THEORY

To clarify what we mean by culture and cultural awareness, we will discuss and illustrate some relevant concepts and theories from intercultural communication.

Subjective Culture and Mindsets

I think of a culture as the basis of social reality for all of its members.

A culture is to a given people as personality is to a person (Tyler, 1987). Our learned shared perceptions, or subjective culture as Triandis (1972) has called it, contains the “categories, plans and rules people employ to interpret their world and act purposefully in it” (Spradley and McCurdy, 1971, p. 2). Subjective culture serves as a highly selective screen between the individual and the outside world that “directs the organization of the psyche, which in turn has a profound effect upon the ways people look at things, behave politically, make decisions, order priorities, organize their lives, and... how they think” (Hall, 1976, p. 212). Your subjective culture gives meaning and intention to your acts and your under­standing of the acts of others. It provides the underlying grammar for sending, receiving, and interpreting communications. Many of our shared cultural percep­tions have to do with how to communicate.

Edward Hall (1976) hypothesizes that the majority of our cultural categories, plans, and rules are unconscious. Thus, to take account of our cultural frame of reference or mindset (Fisher, 1988) in any given situation—that is, how we will typically think and feel in that situation—requires making conscious part of our unconscious (or perhaps preconscious) subjective culture and the context of the situation.

Constructing Reality

You acquire a common culture through socialization by and with other human beings. In this process, what becomes your reality and common sense is selected from a wide array of alternatives in your social, cultural, and physical environment. Your subjective culture is constructed through your contacts with others who have already learned or incorporated certain alternatives from that environment. You perceive what you expect to perceive through the selection of information that fits with your learned categories or archetypes. A classic example of the results of this construction process is Bagby’s (1957) study of Mexican and American school children, in which American children saw only a baseball player while Mexican children saw only a bullfighter when pictures of each (one to each eye) were simultaneously projected through a tachistoscope (a device that allows pictures to be flashed on a screen for an instant).

We develop, learn, and use symbols (such as words and sentences) that give meaning to our social activities. Language, our most complete category system, is the primary mode of communication in our symbolic environment. Its inher­ent reciprocity makes it ideal for constructing common meanings. As parents and children or teachers and students interact within a symbolic environment, the meanings they share and use define and reinforce mindsets in their subjec­tive cultures and reality in their common culture.

Through the use of language, human beings participate in, shape, and spread their common cultures. Communication is relatively easy within a language community, not only because of similar conversational styles, but also because members have learned most of the verbal and nonverbal categories, plans, assumptions, and rules that are part of that language’s common culture. Although we develop individualized, unique subjective cultures through local­ized (for example, familial) interactions, people from the same common culture have more or less equivalent realities and mindsets. Thus, there is a strong rela­tionship among the subjective and common culture of a people, their language, and their communication and cognitive styles.

Most of us are unaware of many of the important differences between our subjective culture and those of individuals from other common cultures because few of us are in direct contact with such individuals. When we sometimes expe­rience aspects of different cultures in the news or traveling, these aspects are filtered through our own common cultures as archetypes and have little impact on our predispositions to perceive, reason, and communicate in accordance with our own subjective culture. Only more extended contacts with “foreigners” plus training in intercultural communication can help us expand our adult subjec­tive cultures. (See the upcoming section, Education.)

Cultural Identity

As we are socialized, we learn to honor and respect the values and procedures fundamental to our own common culture. Children learn that the values and procedures of their culture are natural and normal. They are “common sense.” The social actualities of language, ethnicity, customs and traditions, religion, race, and region evoke existential feelings or emotions called primordial senti­ments (see Shils, 1957) during each individual’s enculturation. They are the basis for social connections called “primordial bonds” that possess a powerful emotional force.

The bridge between one’s common and subjective culture is the identifica­tion process that binds us into cohesive groups (Emminghaus, Kimmel, and Stewart, 1997). Associations based on our primordial sentiments create a con­sciousness of kind that separates us from those who are different. Sumner (1906) coined the term ethnocentrism to describe the acceptance of those who are culturally like oneself and the rejection of those who are different. There are other possibilities for individual cultural identity formation than one’s primor­dial bonds, of course, but these primordial groupings of family and local com­munity are encompassing for most because they come first in our enculturation (Volkan, 1992). Those who share primordial sentiments are sometimes referred to as a people.

All peoples believe that their ways of thinking about and doing things are the best ways. They learn to evaluate other ways of thinking about and doing things that differ from theirs as unusual, wrong, or inferior. Unless they have had medi­ated experiences with everyday life in other common cultures, they seldom become aware of the roots or uniqueness of their own and other peoples’ real­ities. Without such awareness, they are likely to misunderstand those from other cultures in face-to-face meetings due to basic differences in cultural identities.

To question the universality of your own reality or mindsets or to acknowl­edge that the reality or mindsets of others may fundamentally differ from your own is disorienting. It is easier to believe that all participants in an international meeting, for instance, will use one’s own established approaches. Contemplat­ing the existence of a variety of approaches to and assumptions about negoti­ating is daunting and uncomfortable. If you are negotiating within your own common culture or with those from similar common cultures, your expectations of communality will often be met.

Attribution Error and Miscommunications

Because most adults’ subjective cultures are relatively stable and internally coherent, it is difficult for them to understand fully others whose mindsets are inconsistent with their own. Even in formal negotiations, like Camp David, where negotiators follow the rules of “diplomatic culture,” research on inter- cultural communications (Glenn, 1962) shows that negotiators usually perceive and think in terms of the more familiar patterns of their subjective cultures. They assume that their mindset is the one that makes sense in the given situa­tion. When the communications and behaviors of “foreigners” do not square with this mindset, they will usually attribute these communications and behav­iors to undesirable character traits and motivations of the “misbehaving” or “unreasonable” foreigners, rather than attributing the “inappropriate” acts and messages to cultural differences. (Attributions are judgments about the causes of behavior).

The tendency to assume that perceived negative behaviors exhibited by an unfamiliar person are a result of personal factors is called a fundamental attri­bution error (see Chapter Thirteen for a more detailed discussion of error) (Ross, 1977). Many communication problems in international negotiations have resulted from fundamental attribution errors (Cohen, 1991).

Even sending a signal interculturally is not simple. Attribution errors make misunderstandings likely among those with different subjective cultures, espe­cially during political conflicts. For example, when Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States in 1961, he gave a speech at the United Nations in which he used a phrase that was translated as “We will bury you.” The combination of that phrase with the gesture of clasped hands held overhead (like a winning U.S. politician), produced a meaning that most Americans assumed to be malev­olent.

The premier’s intent, according to Glenn, was not that hostile. Khrushchev’s meaning can be ascertained from Communist doctrine that postulates that Com­munism will replace capitalism as a way of (economic) life. Hence, when cap­italism “dies,” it will be the responsibility of Communism to bury it. Thus, Khrushchev meant that the Communists would live to see the capitalists buried, that is, “We will bury you,” meaning “We will survive you.” The gesture of friendship suggests that the intention of his message may have been analogous to telling a dying relative that you will take care of the funeral.

U.S. analysts more often perceived Khrushchev as a villain threatening mur­der. The differences between the intended and received meanings had to do with the context of the communication and the mindsets of the communicators. Lacking awareness of cultural differences, fundamental attribution errors will reinforce existing images and feelings and create or exacerbate misunderstand­ings, misperceptions, and conflicts.

Stereotypes

The content of a fundamental error in attribution is not random. The character traits and motivations we attribute to those who behave differently are those associated with such behaviors in our own common culture. They fit our stereo­types. For example, a foreigner “jumping the queue” in England or “cutting in line” in the United States will be seen by the British and Americans as rude (character trait) and aggressive (motivation), because those are typically the char­acteristics of people in England and the United States who engage in such behav­ior. An international negotiator, mediator, or educator who works at a slower and less persistent pace than an American will be seen as stalling (motivation) or

lazy (character trait), as an American who behaved in this manner might be. Non-Westerners who prefer saving face to giving a direct “no” will be seen as evasive (motivation) or devious (character trait) by the Westerner who is not familiar with their cultures. In each of these cases, the foreigner may be exhibit­ing “normal” behavior in his or her culture. The less intercultural training and experience we have, the more likely we are to make fundamental attributions that fit our own cultural experiences and perpetuate our stereotypes.

If you communicate such negative attributions to those who have “violated” your cultural expectations, they are likely to become less receptive to your per­spectives and ideas. Being accused of laziness or deviousness hurts, especially when you are intending just the opposite—that is, careful thinking and preserving harmony. The other party may become defensive, accusing you of “misbehaving,” “being unreasonable and impolite,” and “condescending,” as indeed you are from their perspective. Negative attributions lead to negative emotions and behaviors and more negative attributions. The ultimate attribution error occurs when all members of a group or people are stereotyped as expressing personal disposi­tions when they do something undesirable and as being under situational constraints when they do something desirable (Pettigrew, 1979).

Reasoning and Cognition

Culture also plays an important role in the way we gather information, arrive at conclusions, and make decisions—how we think and reason. There are cul­tural rules involved in any style of reasoning. When we do not articulate these rules (as is usually the case), our intentions (mindset) may not be apparent, and it may be hard for those from other cultures to follow our thinking.

Edmund Glenn (1981) developed a theory of reasoning based on the opposi­tion between relying on authority, principles, and precedents (intuitive reason­ing) and relying on observation, experience, and pragmatism (conceptual reasoning). The intuitive method of reasoning is more prevalent in more homo­geneous and less specialized societies in which people’s experiences are shared and there is a reliance on precedents and historical experiences as the basis for knowledge. As societies become more specialized, experts are more often looked to in new and unfamiliar situations. Their ideas are initially limited, but as their conceptualizations become more universally accepted, these become what Glenn calls collective representations for that society. In their 1991 meeting with the United States, the Iraqis were more intuitive in their reasoning, relying on both historical experiences and precedents to make their points.

As societies become still more diverse and specialized, individuals rely more on pragmatic than consensual criteria to substantiate their reasoning. Glenn sug­gests that in these societies the conceptual method of reasoning is more preva­lent. Collective representations come to be seen as hypotheses to be tested rather than absolute truths. Principles are ideas to be applied empirically and to be changed or discarded if they do not work. The U.S. negotiators’ appeals to international law, U.N. resolutions, and diplomatic precedents in their discus­sions with the Iraqis were examples of such principles. Scientists are specifically trained to use the conceptual method of reasoning in their work. Negotiators are not.

What you consider the most valid information and how you handle uncer­tainty are closely related to your usual method of reasoning and thinking. Those who use the intuitive method of reasoning usually rely on fixed ideas and beliefs as the most valid kinds of information. They rank high on uncertainty avoid­ance, not easily tolerating ambiguity (Hofstede, 1980). The Iraqis’ comments in Geneva, as reported in the press, were often based on ideological beliefs. Those who apply concepts in their reasoning are more likely to look at actions and data as the most valid information. They rank lower on what Hofstede (1980) has called uncertainty avoidance, tending to have a higher tolerance for risk and ambiguity.

High- and Low-Context Communications and Cultures

The Western reader may be identifying with the conceptual approach to rea­soning and perhaps disdaining the intuitive. We tend to blame others for the way we feel about their reasoning or communications, when we could under­stand them (and ourselves) better by looking at the differences in our conver­sational styles. Important conceptual dimensions in all communications are high versus low context (Hall, 1976) and restricted versus elaborated codes (Bernstein, 1975). “A high context communication is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message. A low context commu­nication is just the opposite;... the mass of the information is vested in the explicit code” (Hall, 1976, p. 91).

According to Edward Hall, different languages tend to favor one or the other end of this dimension of context in their communications. He characterizes Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and other Mediterranean languages as more often high context; Swiss, German, English, and other Northern European languages are more often low context. Bernstein’s linguistic codes are also useful guides to the level of context being used in a given conversation. The restricted code categories (which appear more often in high-context communications) take the meanings of the listener for granted and thus place more strain on him or her. The elaborated codes (indicative of low-context communications) make mean­ings more explicit and fit the conversation to the listener, putting more strain on the speaker. Some theorists write about high- and low-context cultures in which the language and the linguistic codes are predominantly high or low.

Ascertaining your own and others’ level of context by listening for these codes can help you understand and monitor conversational styles in intercultural situations. High-context communications are more often used in situations in which social relations are important. These communications are most likely to be directed to one’s own people. In the Iraqi and U.S. meetings in Geneva, much of the Iraq communication was high context, especially to their own group. The low- context approach is more likely to be used in situations where social relationships are not so important but the task at hand is. Much of the U.S. communication to the Iraqis was low context.

The use of English as the major language in international meetings also plays a cultural role. English, with its grammatical construction of subject-predicate, creates a world of objects that act or are acted upon with fixed relationships between things and their attributes. Thus, English speakers often think in terms of a causal world of actors-actions-results (Stewart, 1987). English also engen­ders a thought process based on a dichotomy between perception and thinking and on dichotomies within thinking (such as those used in this article). The use of such dichotomies supports divisive analyses, exclusive categories, and adver­sarial relationships (Trudgill, 1974), both in negotiations where English is the major language and in negotiation research by English-speaking researchers. It is no coincidence that until recently practically all of the English language research on communications in international negotiation has been devoted to bilateral negotiations.