CULTURE, COMMUNICATION, &
INTERCULTURAL RELATIONSHIP
10TH ENCOUNTER
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 Relationship? Focus – friendship and lover.
 What’s the difference characteristics between
intercultural and intracultural relationship?
 Develop because of:
 Circumtances
 Proximity/ repeated contact
 Strong physical attraction
 What the role of communication?
 How do context (social, political, history)
influence the relationship?
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BENEFIT
 Through relationship, people also learned a lot
about each other’s different world.
1. Acquiring knowledge about the world
• Cultural pattern, religion, language, history.
• Relational Learning –learning that comes from a
particular relationship but generalize to other contexts
 more compelling
2. Breaking stereotype
• Stereotype that formed in mass media OPPOSITE
with real life
3. Acquiring new skills
• Cook, play games, WWW.AKURNEWS.COM
certain skill.
Challenge
• Negative stereotyping
• The anxiety in initial encounter
– uncertainty,
– afraid to look stupid,
– negative expectation based on previous interaction
• Extra work explaining
– To ourselves: what’s the meaning makes friend with people
different from me?
– To each others: evaluate their behavior from different
perspective
– To their respective communities: asking for agreement. This may
cause the termination of relationship – rejection from the
mayority
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• Recognize and respect difference
– walk in another person’s shoes.
Friendship
 Friend?
 Friendship seen DIFFERENT in different culture 
related to Identity and Values.
 Western – voluntary (individual oriented and spontan.
Chinese – long term and involve obligation
 QUANXI (Relationship of social connection built on
shared identities; native place, kinship, same school)
 Term “friend” – US (close friend) VS most people (friend)
 Characteristics
Japan – togetherness, trust, warmthrelational harmony, collectivist
US – understanding, respect, sincerity  honesty, individualist
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(even if it hurt sometimes)
Relational Development
1. INITIAL ATTRACTION
 Proximity – people with whom they work, play, etc.
 Hollywood portrayal may different in real life
 Proximity may not as important in many cultures  person’s background
 Physical Attraction
 It may culturally based – mass media product.
 Gender Stereotype – Asian men (beauty peagent, calendar model) and
women (mail-order Asian brides)
 Similarity
 Similar attitudes – Cognitive Consistency (If we like ourselves, we
probably will like others who share our views)
 Perception of similar trait –WWW.AKURNEWS.COM
higher expectation in future interaction.
2. EXPLORATORY INTERACTION


People try to discover more about each other in discussing non
intimate topics.
Different view of STRANGER.
 German – suspicion and not potential as friend
 US – disclose information in very public concern
 Contexts of communication  reduce uncertainty
1.
2.
High – emphasize on background information (US)
Low – emphasize on words (Japan)
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3. STABILITY PHASE
- Get to know each other better, interaction more intense and diverse.
 FRIENDSHIP – share more personal and private information.
Kurt Lewin – person’s self can be modeled as 3 concentric phase.
a. Outer Boundary – superficial information
b. Personal Information – life history, family background
c. Inner Core – very personal and private information.
There’s variation in these phase application.
 ROMANTIC
US - emphasize on physical attraction, passion, love (individualist)
Chinese – stressed the importance of their partner connectedness to
their families (collectivist)
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GAY and LESBIAN Relationship
 FACT = Homosexuality has existed in every society
and in every era.
 Same-sex friendship
Straight male – look for emotional support in opposite sex
Gay – seek support from same-sex friendship
Opposites with straight women and lesbian who tend to seek support
from same-sex friendship
 Role of sexuality
 In Heterosexual – friendship and sexual involvement ambiguous.
“Men can never be friends with women.” – When Harry Met Sally
 Gay and Lesbian – Friendship may start with sexual involvement,
but continue after the sexual involvement is terminated.
There’s clear distinction between ‘friend’ and ‘lover’  incest in
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family
GAY and LESBIAN Relationship
 Close Friendship
 Because Gay often suffer discrimination from their families, so the
social support from friend can play important role than Straight.
 Nation’s Law on Same-sex Marriage




US, only Vermont that recognize it.
Denmark, they allowed to marry.
Vietnam, married not always between the opposite sex.
Switzerland, Gay couple have the same right and obligations with
the heterosexual couple.
 France, allows same-sex couple to marry and gain inheritance
 The dissolution of heterosexual may delayed because of family,
religious, or child custody. The homosexual relationship may terminate
earlier because they’re not subject
to these pressure.
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Intercultural Relationship Dialectis
 To avoid stereotyping = dialectic way of thinking.
 Dialectic tension to cover the entire relationship
►Difference – Similarities Dialectics
Different in culture, same in the human experience and way of comm.
Must consider these two notion AT THE SAME TIME.
►Cultural – Individual Dialectics
People may different from the general cultural orientations.
►Personal – Contextual Dialectics
Involve the role of context  change way of communication style.
►Static – Dynamic Dialectics
As we grown up, we change to different people. So, we must respond to
the relationship to each other as they now.
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Communicating in Intercultural
Relationship
 Characteristics
 Competence – language and cultural information
 Similarity – though dissimilarity may account at first, people
may look for similarity beyond the cultural differences.
 Involvement – important to make time with the relationship.
 Turning points – event that moved the relationship forward or
backward.
“The process dealing with different expectations, different attitudes in
the beginning, but at the end we were so close that we didn’t have to
talk about it…..
After we erased all prejudices, that we thought the other person has to
be different, after we erased that by talking, we just understood each
other.”
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Intercultural Dating and Marriage
 The reason dating with the intra and
intercultural member  physically
 The reason for NOT dating with
intercultural: lack of attraction, have
no opportunity, not have thought
about it.
 There’s close relation between dating
experience and social context.
– People who dating inter culturally used to
have diverse encounters and came from
family that also had inter culturally
experience it.
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Family play big role, learned at young age.
Permanent Relationship
 In US, women (except Black women) intermarry more than
men.
 Rates of intermarry may low in certain groups, because
contextual issue related GENDER and SOCIAL STATUS.
 Fewer objection to Asian American–White THAN Black–White
marriage
 Gender stereotype make Asian women looks more attractive for
White man.
 Major concern of couples who marry interculturally:
 Pressure from families and society in general
 Raising child
 Values and life habit (eating and drinking habit, gender roles,
attitude regarding times, religion, etc)
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Dugan Ramano (1997) identifies 4 styles of interaction:
1. Submission
– One partner submit to the other culture, abandoning others.
– Rarely work in long run because people cant erase cultural
background.
2. Compromise
– Each partner give up some of his/ her culturally bound habit to
accommodate others. People sacrifice that important to them.
3.
Obliteration
− Both partners deal with differences by
attempting to erase their individuality
culture.
− Neither take the cultural patterns.
4. Consensus
− Based on agreement and negotiation.
− Require flexibility.
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SELESAI
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TUGAS
Tantangan apa yang akan dihadapi
pasangan beda budaya ketika
mereka memutuskan untuk
menikah?
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