Cultural identity and Cultural Biases

Cultural identity refers to one's sense of belonging to a particular culture or ethnic group.  
Almost like how do I know I am an African American without taking my skin color into 
Social identity develops as a consequence of memberships in particular groups within one's culture.

Personal Identity is based on people's unique characteristics, which may dif- fer from those of others in their cultural and social groups.  



During the Unexamined Cultural Identity stage, one's cultural characteristics are taken for granted, and consequently there is little interest in exploring cultural issues.  



Cultural Identity Search involves a process of exploration and questioning about one's culture in order to learn more about it and to understand the implications of membership in that culture.  



It is quite common for people to draw on their personal experiences to understand and evaluate the motivations of others. This common human tendency is sometimes called Ethnocentrism 



Information processing results in a simplification of the world, so that prior experiences are used as the basis for determining both the categories and the attributes of the events. This process is called Stereotyping. 


Ethnocentrism

Cultures also train their members to use the categories of their own cultural experiences when judging the experiences of people from other cultures. Our culture tells us that the way we were taught to behave is "right" or correct," and those who do things differently are wrong.

All cultures teach their members the "preferred'" ways to respond 10 the world, which are often labeled as "natural" or appropriate." Thus. people generally perceive their own experiences, which are shaped by their own cultural forces, as natural, human, and universal.



Prejudice   
Prejudice- refers to negative attitudes toward other people that are based on faulty and inflexible stereotypes. Prejudiced attitudes include irrational feelings of dislike and even hatred for certain groups, biased perceptions and beliefs about the group members that are not based on direct experiences and firsthand knowledge, and a readiness to behave in negative and unjust ways toward members of the group.

Whereas prejudice refers to people's attitudes or mental representations, the term Discrimination refers to the behavioral manifestations of that prejudice.


Racism   

Robert Blauner has described racism as a tendency to categorize people who are culturally different in terms of their physical traits, such as skin color, hair color and texture, fucial structure, and eye shape. 



Dalmas Taylor offers a related approach that focuses on the behavioral components of racism. Taylor defines racism as the cumulative effects of individuals, institutions, and cultures that result in the oppression of ethnic minorities. Taylor's approach is useful in that it recognizes that racism can occur at three dis- tinct levels: individual, institutional, and cultural. 






At the cultural level racism denies the existence of the culture of a particular group.



Symbolic racism, which is sometimes called mafern racism, is rurrently prevalent in the United States. In symbolic racism, members of a group with political and economic power believe that members ofsome other group threaten their traditional values. such as individu- alism and self-reliance. Fears that the outgroup will achieve economic or social success, with a simultaneous loss ofeconomic or social status by the ingroup, typify this form of racism.


Tokenism as a form of racism occurs when individuals do not perceive themselves as prejudiced because they make small concessions to, while holding basically negative attitudes toward, members of the other group.  

Aversive racism like tokenism, it occurs when individuals who highly value fairness and equality among all racial and cultural groups nevertheless have negative beliefs and feelings about members of a particular race, often as a result of childhood socialization experiences. 




Genuine likes and dislikes may also operate as a form of racism. The cultural prac- tices of some groups of people can form the basis for a prejudicial attitude simply because the group displays behaviors that another group does not like. 



The least alarming form of racism, and certainly one that everyone has experi- enced, is based on the Degree Of Unfamiliarity with members of other groups. Simply re- sponding to unfamiliar people may create negative attitudes because of a lack of experience with the characteristics of their group.  

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Cultural Patterns and Communication: Taxonomies

High-context cultures - prefer to use high-context messages in which most of the meaning is either implied by the physical setting or presumed to be part of the individual internalized beliefs, values, norms, and social practices; very little is provided in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message.

Low Context Culture prefer to use low-context messages. in which the majority of the information is vested in the explicit code.

Characteristics of Low- and High-Context Cultures    

High-Context Cultures
Convert and implicit
Messages internalized
Much nonverbal coding Reactions reserved
Distinct ingroups and outgroups Strong interpersonal bonds Commitment high
TIme open and flexible

Low-Context Cultures
Overt and explicit
Messages plainly coded
Details verbalized
Reactions on the surface Flexible ingroups and outgroups Fragile interpersonal bonds Commitment low
TIme highly organized 



Power Distance refers to the degree to which the culture believes that institutional and organizational power should be distributed unequally and the deci- sions of the power holders should be challenged or accepted. 



Uncertainty Avoidance dimension, the extent to which the culture feels threatened by ambiguous, uncertain situations and tries to avoid them by establishing more structure. 




Individualism-Collectivism dimension, the degree to which a culture relies on and has allegiance to the self or the group. 



Masculinity- Femininity Dimension This dimension indicates the degree to which a culture values "masculine" behav- iors, such as assertiveness and the acquisition of wealth, or "feminine" behaviors, such as caring for others and the quality of life. 

The Time-Orientation dimension refers to a person's point of reference about life and work. Cultures that promote a long-term orientation toward life admire persistence, thriftiness, and humility. 


 In-group collectivism reflects the degree to which people express pride, loyalty, and solidarity with their family or similar group. In cultures with high in-group collectivism, individuals take pride in and define their sense of self-quite literally, their sense of who they are-in terms of their family or similar group.



The dimension of Institutional Collectivism represents the degree to which cultures support, value, and prefer to distribute rewards based on group versus individual interests. 



Gender Egalitarianism is the extent to which a culture minimizes differences in gender expectations for men versus women. 

Assertiveness dimension describes the extent to which people value and prefer tough aggressiveness or tender non aggressiveness. 





Humane Orientation, refers to the extent to which cultures encourage and reward their members for being benevolent and compassionate toward others or are concerned with self-interest and self-gratification.





Cultural Practices - the ways that people typically behave in everyday communication interactions 





Cultural Values, or what people regard as important and believe is ideal 

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Verbal intercultural Communication

Definition of Verbal Codes    

The Features of Language


Verbal means "consisting ofwords." Therefore, a verbal code is a set of rules about the use of words in the creation of messages. Words can obviously be either spoken or written. Verbal codes, then, include both oral (spoken) language and non-oral (written) language. 

Symbols are words, actions, or objects that stand for or represent a unit of meaning. The relationship berween symbols and what they stand for is often highly arbitrary, particularly for verbal symbols.

Rule Systems in Verbal Codes    
The basic sound units of a language are called phonemes, and the rules for combining phonemes constitute the phonology of a language.    

Phonemes combine to form morphemes, which are the smallest units of meaning in a language. The 45 English phonemes can be used to generate more than 50 million morphemes!
The study of the meaning of words is called semantics.
Denotative meanings are the public, objective, and legal meanings of a word. Denotative meanings are those found in the dictionary or law books. In contrast, connotative meanings are personal, emotionally charged, private, and specific to a particular person .

syntactics, the relationship of words to one another.  

pragmatics, the effect of language on human perceptions and behaviors.

Interpretation and Intercultural Communication
Translation can be defined as the use of verbal signs to understand the verbal signs of another language. Translation usually refers to the transfer of written verbal codes between languages.
Interpretation refers to the oral process of moving from one code to another. 

An idiom is an expression that has a meaning contrary to the usual meaning of the words.

Howard Giles has developed communication accommodation theory to explain why people in intercultural conversations may choose to converge or diverge their com- munication behaviors to that of others.

Dialects are versions of a language with distinctive vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that are spoken by particular groups of people or witbin particular regions. Dialects can play an important role in intercultural communication because they often trigger a judgment and evaluation of the speaker. 

Distinguishable marks of pronunciation are called accents. Accents are closely related to dialects. Research studies repeatedly demonstrate that speakers' accents are used as a cue to form inlpressions of them.



Argot refers to a specialized language that is used by a large group within a culture to define the boundaries of their group from others who are in a more powerful position in society.  



Because of the many languages spoken in the United States, you will likely have many opportunities to hear and perhaps to participate in a form of language use called code switching. Code switching refers to the selection of the language to be used in a particular interaction by individuals who can speak multiple languages.

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Communication and intercultural Competence

The Melting Pot Metaphor- "is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States; the melting-together metaphor was in use by the 1780s."

The Tributaries Metaphor- "A currently popular metaphor for describing the mix of cultures in the United States is that of tributaries or tributary streams. America, according to this image, is like a huge cultural watershed, providing numerous paths in which the many tributary cultures can flow. The tributaries maintain their unique identities as they surge toward their common destination."

The Tapestry Metaphor- A tapestry is a decorative cloth made up of many strands of thread. The threads are woven together into an artistic design that may be pleasing to some but not to others. Each thread is akin to a person, and groups of similar threads are analogous to a culture. Of course, the types of threads differ in many ways; their thickness, smoothness, color, texture, and strength may vary.

The Garden Salad Metaphor- Like a garden salad made up of many distinct ingredients that are being tossed continuously, some see the United States as made up of a complex array of distinct cultures that are blended into a unique, and one hopes tasteful, mixture.

Competent communication is interaction that is perceived as effective in fulfilling certain rewarding objectives in a way that is also appropriate to the context in which the interaction occurs.

Intercultural competence is contextual. An impression or judgment that a person is intercultural competent is made with respect to both a specific relational context and a particular situational context. Competence is not independent of the relationships and situations within which communication occurs.

Knowledge refers to the cognitive information you need to have about the people, the context, and the norms of appropriateness that operate in a specific culture.

Motivations include the overal set of emotional associations that people have as they anticipate and actually communicate interculturally.

Feelings refer to the emotional or effective state that you experience when communicating with someone from a different culture.

Intentions are what guide your choices in a particular intercultural interaction. Your intentions are the goals, plans, objectives, and desires that focus and direct your behavior.

Actions refer to the actual performance of those behaviors that are regarded as appropriate and effective.

Respect is shown through both verbal and nonverbal symbols.

BASIC dimensions of intercultural competence.

Orientation to Knowledge - The terms people use to explain themselves and the world around them.

Empathy - The capacity to behave as though you understand the world as others do.

Interaction Management - Skill in regulating conversations.

Task Role Behavior - Behaviors that involve the initiation of ideas related to group problem-solving activities.

Relational Role Behavior - Behaviors associated with interpersonal harmony and mediation.

Tolerance for Ambiguity Interaction Posture - The ability to react to new and ambiguous situations with little visible discomfort.

Display of Respect - The ability to show respect and positive regard for another person.

Interaction Posture - The ability to respond to others in descriptive.

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Culture and Intercultural Communication

"Culture is a learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, norms, and social practices, which affects the behaviors of a relatively large group of people."

"Terms such as nation, race, and ethnic group are often used synonymously with the term culture. Subculture and co-culture are other terms that are sometimes used in talking about groups of people. There are important distinctions, however, between these terms and the groups of people to which they might refer. "

"Subculture is also a term sometimes used to refer to racial and ethnic minority groups that share both a common nation-state with other cultures and some aspects of the larger culture. "

"The reasons that cultures differ is that the shared experiences remembered by cultural members, or a culture's history, were considered first. In the United States, for instance, the lesson of the country's historical experiences affects americans views of their government's relationships with other countries."

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Introduction to Intercultural Competence

"The world has changed dramatically from what it was even a generation ago. Across the globe and throughout the United Slates, there is now a heightened emphasis on culture. Similarly, there is a corresponding interplay of forces that both encourage and discourage accommodation and understanding among people who differ from one another. "

"The United States.---and the world as a whole--is currently in the midst of what is perhaps the largest and most extensive wave of cultural mixing in reoorded history. Recent census figures provide a glimpse into the shape of the changing demographics of the U.S. population."

"The United States is really going through some rapid growth in the past 4 years "Institutions of higher education are certainly not exempt from the forces that have trans- formed the United States into a multicultural society.17The enrollment of"minority-group" college students is increasing annually. Additionally, there are about 2.5 million international students in higher education. Of these, about 583,000 international students---22 percent of the total are enrolled in U.S. universities. The U.S. enrollment is an increase of nearly 10 percent from the previous year and just 3,000 fewer than the record enrollment set before the 2001 terrorist attacks and subsequent visa restrictions.IS Similarly, the number of U.S. stu- dents studying abrood was nearly a quarter of a million in 2006, an increase of 8.5 percent from the previous year and ISO percent more than a decade ago."

"Communication is a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, contextual process in which people create shared meanings. "

"The first outcome of communication is understanding what the others are trying to communicate. Understanding means that the participants have imposed similar or shared interpretations about what the messages actually mean. "

Living in an intercultural world provides numerous challenges and opportunities, as your success and well-being increasingly depend on your ability to behave competently in intercultural encounters.

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Cultural Patterns and Communication Foundations

Shared beliefs, values, norms, and social practices that are stable over time and that lead to roughly similar behaviors across similar situations are known as Cultural Patterns.

Ex: You know how every time an african American christian extended family gets together they have a long prayer by the family elder... (yep we all do that)

A Belief is an idea that people assume to be true about the world. Beliefs therefore, are a set of learned interpretations that form the basis for cultural members to decide what is and what is not logical and correct.

Ex: American Values could also be called American Beliefs because collectively we have just as much of a belief system; americans have a general outlook as well as system of values which are individual ideas on what is good or bad ying or yang. 

• Central beliefs include the culture's fundamental teachings about what reality is and expectations about how the world works.
• Peripheral beliefs refer to matters of personal taste. They contribute to each person's unique configuration of ideas and expectations within the larger cultural matrix.

Cultures differ not only in their beliefs but also in what they value. Values involve what a culture regards as good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust, beautiful or ugly, clean or dirty, valuable or worthless, appropriate or inappropriate, and kind or cruel.
Ex: I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and so i have a set of values that are based on my religious up bringing. 

• Valence refers to whether the value is seen as positive or negative.
• Intensity indicates the strength or importance of the value, or the degree to which the culture identifies the value as significant

Norms are the socially shared expectations of appropriate behaviors.

Social practices are the predictable behavior patterns that members of a culture typically follow.

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's Value Orientations

Orientation Postulated Range of Variations

Ac t i v i t y Being Being-in-becoming Doing

Relationships Linearity Collaterality Individualism

Human natureEvil Mixture of good and evil Good

People-nature Subjugation to nature Harmony with nature Mastery over nature

Time Past Present Future

An Activity Orientation defines how the people of a culture view human actions and the expression of self through activities. This orientation provides answers to questions such as the following

• Is it important to be engaged in activities in order to be a "good" member of one's culture?
• Can and should people change the circumstances of their lives?
• Is work very different from play?
• Which is more important,work or play?
• Is life a series of problems to be solved or simply a collection of events to be experienced?

The Social Relations Orientation describes how the people in a culture organize themselves and relate to one another. This orientation provides answers 10 questions such as the following;
To what extent are some people in the culture considered better or superior to others?

1. Can social superiority be obtained through birth, age, good deeds, or material
achievement and success?
2. Are formal , ritualized interaction sequences expected?
3. In what ways does the culture's language require people to make social distinctions?
4. What responsibilities and obligations do people have to their extended families,
   their neighbors, their employers or employees, and others?

A social relations orientation can range from one that emphasizes differences and social hierarchy 10 one thai strives for equality and the absence of hierarchy.

Self-orientation describes how people's identity are formed, whether the culture views the self as changeable, what motivates individual actions, and the kinds of people who are valued and respected. A culture's self-orientation provides answers to questions such as the following:

• Do people believe they have their own unique identities that separate them from others?
• Does the self reside in the individual or in the groups to which the individual belongs?
• What responsibilities does the individual have to others?
• What motivates people to behave as they do?
• Is it possible to respect a person who is judged "bad" in one part of life but is
• successful in another part of life?

Cultural patterns also tell people how to locate themselves in relation to the spiritual world, nature, and other living things. A World Orientation provides answers to questions such as the following:

• Are human beings intrinsically good or evil?
• Are humans different from other animals and plants?
• Are people in control of, subjugated by,or living in harmony with the forces of nature?
• Do spirits of the dead inhabit and affect the human world?

The final aspect of cultural patterns concern show people conceptualize time. Time orientation provides answers to questions such as the following:

• How should time be valued and understood?
• Is time a scarce resource, or is it unlimited?
• Is the desirable pace of life fast or slow?
• Is time linear or cyclical?

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