Basic Tools for Intercultural Competence

Basic Tools for Intercultural Competence

The United States as an Intercultural Community Metaphors of U.S. cultural diversity • Melting Pot • Tributaries • Rainbow • Tapestry • Garden Salad These metaphors are not completely accurate ways to describe the cultures in the U.S.

Cultural groups in the United States Terms with negative associations: • Dominant culture • Majority culture • Minority culture

Cultural groups in the United States Terms to describe cultural groups of people that reside in the U.S. • African American • Hispanic, Chicano, Mexican American, and Latino • Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders • European American

Competence and Intercultural Communication “Competent communication is an 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.”

Competence and Intercultural Communication • Competence must be perceived by those involved. • Communication competence is a social judgment about how well a person interacts with others - it is not fully based on an individual’s personal characteristics. (You do what you think is friendly, but if not perceived as friendly, the exchange is not competent). • It will always be specific to the context and interpersonal relationship within which it occurs. • It is best determined by the people who are interacting with each other. • Competent communication must be appropriate. • Competent communication must be effective and achieve the desired personal outcome.

Components of intercultural competence • Context • Behaviors • Knowledge • Motivations • Skilled actions

Components of intercultural competence • Intercultural competence is judged by the context in which it occurs. • Specific relational context & particular situational context • Someone who is perceived as highly competent in one sent of intercultural interactions may be only moderately competent in another. • Ex. Canadian woman living with a family in India might establish competent relationships with female family members, but unable to relate well to male members.

Components of intercultural competence • A context is shaped by where the communication occurs, who is there, what the subject of the communication is, the reason for communicating, and the rules communicators should follow due to these factors. • If misunderstood, individuals may be selected for intercultural assignments based solely on personality traits like authoritarianism, empathy, self-esteem… which may not mean competence in all intercultural situations. • (No prescriptive set of behaviors that guarantees competence in all intercultural relationships.

Components of intercultural competence • Both interpersonal competence and intercultural competence require behaviors that are both appropriate and effective. • Appropriate behaviors are regarded as proper and suitable given the expectations generated by a given culture, the constraints of the specific situations, and the nature of the relationship between interactants. • Effective behaviors lead to the achievement of desired outcomes.

Appropriate & Effective • Brian Holtz is a U.S. businessperson assigned by his company to manage its office in Thailand. Mr. Thani, a valued assistant manager in the Bangkok office, has recently been arriving late for work. Holtz has to decide what to do about this problem. After carefully thinking about his options, he decides there are four possible strategies:

Appropriate & Effective • Go privately to Mr. Thani, ask him why he has been arriving late, and tell him that he needs to come to work on time. • Ignore the problem • Publicly reprimand Mr. Thani the next time he is late. • In a private discussion, suggest that he is seeking Mr. Thani’s assistance in dealing with employees in the company who regularly arrive late for work, and solicit his suggestions about what should be done.

Appropriate & Effective • Holtz’s first strategywould be effective, as it would probably accomplish his objective of getting Mr. Thani to arrive at work more promptly. However, given the expectations of the Thai culture, which are that one person never directly criticizes another, such behavior would be very inappropriate. • Conversely, Holtz’s second strategy would be appropriate but not effective, as there would probably be no change in Mr. Thani’s behavior.

Appropriate & Effective • The third option would be neither appropriate nor effective because public humiliation might force Mr. Thani, a valuable employee, to resign. • The fourth option, which is the best choice, is both appropriate and effective. By using an indirect means to communicate his concerns, Mr. Thani will be able to “save face” while Holtz accomplishes his strategic goals.

Components of intercultural competence • Knowledge refers to the information you need to know about the people, context, and norms of appropriateness that operate in a specific culture. • Knowing culture-general information provides insights into the intercultural communication process abstractly and can be a powerful tool in making sense of cultural practices regardless of the cultures involved. • Knowledge of culture-specific information is used to understand a particular culture (ex. customs) • It’s been suggested that the best way to train for intercultural dealings is to teach ppl about characteristics of their own culture, rather than those of others.

Components of intercultural competence • Motivations include the overall set of emotional associations that people have as they anticipate and actually communicate interculturally. • Human emotional reactions include both feelings and intentions. • Feelings refer to the emotional or affective states that you experience when communicating with someone from a different culture. • Are you excited/anxious/fearful/willing/unwilling to experience everything from a different culture? • Intentions are what guide your choices in a particular intercultural interaction. • If your go into an interaction with negative judgement about a culture, it will be difficult to interpret the behaviors accurately

Components of intercultural competence • Skills refer to the actual performance of those behaviors that are regarded as appropriate and effective. • To be competent in intercultural encounters, you must be able to perform the skills deemed necessary by the context. • You can have the necessary information, be motivated by the appropriate feelings and intentions, and still lack the behavioral skills necessary to communicate competently.

BASIC behavioral assessment scale (Culture-General) • Displays of respect are present but shown differently in every culture. • Verbal: expressing concern, interest, understanding; formality of language, including use of titles; absence of jargon. • Nonverbal: showing attentiveness through position of body, facial expressions, use of eye contact, tone of voice. • Orientation to knowledge refers to the terms people use to explain themselves and the world. • Ex. “The custom of arranged marriages is barbaric,”vs. “I would not want my parents to arrange my marriage for me” (orientation that personal attitudes are facts vs. that they are personal)

BASIC behavioral assessment scale (Culture-General) • Empathy: Communicate an awareness of another person’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences. • Interaction management refers to the skills necessary to maintain a conversation. • Includes skill in starting & ending convos, turn-taking, reading display signs of interest or boredom, etc.

BASIC behavioral assessment scale (Culture-General) • Task role behavior refers to those skills that contribute to a group’s problem solving skills and performance. • Initiating new ideas, requesting info, seeking clarification, evaluating suggestions of others, keeping a group on task – doing these in a culturally appropriate way. • What one culture defines as a social activity, another defines as a task. (ex. Socializing before or after work) • Relational role behavior deals with efforts to build and maintain personal relationships that demonstrate support for others and that help solidify feelings of participation. • Ex. Harmonizing & mediating conflicts between members, encouraging participation from others, willingness to compromise for sake of others.

BASIC behavioral assessment scale (Culture-General) • Tolerance for ambiguity refers to the extent to which an individual can deal with unpredictability, uncertainty, unfamiliar situations. • Interaction posture focuses on the ability to respond to others in a way that is nonjudgmental. • Statements based on clear judgments of right and wrong indicate a closed/predetermined framework of beliefs & attitudes. • Nonjudgmental actions are based on descriptions rather than on interpretations and evaluations.

D-I-E tool • D-I-E tool allows people to control the meanings they attribute to the verbal and nonverbal symbols used by others. • The D-I-E tool is based on the assumption that most people process the information around them using a kind of mental shorthand. • The D-I-E trains you to distinguish among statements of description, interpretation, and evaluation.

D-I-E tool • Statements of descriptiondetail the perceptual cues and information a person has received without judgments or interpretations • The purpose of using descriptive statements when you are communicating interculturally is that they allow you to identify the sensory information that forms the basis of your interpretations. • Descriptive statements allow a person to consider alternative hypotheses or interpretations.

D-I-E tool • Statements of interpretation provide a conjecture or hypothesis about what the perceptual information might mean. • The interpretations people make of perceptual information are very closely linked to their personal evaluation of that information. • Being aware of how people make interpretations will help you test the various interpretations of behavior you are considering. • By testing alternative interpretations, it is possible to forestall the evaluations that can negatively affect your interactions.

D-I-E tool • Statements of evaluation indicate an emotional or affective judgment about the information. • Evaluations are generally made without being cognizant of the specific sensory information perceived. • Being aware of how evaluations are made from descriptions and interpretations will help you avoid making inaccurate conclusions of others’ behaviors.

Discussion Questions 1 • How do you want people to refer to your culture or nationality? • Can you think of a better metaphor for a culturally diverse culture (like the U.S.) that combines the positive qualities of all four metaphors? • What three BASIC skills would you argue are most important for developing intercultural communication competence?

Discussion Questions 2 • Why is it impossible to truly “put yourself in someone else’s shoes”? • Can you think of an instance in which someone may feel empathetic/understanding/competent, but isn’t perceived that way? How might the person adjust their behavior to reflect their intention? • Why is a high tolerance for ambiguity an especially useful skill during extended visits to other countries?

Basic Tools for Intercultural Competence