Kuwait Times

Published Date: May 07, 2007
By By Velina Nacheva, Staff Writer

Stereotyping and attributing traits based on group affiliations have very significant consequences on interpersonal relations, says an American professor of communication and intercultural affairs. Dr. Alex Tan, a visiting Fulbright Senior Specialist, spoke at a lecture entitled, 'Images of Americans Abroad: Why Are We Disliked?' hosted by The Gulf Studies Center and The Communications and Media Program at the American University of Kuwait. The lecture was held yesterday at the American University of Kuwait.

In his words, negative stereotyping leads to avoidance, which can then lead to exclusion. Exclusion, on the other hand, he said, leads to discrimination, aggression and in the worst-case scenario violence. This was Dr Tan's first visit to Kuwait. He opened up his talk saying that in many universities in the US, Middle Eastern studies are becoming more popular. Tan, who is also a Professor and Founding Director of the Edward R Murrow School of Communications at Washington State University, based his talk on results of worldwide surveys showing that for the most part, the image of Americans abroad is negative.

Dwelling on the issue of the images of America abroad, he stressed that there are many dimensions to portraying images of America - such as the American government, the American foreign policy and of the American people - a distinction that is not usually made. It is likely to dislike American policy and government, he observed, and at the same time to have a favour for American popular culture. According to the survey results, which Tan presented, 83 percent of Americans have a generally favourable view of the US. Tan offered his interpretation of the results. "They (surveyed Americans) were responding in a sense of the quality of life in the US, rather than the specific aspects of government, employment, wage relations etc."

Tan went on to add the specific traits that Americans provide to self-describe themselves. He summed up saying that some 85 percent of the respondents said that Americans were hardworking, 81 percent said they were inventive and 63 percent said they were honest. Greed was the one negative attribute self-ascribed by Americans themselves, he explained. The survey findings also featured Japan as the country with the most favourable view of the United States, followed by Great Britain and India. On the other hand, the countries with the least favourable overall view of the US were Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan and Turkey. 

The specific traits attributed to describe Americans by Muslim countries (mainly Indonesia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan) were: Selfish, arrogant, violent and immoral. "These are primarily negative attitudes," he said. France, the Netherlands, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, Germany, Russia, Poland characterized the US with a mixture of positive and negative traits - hard working, inventive, honest, greedy and violent. According to the surveys, Canada, he said, is the country with the most negative view of the United States. Tan cautioned that the surveys did not always distinguish between American people and American government. In China, the survey showed, respondents mostly described the US as rich. On a conclusive note, Tan explained that negative images of the US are coined because of the US foreign policy and because of the cultural differences. 

He also explored the influence of the media, personal contact and government policies on this negative image elaborating that education is key to the elimination of stereotyping and over-generalizing. Tan (PhD, Wisconsin-Madison), a professor and founding director of the Edward R Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University, is the author of over 70 research articles and a book on media effects. He has done research in over 15 countries including Russia, China, Mexico, Thailand and Japan. He is currently a visiting Fulbright Senior Specialist at the AUK, where he is teaching a course on Intercultural Communication and is also consulting with the Communications and Media Program.