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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.

Schedule for Today