Don't label yourself, because long-term labeling will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I talked about talent in the previous article, and I also mentioned that we should know and give full play to our talents. However, in reality, we often don't want to know ourselves deeply. Instead, we put some labels on ourselves, which fetters our talents. In fact, the act of labeling ourselves and others will not only hinder our in-depth self-awareness, but also make a "self-testifying prophecy" involuntarily under the negative label of others, so that we are unfortunately said by others. < P > When I was a child, a middle-aged man who walked around the streets to do business often passed by the door. I don't know why, every time I see him, I am very scared. Maybe it's because he is too fierce, maybe it's because of his expression, maybe it's because of the cargo he is carrying. Anyway, a child's fear is always difficult to understand.

whenever he appeared at the door, I would quickly hide behind the door and never come out again. My grandmother called me out to call someone, but I ignored him. On one occasion, she sighed and said, The child is afraid of life, and he may not have any future.

how old a child is, he simply can't understand the relationship between "fear of life" and "ambition". However, my grandmother has always preferred sons to daughters. I have been working hard to win her favor, but today she lost confidence in me because of a stranger. At that moment, I felt ashamed of myself.

Before that, I was not afraid of other strangers, but from that moment on, I suddenly became afraid and refused to contact strangers. I'm not sure if you had similar experiences when you were young. Later, I told some friends that many people did. For example, because of a small matter, adults called you "stupid", "introverted", "hyperactive", "honest" and "simple-minded", and at the same time, they were labeled as "growing up will suffer and growing up will be worthless".

for a child, there is nothing worse than this label, which is a hundred times worse than failing the exam. Because this label denies our future, and the exam only represents once.

Of course, you may be lucky enough not to have the above experience, but I think you have probably heard these: "Are you Scorpio?" Very dark. " "Your boss is a Virgo? It's not easy for you to be so picky. " "You are so introverted that you are not suitable for sales." "You are so rational, you must be cold and unsympathetic." "Your leader is not married at such a big age and is a woman. It must be abnormal." "The car in front is so bad, it must be a female driver." "He looks so young that he can't give any useful advice." "Eating on the subway is so incompetent and a foreigner."

of course, there seems to be something positive. For example, "Are you a Capricorn? I must work very hard. " (I've really heard that there are wonderful companies that recruit people according to the constellation.) "You are so outgoing, you can talk to everyone, and you must be popular." "Are you from the north? No wonder it's so refreshing. "

It seems very easy for us, and it is often difficult to tell others our judgments about a certain kind of people, but we are often angry that others have made some judgments about ourselves.

like us, it is a common phenomenon to label a class of people and classify them according to our past experience, and form a fixed view. To put it more seriously, it is "stereotype". The question is, are these stereotypes correct?

In 215, the social activity "# ilooklikeaningener" (if you search online, you should still be able to see it), and the photos shared will make you believe that they are all engineers.

People often form their first impression within 3 seconds of meeting others. Moreover, unless you continue to make deep friends, it is difficult to change. These impressions are often based on appearance, personality, education, and so on, but we can know this information without knowing each other deeply at all.

So, where do these stereotypes related to appearance, gender and education come from? It has something to do with our education and experience.

For example, a pair of parents taught their daughter from an early age that "girls should wear pink and boys should wear blue", so she will probably feel disgusted when she sees a boy in pink in the future. Of course, if she finds that many boys around her are wearing pink during her growing up, she may gradually change this impression.

But is this stereotype from education and experience correct?

often incorrect! Because our society has been developing, many of your ideas of being educated since childhood have changed.

Furthermore, everyone's past experience is actually limited. We are only very small individuals in the world, and the world we have seen is too small.

Therefore, many of the stereotypes we have derived from our past education and our limited experience are actually incorrect, that is, they are probably a kind of prejudice.

since it is not correct, why can't we help thinking like this? Why do our brains actively form these obviously incorrect stereotypes?

Living on the earth (the tiny blue planet in the tiny solar galaxy in the Milky Way), we are all as small as dust, and we may die at any time and place for various reasons.

Therefore, we have been avoiding risks and fighting against fear all our lives. These stereotypes, to some extent, have become an experience of avoiding risks, which can reduce our fears.

For example, when you drive several times, you find that road killers are often women, so when you see women driving, you will be more careful to avoid traffic accidents that may be caused by this.

human beings have a natural tendency to divide others into "within the group" and "outside the group".

Groups compete for resources. When resources are scarce, we tend to close group boundaries, favoring people in the group but discriminating against people outside the group.

Because when we belong to a certain group, this kind of feeling will make us feel very safe and make us feel stronger when dealing with foreign competition.

So, this explains that when people around us stand on the opposite side of us and disagree with our views, we will feel very alarmed and will be eager to find a group with * * *.

To give a realistic example, suppose you were born in a city and told that as a local, you can't be admitted to the university in your city.

The reason is that they have opened more places for new immigrants than in the past. At this time, you are more likely to be biased against new immigrants and support the policy of restricting their admission. In many big cities, the contradiction between locals and new immigrants, as well as their mutual prejudice, has a lot to do with this psychology.

Of course, even if there is no competition for resources between groups, after dividing the inner and outer groups, we still have an emotional tendency, and we tend to prefer our own kind. An extrovert is often more likely to be biased against introverts. A person with a higher education is often more likely to be biased against people with a lower education, which is an emotional nature.

in performance evaluation, there is an evaluation bias called "personal preference error", that is, managers tend to give higher evaluation to people like themselves, and the same is true.

According to Robin dunbar, an anthropologist at Oxford University, 15 people is the upper limit of the stable network that human intelligence allows (also known as Dunbar number). In other words, we can't get in touch with everyone we know.

We often treat others with completely different attitudes: we often regard the familiar person as a person with personality, while we tend to classify the unfamiliar person. For example, if you imagine the image of a westerner, you would describe Americans as casual, creative and free. You would describe the French as romantic, arrogant and enjoying life.

But if I asked you to sum up China people in a few words, how would you sum them up? You will probably tell me that you can't do it, because you think: China people are different, China is too big, and China people are very diverse.

The reason is that we are not familiar with other groups, so we always tend to think that they are homogeneous. Even if you tell yourself that they are different individuals, subconsciously, you still classify them as one.

This is easy to understand. If we are born in the 198s, we will feel that the post-9s are all the same, and it is easy to put a lot of labels on the post-9s, but we will not put labels on the post-8s, because we recognize the diversity of people in the group.

so, what are the negative problems with labeling?

Stereotype is actually a kind of prejudice, and prejudice can easily lead to discrimination, and discrimination can lead to negative behavior.

When we communicate with others, especially people we trust, this stereotype will influence our own behavior, and then we will make a self-testifying prophecy.

We have all heard of the Rosenthal effect, which is obviously a group of students randomly divided. Why did these children really achieve extraordinary results when psychologists told the headmaster that they were all IQ-oriented talents after scientific determination?

This is because people subconsciously accept the influence and hints of people they like, admire and trust.

when stereotypes are heard for a long time, such as when your respected leader tells you that "you are introverted and not suitable for sales", it is easy for you to make some behaviors subconsciously. You will make a self-fulfilling prophecy, that is, I am so introverted that I am really not suitable for sales.

For another example, a foreign study shows that when a high-ranking person assigns lower-ranking women more tasks than men and has lower expectations for their performance, they tend to be more insecure, thus confirming the boss's expectations.

the threat of stereotype is another problem of stereotype, that is, we are worried that we will really conform to the stereotype of others about our group. This anxiety caused by stereotypes will affect our performance.

For example, your company pays more attention to qualifications and tends to think that young people are often inexperienced and do not handle things properly. When one day, you have the opportunity to deal with some cross-departmental communication, you will feel very anxious.

On the one hand, you want to prove to yourself that everything they say is wrong, and at the same time, you are worried that colleagues in other departments will not take young you seriously because of this stereotype.

For another example, in a male-dominated enterprise, if people tend to think that women are not suitable for management. Then when you have the opportunity to manage, you will be very worried that others will be biased against you, and you even worry that your subordinates will be dissatisfied because of their gender.

These anxieties and worries often make you hesitate and affect your original performance.

In fact, once a stereotype is formed, it is difficult to get rid of it, because we tend to reject information that does not support our stereotype.

For example, we think that a female driver is a road killer, so when we see a road killer, if it happens to be a woman, we will proudly tell ourselves: Look, am I right?

However, if we see a road killer and find that it is not a female driver, we will think: Well, this is just a special case. Because, our natural tendency is to remember the information consistent with the stereotype and ignore the contradictory information.

In addition, due to attribution bias's reasons, we tend to attribute the results to personal behavior without considering the situational factors.

For example, if we think that introversion means that we are not good at words and communication. Therefore, when we see introverted people do anything, we all think it is caused by introversion, and we will not consider the reasons behind it or the situation at that time.

For another example, if we think that women worship money, then if we see a woman covered with famous brands, it will be attributed to her worship of money.

what problems will this tendency lead to? It will hinder our chances of getting in touch with others.

when we label another person, we will think: well, that's what he is. Therefore, we no longer want to get to know this person in depth.

So, when we put labels on others, it is the moment when we personally close the door into each other's hearts.

it is impossible for us to study everyone deeply, so labeling can't be completely avoided. However, when facing the people we care about, whether it is active labeling or passive labeling, we need to try our best to overcome it.

first, consciously remind yourself.

As I said above, this kind of behavior is human nature, and stereotypes are automatically generated. Therefore, it is necessary to remind yourself carefully and consciously to overcome it.

Just like asking you to judge a person's occupation by looking at him, when we don't tell ourselves "be careful" in advance, we are in a natural state, and it is easy to draw wrong conclusions. However, when we read the article here, you will know: well, I can't judge my career by my looks.

why is there such a change? Because we consciously get rid of our stereotypes, we are ready to think objectively about the relationship between looks and careers, and rationally tell us that it doesn't matter.

Therefore, consciously reminding yourself can reduce the behavior of labeling others.

second, actively contact and even rely on other group members.

Our stereotypes and prejudices often come from past experiences, but our experiences are too limited and our horizons are too narrow, so we have these prejudices.

However, if there is more contact between the two groups, when we see too many special cases against the original stereotype, it will help us to eliminate prejudice.

For example, many companies now set up inter-departmental project teams, and when tackling a difficult project, members of different groups work together. At this time, they will find that they need the help of people outside the group, and mutual cooperation and dependence can deepen mutual trust and help eliminate some stereotypes.

Third, see the bigger world and always be curious.

A man holding hands is Gay. Do you think so? However, if you know that some Indian men like to hold hands, would you still think so?

For another example, in a small city, being unmarried at the age of 3 means that girls are not good enough or too picky. However, in Beishangguang, people who are not married at the age of 3 are everywhere. You are used to it and won't feel anything wrong.

In short, after seeing the bigger world, you will adjust your cognition.

In fact, we often find that those who are more knowledgeable have fewer stereotypes. And those who are particularly extreme often have a narrow vision.

first, know yourself correctly and let other groups know this.

I have asked many people who call themselves introverts, "Do you know what introversion is?" Few people can answer correctly.

I once wrote several articles about introversion in WeChat official account, clarifying the difference between personality, ability, character and behavior. Many people exclaimed: This is the first time I know myself.

actually, when you