Culture and Communication

Chapter 1 – Culture and Communication

The Importance of Learning about Culture * Two importanat reasons for understanding culture are to learn how others make sense of their environment and the prevent mistakes and miscommunication 1. Make Sense of Our World 2. The works if Becoming Increaseingly Diverse 3. People around the world ARE different * People from different cultures are different (as well as similar) in how they see the world. * Cultures are the products of human imagination 4. Preventing Mistakes * Cultural mistakes can be unconscious or unintentional, but damaging nevertheless * Loss of business * Failulars result cuz someone didn’t understand the reasons why people think as they do and value what they do 5. Responding to Different Cultures * Members of different cultures find themselves facct to face - clash and struggle for dominance of one set of values over another * Conflict is not the only result * Encounters with people from different cultures are not new, and neither are the various responses to differences 6. Hostility to Difference * Far from wanting to become part of a dominant culture some immigrants reject it out of fear they willl lose their own culture 7. Curiosity about Difference * Reason to learn about a culture, satisfy one’s curiosity, establish commections with people who think differently 8. Denying the Differences * The productive way to respond to cultureal difference is not to deny it exists, but to learn about difference and how to communicate about it

Assumption of Superiority * Backward nad primitive to criticize those whose cultures are different * All groups look at their own culture as superior and others as inferior

Ethnocentrism * Members of other cultures, are convinced their own culture is the normal one * Asses all other cultures by how closely they resemble their own * Self reference criterion – explains this behavior and experience * Ethnocentrism can lead to a complaceny about ones own culture, a lack of interest in understanding another culture, and actual discrimination against people of other cultures

Assumption of Universality * People underneath are not alike * Culture is the whole view of the universe from which peole assess the meaning of life and their appropriate response to it, and those views are not the same

Cooperating with Difference * The principle of surviving in a multicultural wold is that one dies not need to think, feel, and act in the same way in order to agree on particular issues and to cooperate * Agree to be different and celebrate diversity * What makes sense in our culture, and how to communicate effectively with them * Minimize and prevent mistakes across culture * Motivation – the drive to know and to use the knowledge * Implementing knowledge, and behaving in a way that makes sense in the other culture – you want to do buz

Understanding Culture * Culture is those deep, unstated experiences which they communicate without knowing, and which form the backdrop against which all other evens are judged * Culture is the coherent, learned, shared view of a group of people about life’s concerns, expressed in symbols and activities, that ranks what is important, furnished attitude about what things are appropriate, and dictates behavior.

Culture is Coherent * Coherent and complete within itself – an entire view of the universe

Culture is Learned * Learned about ones’ own culture is stored in mental categories that are recalled only when they are challenged by something different – taught our culture

Culture is the View of a Group of People * Shared by a society * Agree about the meaning of things and about the ich are dynamic foree enabling them to achieve goals * validate their own cultures view * Interpreted life ecperiences in ways that * Agree about what the important things are * Motivated by common views which are dynamic force enabling them to achieve goals

Culture ranks what is Important * Cultures teach values or priorities * Values are standards we use to judge what is importunate * Mental constructs that underlie specific attitudes and that determine standards to our attitudes and behaviors * How to weigh the worth of something

Culture Furnished Attitudes * Attitudes are learned tendencies to respons to phenomena in a consistent way * Feelings, postive or negative about something based on values * Beliefs are convictions or certainties that come form subjective and often personal ideas rather than on proof of fact * Belief system – or religious are powerful sources of values and attitudes in culture

Culture Dictates How to Behave * Behavior comes directly from attitudes about how significant something is- how it is valued * Values drive action * Cultural differences usually make themselves know first by behavior, related to attitudes and which springs from values in culture

Onstage and Backstage Elements of Culture * Onstage culture is the behavior we display * Easiest to observe and discuss * Backstage culture is not so visible – values, incl. ways people make decisions, respond to deadlines, accomplish tasks, rank events by importance, and conceptualize knowledge – why of culture

Transactional Cultures * Person initiates an exchange that is based on expectations that come form their backstage culture * Onstage cultural adaption - transactional culture * Exists when interactants respond to cultural cues and modify their owen behavior, creating – a new, temp culture * Existings when interactiants are sensitive to and knowledgeable about, another culture and adjust their behavior

Adapting Another Cultures Behavior. * Lists of does and taboos don’t explaine why you should or should not behavior in a particular way

Culture Shock * Culture shock in an inevitable result of immersion in a new and unfamiliar culture * Culture shock is the sense of dislocation and the problems – phychological and even physical – that result from the stress of trying to make the hundreds of adjustments necessary for living in a foreign culture 1. Euphoria – everything about the exciting new adventure is wonderful 2. Disillusionment and frusteration – not being in step with the members of the culture. Inadequate in your understanding, your mental road map for navigating this new culture. Disappointment in yourself and in others. Things that seemed acceptable when they first arrived become irritants 3. Adjustment – learns more about backstage culture and they way it works able to cooperate more effectively with members of the host culture 4. Integration – Fluent enough in the other culture to move easily within it and not be thrown by the different attitudes, beliefs, and values, and behaviors they generate

Reverse Culture Shock * Finds many things to criticize and often asks why the old culture canto be more like the one so recently encountered. Impatient with things that never used to cause complaint.

Self-Knowledge and Understanding Ones Own Culture * Having good understanding of one’s own culture’s values, attitudes, and behaviors – including communication behavior – best foundation for developing the ability to understand the communication behavior of people from other cultures * Less likely to judge other cultural values as inferor, simply as different * To assume that you know how someone else is thinking based on how you see things – projected congnitive similarity – you think you know someone elses perceptions, judgments, attitudes, and values because you assume they are like your own

Mental Representations * Use mental categories that hold info intems grouped together * Change with the intro of new info

Prejudice * Generalization that are based on limited knowledge, express an evalution – usually negative * Make up their minds before they have all the facts * Leaping to an evaluative conclusion based on limited knowledge without gathering info about the individual, culture and the context * Racism – one form of prejudice that leads to behavior that excludes or sidelines people on the basis of their perceived race * Sexism, ageism, homophobia

Bias * Bias for something is a preference * Bias against something is a negative attitude that ranks it low * We prefer what is know and familiar because it poses little threat

Discrimination * When biases or prejudices are acted on, the actor is showing discrimination * Act of sifting out and selecting according to bias towards something or someone, and treating them differently * Occurs in all cultures, where negative behavior is showen towards groups

Cultural Intelligence * Cultural Intelligence (CI) – Explain how certain people seem able to fit into another culture more easily than others * CI is the capability of an individual to learn and understand another culture and then act accordingly * IQ – Intelligent Quotation * Human Intelligence: 1. EQ – Emotional Intelligence – ability to read others and others own emotions and act accordingly 2. SQ – social intelligence, the ability to understand social needs and expectations, and act accordingly 3. PQ – Practical Intelligence, the ability to accomplish daily living tasks efficiently and effectively * CI – persons capability for successful adaptation to new cultural settings * Cognition – thinking process, incl. knowledge about the culture and about what to do in a new culture * Motivation – desire to adapt successfully * Behavior – appropriate actions

The Question of Change In Culture
The Cultures Merging into One Global Culture * As societies achieve more economic stability, rallying around their cultures seems to increase in importance, not decrease * Deep values of cultures remain unchanged

Ever Changing Popular Taste * Popular Culture – constantly changes, backstage culture – values, attitudes and cultural dimentions that have been learned from birth – change very little and very slowly * Technology is the way humans relate to their physical environment

The Study of Communication Across Cultures * Culture is learned and shared through communication, and communication is based in cultural norms

3 Charicteristics of the Discipline of Cross Cultural Communication * American Domination * Observed Behavior * Multidisciplinary

Study of the Communication of Groups vs. the Study of Individuals Communication * It is important to keep these two ways of studying communication separate

Intercultural and Cross Cultural Communication Study * Cross Cultural Commucation – communication within one culture is the focus first, then communication within a second cultures is the next focus

Intercultural Communication * People from two or more cultures interact * Intercultural communication involves analysis of what is happening at the point when communication is taking place

Two Broad Approaches to Communication Research in the Social Sciences * Science – positivist or functionalist * Social – interpretivist or humanist * Research who use the positivist approach believe their study of the phenomenon does not directly affect it * Behavior of the participants is not affetcted by the researcher doing the study * The objective of the positivist researcher is to describe the behavior and predict it * Positivist research gathers quantitative data

Interpretivist Research Design * Based on the philosophical position that reality is subjective, created by the minds of people according to the way things make sense to them * Collects data by observation and perhaps by questionnaire, but mainly by interview and focus groups * Why the participants in the study act in a certain way * Studies one group in depth * Believes the act of gathering info impacts the info * The objective is to describe the phenomenon and to find out the reasons for it as reported by the participants in the study * Context – explains the conclusions of an interpretivist study

Combined Approach * These two general approaches to research, positivist and interpretivist are usually in some kind of combination in commucation research
The Merits of Positivist Research * Positivist research uses data that can be generalized * Studies have high reliability

The Overall Weaknesses of the Positivist Approach * Separating out the other variables among respondents is difficult * Positivist study is low in validity – research truly finds out about what it says it is studying * The psitivist study is low in validity (research truly finds out about what is saying it is studing)

The Merits Of Interpretivist Research * Rich, detailed data can be gathered from the sample – qualitiate research * Researcher can explore how the participants behave, along with their reasons for doing so, the validity of interpretivist research is high * Research context can be addressed

Weaknesses of Interpretivist Research * The findings are subjective, researcher’s opinions form part of the conclusions * Interpretivist research has low reliability * The results of interpretivist research cannot be generalized any other context or group, predictions cant be made based on findings from interpretivist research

The Rhetorical Approach: A Kind of Interpretivist Study * Examining written texts or oral utterances in order to explain attitudes values, and behaviors * Goal is to interpret meaning of what people have said or what they have written down, in their original context

Intercultural Business Communication * Interculturl business communication is communication by members of different cultures for business or workplace purpose

A Schemata Model for Intercultural Communication * The mental categoies we create in order to make sense of the world can be called schemata