Schedule for Today
 Cross-cultural communication
 Presentation - Anxiety/Uncertainty
Management Theory (including Uncertainty
Reduction Theory)
 Discussion
 Genderflect Theory
 Analysis

Question?
 What is culture? Define it,

Culture
 Culture is a socially constructed and historically transmitted pattern of symbols, meanings, premises and rules.
 It does not
 necessarily
 involve race.

Comparing Cultures
 1. Power distance
 2. Masculinity (defined sex roles)
 3. Uncertainty Avoidance
 4. Individualism

Power Distance
 1. Accept that power distribution is unequal.

Masculinity
 2. Clearly defined sex roles and male values of success and $ dominate.

Uncertainty Avoidance
 3. The extent to which people are threatened by ambiguity and create institutions or beliefs to avoid it.
 US – low Japan – Extremely high

Individualism
 The extent to which a person values individualism over trading that for loyalty.

Individualism vs. Collectivism
 Most important.
 Manifests in a different type of communication.

Individualistic


Low context – high content.
Meaning is in the ‘code’ (language)

Collectivist
 High context – lower content.
 Much of meaning is in physical context and within the person.

Issue
 When someone from a collectivist culture and someone from an individualistic culture try to communicate.
 Opportunities for misunderstanding increased significantly.

Presentation
 Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory
(including Uncertainty Reduction Theory)

Effective Communication
 If misunderstanding can be minimized.
 If meaning attached by receiver is similar to that of sender.
 Significant issue in cross-cultural communication.

Differences in terms
 Uncertainty – cognitive – doubts about ability to predict outcome of a encounter with strangers.

 Anxiety – affective (an emotion)

Relationship between terms
 They tend to vary as one – as one goes up, so does the other, for most people.

Relationship to cultural differences
 The bigger the gap, the higher the uncertainty and anxiety.
 For two people from collectivist versus individualistic cultures respectively, high uncertainty and anxiety.

Some is good
 You need to feel some uncertainty and anxiety to make you go to the effort of communicating effectively.
 If you feel too much, you will withdraw and feel as if it is impossible and therefore, not worthwhile.

Unconscious incompetence.

1. We misinterpret other’s behavior and are not even aware of it.

Typical naïve American.

Conscious Incompetence.
 2. We know we are misinterpreting but we don’t care.

The classic ‘ugly’
 American.

Conscious Competence
 3. Mindfulness – We think about our communication and constantly try to improve it.

Unconscious Competence
 4.We have developed our communication skills to the point we no longer have to think about it.

Key to take away
 People from other cultures communicate differently. The more you can practice mindfulness, the better.

Genderflect Theory
 This is intercultural communication because men and women communicate differently.

Gender versus Sex
 Sex is a biological fact.
 Gender is a societal role.

Men and
Communication
 Desire for Status and Power
 Report rather than rapport
 Comfortable with confrontation

Women and
Communication
 Interested in connection instead of power.
 Rapport rather than report.
 Not comfortable with confrontation.

What does that mean for us?
 Practice mindfulness – you are in essence dealing with another culture.
 Remember, culture is not based on race but rather on a set of symbols, meanings, premises and rules.