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Critical Literacy, Communication
and Interaction 1 (GE3A)
University of Aruba
FAS: SW&D / OG&M
October 6, 2009
Unit 5
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Today’s program:
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Summary: properties of communication
Introduction on the subject of unit 5
Class assignment on cultural variability
Presentation of class assignments
Summary
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Properties of communication
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Process
Dynamic
Interactive - Transactive
Symbolic
Intentional – unintentional?
Contextual
Ubiquitous (omnipresent)
Cultural
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Discussion questions:
• In what ways is Aruba changing
demographically?
• Why do you think are so many people afraid of
communication?
• Why are so many people afraid to communicate
with people from cultures different from their
own?
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Culture
• What does the saying ‘Culture is everywhere’
mean?
• Contested concept. More than 300 definitions of
culture !
• Culture= an accumulated pattern of
values, beliefs, and behaviors, shared by
an identifiable group of people with a
common history and verbal and nonverbal movements (Neuliep, 2009)
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Properties of Culture
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Culture is people
Culture as an accumulated pattern of values, believes and
behaviors, shared by an identifiable group of people with a
common history and verbal and nonverbal symbol systems
People who exist in the same culture generally share similar
values and believes, history
The values of a particular culture lead to a set of
expectations and rules prescribing how people should
behave in that culture
Identifiable group: shared cognition, shared memory
(history that binds people)
Microcultural groups: subgroups that exist in the
mainstream culture (distinct in some way, microcultures
often may have histories /or properties that differ in some
way with the mainstream culture
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Different microcultures in Aruba?
• Please name different microcultures of Aruba?
▫ Identifiable group (subculture) within the
mainstream culture?
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Intercultural communication
• Intercultural communication occurs when a
minimum of two persons from different cultures
or micro cultures come together and exchange
verbal and non-verbal codes
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A contextual model of Intercultural
communication (Neuliep, 2009)
• According to this model, intercultural
communication occurs within and between a
variety of interconnected contexts, including
cultural, microcultural, environmental,
perceptual and sociorelational contexts.
• The term context refers to the setting,
situation, circumstances, background and
overall framework within which communication
occurs ( see unit 1 of this course).
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Neuliep’s contextual model of
intercultural communication (2009)
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Identifying the various contexts
• The contextual model of intercultural
communication attempts to identify the various
contexts that identify what happens when a
person from Culture A communicates with a
person from Culture B.
• As we walk through the contextual model, please
note the model is both conceptually and
graphically consistent.
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Context
definition
Cultural
An accumulated pattern of values, beliefs and behaviors,
shared by an identifiable group of people with a common
history and verbal and non-verbal systems
(the overall rules of communication)
Microcultural
Subgroups/minorities group that exist within the main
culture.
Environmental
The psychical, geographical location of the interaction. The
‘when’ and ‘where’ the rules of communication (culture)
apply
Perceptual
The individual characteristics of each interactant,
including their cognitions (mental models), attitudes,
dispositions and motivations. This context focuses on how
individuals gathers, stores and retrieves information.
Individual perception is affected by culture, moreover how
individuals develop attitudes about others (e.g. stereotype)
varies from culture to culture
Sociorelational
The relationship between the interactants.
Whenever people come together they establish a
relationship. Each person assumes a role, your interaction
varies as a function of what role you are assuming
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Intercultural communication is defined
by the interdependence of these
various contexts:
• The perceptual contexts combine to create the
sociorelational context, which is defined by the
verbal and non-verbal messages sent. The
sociorelational context is influences by the
environmental context and defined by the
microcultural and cultural contexts. These
contexts combine in a complex formula to create
the phenomena of intercultural communication.
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Intercultural communication and
Uncertainty
• Starting point in intercultural interaction: uncertainty!
• We may not know anything about the ‘other’ person’s culture, values,
habits, behavior, dress and so on…we may not know what to do in such
circumstances.
• This uncertainty about the other person may make us feel nervous and
anxious. Sometimes this even resulting in avoiding communication in the
first place
• Berger: the task of communicating with someone from a different culture
(who may differ from yourself in cultural terms) presents you with some
very complex predictive and explanatory problems;
• Because to some extend, to communicate effectively with someone from a
different culture, you must be able to predict how your interaction partner
is likely to behave, and based on those predictions , select appropriate
verbal and non verbal messages.
• Whenever we come together and interact with a ‘stranger’, our primary
concern is to reduce uncertainty (especially when the other person is
someone whom we will interact again)
• Reduce uncertainty and increase predictability about the other
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Intercultural communication
Apprehension
• Successfully interacting with someone from a different culture
requires a degree of communication competence
• Spitzberg: cognitive, affective and behavioral components:
▫ Cognitive component: how much one knows about
communication
▫ Affective component: one’s motivation to approach or avoid
communication
▫ Behavioral component: the skills one has to interact competently.
• An interculturally competent communicator is motivated to
communicate, knowledgeable about how to communicate and
skilled in communicating. And sensitive to the expectations of the
context in which communication occurs. Compotent communicators
interact effectively by adapting messages appropriately to the
context . They understand the rules, norms and expectations of the
relationship and do not significantly violate them.
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e.g. of strategies: asking questions,
appropriate non-verbal expressiveness
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The cultural context
• The cultural context in which human communication
occurs is perhaps the most defining influence on human
interaction.
• Culture provides the overall framework wherein humans
learn to organize their thoughts, emotions and behaviors
in relation to their environment.
• Although people are born into a culture, it is not innate:
Culture is learned
• Culture is socially distributed, it rests in our
social memory (shared cognition)
• Culture teaches one how to think, conditions one how to
feel, and instructs one how to act. Especially how to
interact with others
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Communication is culture, culture is
communication
• You can say that the concepts communication and culture can
be used interchangeably.
• Hall: “Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely
enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from it’s own
participants.” [culture hides more than it reveals particularly
from its members]
• As we conduct our daily lives, most of us are unaware of our
culture. Yet culture influences every thought, feeling and
action.
• Culture provides people with an implicit theory about how to
behave and how to interpret the behavior of others. People
from different cultures learn different implicit theories.
• These theories are learned through socialization. It is through
socialization that individuals learn the dominant values of
their particular culture and their self-identities.
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Making Culture more tangible: cultural
variability, the difference between
cultures
• We will focus on 5 dimensions of cultural variability
that can be used to differentiate between cultures
(sociology, anthropology, communication sciences,
psychology):
1. Individualism – collectivism
2. High-low context
3. Value orientations
4. Power distance
5. Uncertainty avoidance
• Each of these dimensions affects how people
communicate
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Cultural continua:
• The 5 dimensions of cultural variability will be
presented along the following cultural continua:
I---------------------------------------------------------I
Low
High
• This continua allows us to represent the dimensions
of cultural variability as continuous and varying in
magnitude by degree
• In other words: no culture is purely and absolutely
for e.g. Individualistic or collectivistic. Instead a
culture can be more collectivistic than an other
culture (always in comparison with an other culture)
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Important notion when approaching
cultures in terms of variability
dimensions:
• Important: these cultural dimensions of variability are not
opposites; that is, a culture where for instance a larger power
distance is practiced should not be thought of as the opposite
of a culture where small power distance is practiced. In many
cases, dimensions of cultural variability may coexist in
cultures (think about difference of microcultures).
• Many cultures are in a state of great transition. E.g. Japan,
considered collectivistic [group-oriented] is since 1950,
becoming more individualistic.
• When we label a culture for example as individualistic etc, this
does not mean that every person in that culture is an
individualistic, think about micro-cultures and personal
differences.
• Because their can be considerable within-country variation,
labeling a particular in terms of a absolute cul. var. dimension
can lead to overgeneralization
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Class group assignments: Culture
improvisation game
1. Divide the class in 5 groups. Each group will focus on 1
of the 5 dimensions for cultural variability
2. The group has 1 hour to prepare the following:
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Read the pages that talk about your group’s assigned
cultural variability dimension.
Give a description of that specific cultural variability
dimension your group is assigned to focus on in terms of
properties. What does this dimension try to measure,
how are cultures described in terms of this dimension?
Describe the Aruban culture in terms of this specific
cultural variability dimension and illustrate this with
examples.
Present this approximately 10 minutes to the class.
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5 groups for the class assignment:
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Group 1: Individualism-Collectivism
Group 2: High-low context
Group 3: Value orientations
Group 4: Power distance
Group 5: Uncertainty avoidance
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Videos [individualism-collectivism]
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sStpPsWh6l
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• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-SEVYfXl4 (Geert Hofstede explains this
dimension himself)
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Individualism- Collectivism
(Hofstede,2005)
• One of Hofstede’s dimension of cultural variability is
that of “individualism-collectivism.”.He concluded the
dimension of “individualism-collectivism” was a major
explanatory concept for differences across cultures.
• According to Hofstede, individualistic cultures place
emphasis on the achievements, initiative, and goals of
the individual (the individual uniqueness, being yourself,
the 1 in a million, to differentiate yourself from the
mass/the group is important)
• While collectivist cultures subordinate those to group
membership and the goals of the group (belonging to a
group is important, membership of a group, loyalty to a
group).
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Individualistic common values &
characteristics
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Personal independence
Emphasis on personal responsibility
Freedom of choice
Personal autonomy
Achieving self-fulfillment
Distinctive personal attitudes and opinions
Prefers self-directed behavior
competiveness
Independence of groups
Individualists tend to see themselves as unique from others
In some extend emotionally disconnected from ingroups such as family.
Social control depends more on personal guilt than on shame or other social
norms or conformity
• Ecology (geography, resources and the history of a society) can shape the
level of individualism. E.g. modern, industrial-urban, fast-changing
cultures tend to be individualist.
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Collectivistic common values &
characteristics
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Groups bind and mutually obligate individuals
Is linked with a sense of duty to group
Interdependence to others
Harmony with others is primary value
Working with the group
Group goals have precedence over individual goals
Culture stress values that serve the ingroup by subordinating personal goals
for the sake of preserving the ingroup
Primary groups: family, neighborhood, occupational group in which
members have diffuse mutual obligations and expectations based on their
status and rank
People are not seen as isolated individuals
Responsibility is shared and accountability is collective
A person’s identity is defined by his or her group membership
Emotionally connected to the ingroup
A collectivist’s values and believes are consistent with and reflect those of
the ingroup. It’s association with the ingroup may last for a lifetime
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Behavioral traits
Individualism
Collectivism
Optimism
Social self-concept
High self-esteem
Need for affiliation
Lower social anxiety
Sensitivity to rejection
Satisfaction with self
Sensitivity to embarrassability
Satisfaction with freedom
Ingroup relationship preference
Ease of interacting with strangers
Indirect communication style
Direct communication style
Social networks are valued
Lower relational commitment
Preference to work alone
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High and Low context communication
• Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tIUilYX56E&f
eature=PlayList&p=B87EBA870CF4EB9F&index=0
&playnext=1
• Human communication is dependent on the context
in which it occurs. In addition to the verbal and nonverbal codes that are exchanged between
interactants, the salient features of a communicative
context include the cultural, psychical,
sociorelational and perceptual environments
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High and Low context communication
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High and Low context communication
• The cultural context includes among others features like
collectivism-individualism etc.
• The physical environment includes the actual geographical
location of the interaction (classroom, bedroom, office)
• The sociorelational environment encompasses the
relationship between the interactants (e.g.
subordinate/superior, husband/wife, parent/child)
• Perceptual environment consists of the attitudes, motivations
and cognitive dispositions of the interactants
• Each of these environments (contexts) provide a wealth of
information to the interactants about how to communicate.
• The degree to which interactants focus on these
contexts while communicating varies considerably
from culture to culture!
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High and Low context communication
(Hall)
• Depending on the contextual features present during
communication:
▫ Some persons choose to focus more on the verbal
codes than on the non-verbal elements (LOW
CONTEXT)
▫ While others actively monitor the non-verbal
elements of the context over the verbal codes (HI
CONTEXT)
• A HC communication or message is one in which
most of the information is either in the psychical
context or internalized in the person, while very
little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of
the message.
• A LC communication is just the opposite: the
mass of information is vested in the explicit code
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Restricted and elaborated codes
• HC culturesrestricted code
• LCelaborated code
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Video {power distance}
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU2gp3Qjn
NU (Geert Hofstede explains what he
understands under the dimension of power
distance)
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Power Distance (Hofstede,2005)
• Hofstede defined power distance as “the extent to
which the members of a society accept that power in
institutions and organizations is distributed
unequally.
• Individuals in high power distance cultures accept
power and authority as parts of life and
consequently place high value on obedience to
superiors and following orders.
• In a low power distance culture, individuals value
equality and may question the orders of superiors
before following them.
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Video {uncertainty avoidance}
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=757r3qmcp8
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Uncertainty Avoidance (Hofstede,2005)
• Hofstede’s study supports the notion that a
fundamental dimension of any culture is the level of
tolerance it has for uncertainty and ambiguity.
Hofstede labeled this dimension “uncertainty
avoidance.
• According to Hofstede, cultures high in uncertainty
avoidance value conformity, maintain rigid codes of
belief and behavior, and do not tolerate deviation,
while cultures low in uncertainty avoidance
maintain a “more relaxed atmosphere where
deviance is more easily tolerated.
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Values
• Values affect intercultural communication
• values differ among cultures
• Values prescribed what is preferred or prohibited
(evaluative component of an individual’s attitudes
and behavior)
• Values trigger positive or negative emotions
• Schwartz: values are concepts or believes that
pertain to outcomes and behaviors, guide the
selection and evaluation of behaviors and are rank
according to their relative importance to the
individual
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Schwartz’s universal values
1. Self-direction
2. Stimulation
3. Hedonism
4. Achievement
5. Power
6. Security
7. Conformity
8. Tradition
9. Spirituality
10. Benevolence
11. Universalism
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Kluckholn and Strodtbeck’s value
orientation
• K & S’ categorization of value orientation can be
used to describe and compare cultures
1. The self
2. The family
3. Society
4. Human nature
5. Nature
6. supernatural