1. Communication and Culture
Chapter 5
Communication and
Culture

2. Chapter Outcomes
Define and explain culture and its impact on your communication
Delineate seven ways that cultural variables affect communication
Describe the communicative power of group affiliations

3. Chapter Outcomes (cont.)
Explain key barriers to competent intercultural communication
Demonstrate behaviors that contribute to intercultural competence

4. Understanding Culture
A learned system of thought and behavior that belongs to and typifies a relatively large group of people
The composite of their shared beliefs, values, and practices

5. Understanding Culture (cont.)
Culture is learned through communication with others.
Your personal worldview is the framework through which you interpret the world and the people in it.
Culture affects communication.
Main bullet 2: added period. —CE

6. Understanding Culture (cont.)
Intercultural communication matters.
Communication between people from different cultures who have different worldviews
Necessary in our diverse, mobile society
Mediated interactions and diverse organizations provide regular exposure to people from other cultures.
Main bullet: added period. —CE

7. Communication and Cultural Variations
Seven cultural variations play out along a continuum and are not absolute.
High-context cultures use contextual cues to both interpret meaning and send subtle messages.
Cues: time, place, relationship, situation

8. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
Low-context cultures use direct language and rely less on situational factors.
Examples: United States, Canada, northern Europe
Collectivistic cultures perceive selves primarily as members of a group.
Examples: Arab and Latin American cultures, China, Japan

9. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
Individualistic cultures value individuality, communicate autonomy and privacy, and downplay emotions.
Examples: United States, Great Britain, Australia, Germany
High uncertainty avoidance cultures adapt behavior to avoid risk and use formal rules to communicate.
Examples: Portugal, Greece, Peru, Japan

10. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
Low uncertainty avoidance cultures have a higher tolerance for risk and ambiguity and use fewer formal rules to communicate.
Examples: Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, United States

11. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
Masculine cultures place value on assertiveness, achievement, ambition, and competitiveness.
Examples: Mexico, Japan, Italy
Feminine cultures value nurturance, relationships, and quality of life.
Examples: Sweden, Norway

12. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
Power distance is the way cultures accept the division of power.
High power distance: people with less power accept lower position as basic fact of life.
Low power distance: people tolerate less difference in power between people; they communicate with less anxiety with those higher in status.

13. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
Time orientation: the way that cultures communicate about and with time
Monochronistic cultures are time- conscious; include United States, Great Britain
Polychronistic cultures have a more fluid approach to time; include Latin America, Asia

14. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
In monochronistic cultures, time is a valuable resource that is not to be wasted. Polychronistic cultures have a more fluid approach to time and deal with various projects and people simultaneously.

15. Communication and Cultural Variations (cont.)
Value of emotional expression
Collectivistic cultures may use hyperbole (vivid, colorful language with great emotional intensity).
Individualistic cultures tend toward understatement (euphemisms) to downplay emotional intensity.

16. Understanding Group Affiliations
Co-cultural communication
Members share some of the general culture’s system of thought and behavior but have distinct unifying characteristics.
Includes race, gender, sexual orientation, religion
Includes generations

17. Understanding Group Affiliations (cont.)
Co-cultures within a larger culture

18. Understanding Group Affiliations (cont.)
Social identity theory includes
Personal identity
Social identity from your group memberships
Ingroups and outgroups
Intergroup communication
How communication occurs within and between groups and affects relationships
Group identification and communication shift depending on which group membership is made salient at a given moment.

19. Intercultural Communication Challenges
Anxiety
Ethnocentrism
Belief in the superiority of your own culture or group; viewing other cultures through your own lens

20. Intercultural Communication Challenges (cont.)
Discrimination
Stems from ethnocentrism
Behavior toward person or group based solely on their membership in a particular group, class, or category
Attitudes about superiority of one culture lead to rules and behaviors that favor that group and harm another group.

21. Improving Intercultural Communication
Changing thinking (cognition)‏
Changing feelings (affect)‏
Changing behavior
Being mindful (intercultural sensitivity)‏
Desiring to learn about other cultures

22. Improving Intercultural Communication (cont.)
Overcoming intergroup biases
Intergroup contact theory: interaction between members of different social groups generates a possibility for more positive attitudes.
Refraining from
behavioral affirmation
and confirmation

23. Improving Intercultural Communication (cont.)
Accommodating appropriately
Convergence involves shifting language or nonverbal behaviors toward each other’s way of communicating.
Avoid overaccommodation, or going too far in making changes based on stereotypes about another group.

24. Practice Your Skills Listen effectively.
Think before you speak or act.
Be empathic.
Do the right thing.