No person can do without automatisms in perception and thinking: it is impossible to ponder every situation, reconstruct its origins, discern the genuine meaning of things and phenomena, and then produce a completely original, fresh response.
For quick assessment and reaction to anything, our consciousness harbors social stereotypes.
Stereotypes represent a certain knowledge developed in culture and society that does not require verification or proof.
They are meant to affirm the obviousness of what is happening.
For instance, the famous American "duck test", which implies the correctness of identifying a phenomenon by its external characteristics: "If something quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."
Each of us has a multitude of images in our minds that are easily used in stereotyping and manipulation.
A bearded man with a gun in his hands and wearing camouflage without any identifying marks is perceived as a terrorist because he looks like a terrorist, is armed like a terrorist, hence, most likely, he is a terrorist.
Despite the fact that in reality, a person of such appearance could be anyone, our first reaction to him is based not on any reasoning or assessment but on the most banal media stereotype.
As early as 1922, American journalist Walter Lippmann wrote, "Of all the means of influencing a person, the most subtle and possessing exceptional power of suggestion are those that create and maintain a gallery of stereotypes. We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them."
Interestingly, this feature of human perception is the basis not only for manipulations but also, for example, for works of the comedic genre.
Various "situation comedies," where differences in the stereotypical perception of this or that phenomenon constantly lead the characters to misunderstandings and idiotic situations, and a happy ending comes only when their stable perceptions of something become common and start to coincide with reality.
Typically, stereotypes include an emotional attitude towards some objects and phenomena, so the reaction to them is a complex socio-psychological process: one can say, one stereotype leads to a chain of subsequent ones.
For a modern politician, for example, it is deemed appropriate to have a pet (or several): people are charmed by a pleasant animal, automatically transferring their affection to its owners ("bad people don't like animals"), begin to trust them more, and... elect them.
Of course, the presence of a pet alone cannot explain victory in elections, but a timely photo with a cat or dog can indeed boost a politician's trust ratings. This also applies to photos of politicians' and businessmen's happy families.
Nowadays, stereotypes and their mechanisms of emergence are very well studied and often used as a necessary element in manipulating consciousness.
A huge number of manipulative techniques are based precisely on working with stereotypes existing in people's minds, and, simultaneously, on the stereotyping of their opinions and reactions. In this context, it is appropriate to recall the classic "but they are just children!" regarding young participants in unauthorized rallies and ambiguous political unions.
This manipulation involves several emotional stereotypes at once.
Firstly, it is natural for people to worry about their children, and any troubles happening to other "children" our consciousness automatically tries on itself, and who would want their children to suffer "out of stupidity".
Secondly, the very fact of any strict punishment for "foolishness," "mischief," "youth" is perceived much more acutely than punishment for a deliberate action of an adult. Thirdly, the idea of a "ruined future" over something as "trivial" as politics is perceived as excessively harsh. Interestingly, teenagers breaking windows or drinking and smoking in stairwells are not usually excused with the "but they are just children!" argument – here, the stereotype of "not children, but hooligans" kicks in, and the sooner society re-educates or isolates them, the better.
When manipulators manage to push large groups of people to see a certain cultural phenomenon through the stereotype they need, it becomes practically impossible for dissenters to explain their point of view or simply appeal to common sense.
It's important to note that manipulating consciousness does not necessarily require constantly affirming certain stereotypes: on the contrary – the statements of manipulators are often aimed at destroying or reformatting the stereotype, deconstructing its symbolic meaning.
For successful manipulation of consciousness, it is important to understand which stereotypes exist in each specific society and each specific social environment, to have a kind of "map of stereotypes", to know which perceptions and feelings of the audience to rely on to achieve the greatest manipulative effect.
#Manipulation #human

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