job itself was so shaky.
The prototypes described seemed to be based on a mix of societal
stereotypes and personal experiences. There were clearly some characteristics
that the participants’ images of the different professions had in common: the
clinical psychologists were intelligent and a bit quirky; the social workers
were warm, had clear left-wing values, and lived in slightly shabby homes, and they wore comfortable shoes - this came up surprisingly often. These
aspects felt like socially-shared stereotypes, shared by many of the participants and
probably influenced by things that we all have access to - the media, fictional
characters from tv, films and books, and cultural stereotypes. But the
participants’ also described some particular characteristics which seemed specific
to them and were based on their own individual experiences – some spoke about
primary teachers they remembered from their school days, and psychologists they
themselves had met, and they clearly drew on their own experiences when
imagining their prototypical professionals.
One final interesting thing was that the particular features
of the prototypes described seemed to be clearly linked to personality
characteristics. The comfortable shoes, slightly shabby sofas and hearty
casseroles of the social workers all seemed to conjure up a warm personality.
The colourful accessories and off-the-beaten-track holidays of the clinical
psychologists sounded quirky. The dungarees, the karaoke and the comedy tv programmes
illustrated the primary teachers’ playful nature.
So why do we care?
It seemed then that the participants had a vast wealth of
knowledge about each of these professions, hidden slightly below their
consciousness: they didn’t always know that they had this knowledge, but with a
few questions and just a little bit of focused attention, they were easily able
to bring it to the forefront of their minds. I think it’s inevitable that this
information will have an impact on their career choices. How could it not? If
they think of themselves as a warm person, they are bound to be more drawn to a
profession whose prototype they see as warm. If they like the idea of being seen
as a playful person, they are going to be more enthusiastic about choosing a
profession they associate with this characteristic.
The career guidance profession is rightly concerned that
people should be making their career choices on the basis of up to date, accurate
and relevant careers information. Of course this is important. But if people
are using their own prototypical ideas to inform their opinions, then we need
to be aware of that, so that we can draw this information out, and get them to scrutinise
it. If they can identify their own preconceptions, work out where their ideas
have come from, and consider whether the information is accurate or relevant,
then we can help them to base their decisions on the right kind of information.
If we ignore the fact that our clients have a vast array of existing information
then we are allowing it to influence their choices, regardless of whether it is
accurate, up to date or relevant.
My suggestions might lead to some unusual career
conversations, which could touch on some topics that have traditionally been
outside the typical carer guidance remit. But that’s no reason to avoid them.
If it helps clients to explore their ideas fully, then surely it’s worth a try?
The paper
Yates, J. & Cahill, S. (2019). The characteristics of
prototypical occupational identities: a grounded theory of four occupations.
British Journal of Guidance and
Counselling. Online first. 10.1080/03069885.2019.1706154
