Chapter 5 Outline

What to Expect

Chapter Outline

  1. Culture is a learned system of thought and behavior that belongs to and typifies a relatively large group of people; it is the composite of their shared beliefs, values, and practices.
    1. Culture is learned through listening and observing others’ communication, which results in the formation of a worldview—the framework through which we interpret the world and the people in it.
    2. We learn culture through communication with others and, in turn, express our culture through communication.
    3. Intercultural communication is the communication between people from different cultures who have different worldviews.
    4. Intercultural communication matters for several reasons:
      1. We live in a diverse society.
      2. The world is mobile.
      3. We interact with people from other cultures via mediated communication.
      4. We interact with others in diverse organizational settings.

    Ask Yourself:

    • What values or beliefs inform your worldview?
    • In what ways do you interact on an intercultural level in your day-to-day life?
  2. There are seven identified variations in cultural practice, playing out along a spectrum, that influence intercultural communication.
    1. High- and low-context cultures
      1. High-context cultures use contextual cues (such as time, place, relationship, and situation) to interpret meaning and send subtle messages.
      2. Low-context cultures use very direct language and rely less on situational factors to communicate.
    2. Collectivist and individualist orientations
      1. People from collectivist cultures tend to perceive themselves as members of larger groups and communicate from that group perspective.
      2. People from individualist cultures value individuality, autonomy, privacy, and personal space.
    3. Comfort with uncertainty
      1. Cultures differ in the degree of anxiety that individual members tend to feel about the unknown. The ability to adapt behaviors in order to reduce uncertainty and risk, referred to as uncertainty avoidance, varies with culture.
    4. Masculine and feminine orientations
      1. Masculine culture places value on assertiveness, achievement, ambition, and competitiveness.
      2. Feminine cultures place value on relationships and quality of life.
    5. Approaches to power distance—the way in which a culture accepts and expects the division of power among individuals
      1. People in high power distance cultures accept their lower position as a fact of life and experience anxiety when communicating with those of higher status.
      2. People in low power distance cultures tolerate less difference in power between people and thus communicate with those higher in status with less anxiety.
    6. Time orientation, the way that cultures communicate with and about time
      1. Monochronic cultures treat time as a limited resource. They use time to structure activities and focus on one person or task at a time.
      2. Polychronic cultures are less concerned with making every moment count and deal with multiple projects and people simultaneously.
    7. Value of emotional expression
      1. Hyperbole, vivid language with great emotional intensity, is often used by collectivist cultures.
      2. Individualist cultures tend to use more understatement, language that downplays the emotional intensity or importance of events.

    Ask Yourself:

    • Which end of the continuum does the family/ethnic culture in which you grew up lean toward in each of these categories?
    • Can you think of any scenarios in which your cultural practice has clashed with that of another person?
  3. The groups to which we belong strongly influence our sense of identity.
    1. Communication scholars have found that our communication is intrinsically tied to our co-cultural experience.
      1. Co-cultures are groups whose members share some of the general culture’s system of thought and behavior, but which have distinct characteristics or attitudes.
        1. They include race, ethnic heritage, gender, age, religion, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation.
        2. Some co-cultures are defined by interest, activities, opinions, or membership in particular organizations.
      2. A generation is a group of people who were born into a specific time frame, along with its unique events and social changes that shape attitudes and behavior.
      3. Gender, the behavioral and cultural traits assigned to our biological sex, also influences our identity.
      4. It is important to note that we should be mindful of individual differences within co-cultures and opportunities for behavioral flexibility (adapting communication skills for use in a variety of life situations).
    2. Social identity theory contends that we each have a personal identity, which is our sense of unique individual personality, as well as a social identity, the part of our self-concept that comes from our group memberships
      1. We identify socially with our ingroups, those groups with which we identify and to which we feel we belong.
      2. We distinguish ourselves from outgroups, those we define as “others.”
      3. Intergroup communication focuses on the ways in which communication within and between groups affects relationships.
      4. Our group identification and communication shift depending on which group membership is made salient, or brought to mind, at a given moment.

    Ask Yourself:

    • What co-cultures do you identify with?
    • Can you think of a situation in which your communication changed as you engaged with an ingroup member and an outgroup member at the same time? How did it change?
  4. There are several key barriers to competent intercultural communication.
    1. Anxiety may cause us to worry about embarrassing ourselves or saying something offensive in an intercultural interaction. The more positive experiences we have with those who differ from us, the less intimidated we feel about communicating with someone from another culture.
    2. Ethnocentrism is the belief in the superiority of your own culture or group and a tendency to view other cultures through the lens of your own.
    3. Discrimination is behavior toward a person or group based solely on membership in a particular group, class, or category, and often results from stereotypes and prejudice.

    Ask Yourself:

    • Have you experienced anxiety in an intercultural interaction? Were you able to overcome your feelings?
    • What is an example of discrimination you have experienced or witnessed?
  5. There are several skills that can contribute to effective and appropriate intercultural communication.
    1. Intercultural training focuses on changing thinking or cognition, changing feelings or affect, and changing behavior.
    2. Being mindful of cultural differences and developing intercultural sensitivity—an awareness of behaviors that may offend others—promotes competent intercultural communication.
    3. Learning culture-specific information by spending quality time with individuals from other groups can increase knowledge of interaction patterns and awareness of other ways of communicating.
    4. Intergroup contact theory holds that interaction between members of different social groups generates a possibility for more positive attitudes to emerge and can thus help in overcoming intergroup biases when done mindfully.
      1. Behavioral affirmation is seeing or hearing what you want to see or hear in the communication of assorted group members.
      2. Behavioral confirmation is when we act in a way that makes our expectations about a group come true.
    5. Accommodation, adapting and adjusting your language and nonverbal behaviors toward the people with whom you are communicating, is another skill that can lead to competent intercultural communication.
      1. This can lead to convergence, when speakers shift their language or nonverbal behaviors toward each other’s way of communicating.
      2. Overaccommodation, which means going too far in changing your language, or changing your language based on an incorrect or stereotypical notion of another group, can lead the interaction to be perceived negatively.
    6. Overall, research shows that communication with members of other cultures can be improved by practicing four key skills.
      1. Listen effectively
      2. Think before speaking or acting
      3. Be empathic
      4. Do the right thing

    Ask Yourself:

    • What is an example of behavioral affirmation or confirmation from your own life?
    • How can you tailor your communication to be more effective and appropriate during your next intercultural or intergroup communication encounter?