Your Reference
Now that you have finished reading this chapter, you can:
Define and explain culture and its impact on your communication:
- Culture is a learned system of thought and behavior that reflects a group’s shared beliefs, values, and practices (p. 52).
- We learn culture through communication with others and, in turn, express our culture through communication (p. 52).
- Your worldview is the framework through which you interpret the world and the people in it (pp. 52–53).
- Intercultural communication is the communication between people from different cultures who have different worldviews (p. 53).
Delineate seven ways that cultural variables affect communication:
- Individuals in high-context cultures use contextual cues to interpret meaning and send subtle messages; in low-context cultures, language is much more direct (p. 56).
- In collectivist cultures, people perceive themselves primarily as members of a group and communicate from that perspective; in individualist cultures, people value individuality, communicate with autonomy, and prefer privacy (pp. 56–57).
- Our comfort/discomfort with the unknown (uncertainty avoidance) varies with culture (p. 57).
- Masculine cultures tend to place value on assertiveness, achievement, ambition, and competitiveness; feminine cultures tend to value nurturance, relationships, and quality of life (p. 58).
- Power distance is the degree to which cultures accept the division of power among individuals (p. 58).
- Time orientation is the way that cultures communicate about and with time. In monochronic cultures, time is a valuable resource that is not to be wasted. Polychronic cultures have a more fluid approach to time (pp. 59–60).
- Cultures differ in their expression of emotion. Collectivist cultures often use hyperbole; individualist ones use more understatement (p. 60).
Describe the communicative power of group affiliations:
- Co-cultures are groups whose members share some of the general culture’s system of thought and behavior but have distinct characteristics (p. 61).
- A generation is a group of people born into a specific time frame (pp. 61–62).
- Gender refers to the behavioral and cultural traits associated with biological sex (p. 62).
- Social identity theory notes that you have a personal identity as well as a social identity. Our social identity shifts depending on which group membership is most salient at a given moment (pp. 64–65).
- Intergroup communication finds that we communicate differently with people in ingroups versus outgroups (p. 64).
Explain key barriers to competent intercultural communication:
- Anxiety may cause us to worry about embarrassing ourselves in an intercultural interaction (pp. 66–67).
- Ethnocentrism is the belief in the superiority of your own culture or group (p. 67).
- Discrimination is behavior toward a person or group based on their membership in a group, class, or category. We often discriminate based on stereotypes and prejudiced views of other groups (pp. 67–68).
- Behavioral affirmation is seeing or hearing what you want to see or hear in the communication of assorted group members (p. 68).
- Behavioral confirmation is when we act in a way that makes our expectations about a group come true (p. 68).
Demonstrate skills and behaviors that contribute to intercultural competence:
- You can improve intercultural communication by being mindful of cultural differences and developing intercultural sensitivity, an awareness of behaviors that might offend others (pp. 68–69).
- Intergroup contact theory holds that interaction between members of different social groups generates more positive attitudes (pp. 69–70).
- Research supports the importance of accommodation, adapting and adjusting your language and nonverbal behaviors. This can lead to convergence, or adapting communication to be more like another individual’s. If you overaccommodate, however, the interaction can be perceived of negatively (pp. 70–71).