Well, to be more accurate, virtual Rachel had all of those things. And the beautiful scenery? At the same time, she craved the genuine approval of people who understood and accepted her as she was. Concerns such as these are central to the communication choices people make.
Here we consider the impact of social media in managing that delicate balance. Social media can boost self-esteem. Research with adults 35 and younger suggests that text-based interactions—such as through emails, texts, and tweets—often contribute to selfesteem more than do in-person and telephone conversations.
The reasons are twofold. People tend to strategically post photos that make them appear attractive and socially engaged with others. College students who accept their own strengths and weaknesses are more likely to show their true selves on social media. Consequently, they enjoy the security of knowing that others like them for who they really are, imperfections and all. People who feel good about themselves are more likely than others to believe and enjoy compliments.
For example, individuals with healthy self-esteem who are the targets of cyberbullying are more likely than those with low self-esteem to tell others about the bullying and to see bullies as immature and eager to prove their own status. It does suggest, however, that being silent or self-critical can make unkind comments feel even worse. People pay more attention to negative impressions than to positive ones.
When people do perceive positive qualities, they tend to overgeneralize. Consider people who know you best. How do they enhance your self-esteem? Do they ever challenge it? If so, how? How might your opinion differ if someone takes your parking space? If you knew that the child pictured here is biologically more male or more female, would it affect your opinion or your behavior toward the child?
Compare the notion of a gender continuum with a gender matrix. Which are you best at? Which worst? What aspect of your desired social identity was threatened by the episode? How did you respond to save face as much as possible?
If you have a social media presence, does it mostly show you in a genuine way, imperfections and all, or in a way that makes you look as good as possible? What do you think would happen if your social media identity changed? What communication factors shape our cultural identities? Age and Generation How do communication patterns differ between different age groups? Values and Norms How do cultures differ? What factors contribute to and help reduce prejudice? Culture Shock What can we expect while adapting to new cultures?
Cultures may differ even within the same family, neighborhood, or organization. You embody different cultural assumptions throughout the day as you shift between the various roles you play. While growing up in India, Priya was taught not to smile or make eye contact with strangers, since those actions might be construed as a sexual invitation. I gave an awkward smile and stayed silent. Priya realized that the man mistakenly thought she was Deaf.
Looking back, although she never summoned the courage to speak to the man, Priya says that she appreciated his friendly manner. Social scientists use the term salience to describe how much weight we attach to cultural characteristics in a particular situation.
In-Group and Out-Group Partly because of cultural membership, we identify more closely with some people than with others. At home, your family members may feel in-group to you, but at a rock concert, you may feel that your friends are more in-group than your family members are.
Coculture There are sometimes greater differences within cultures than between them. You might discover more in common with a traveler raised on another continent whom you meet in a Kathmandu hostel than you would with someone from across town.
Nonetheless, cultural norms and values can play a powerful role in shaping how we communicate, both within our in-groups and with people from different backgrounds. Social scientists use the term coculture to describe the perception of membership in a group that is part of an encompassing culture. For example, you may feel like part of an overarching American culture but also feel membership in youth culture, a Hispanic community, a religious or political group, or many other cocultures.
On the following pages, we consider the implications of intercultural communication—interacting with people from a variety of cultures and cocultures. Because individuals are members of many cocultural groups simultaneously, their identity arises from a complex interplay of cultural expectations. Here we explore some of the factors at play. For one thing, your experience of navigating in a wheelchair is likely to be inherently different from that of someone with similar physiology who grew up in different cultural environments.
For another, the complex factors that comprise your identity cannot be easily named or tallied. It proposes that each person experiences life at the intersection of multiple factors, whose interplay gives rise to a unique perspective and collection of experiences all their own.
Instead, identity is shaped by the interplay of many elements simultaneously. Race and Ethnicity Race is a social construct originally created to explain biological differences among people whose ancestors originated in different regions of the world—Africa, Asia, Europe, and so on. Consequently, race is not a reliable indicator of individual differences.
For example, people who identify as Hispanic may look very different from one another but experience a sense of shared identity. Regional Differences Researchers in one experiment asked human resource professionals to rate the intelligence, initiative, and personality of job applicants after listening to a brief recording of their voices. The speakers with recognizable regional accents—from the southern United States or New Jersey, for example—were tagged for lower level jobs, whereas those with less pronounced speech styles were recommended for higher level jobs that involved more public contact.
Individual differences are far too great for that. But seen overall, there are regional cultures. That is, they are more likely than residents of other regions to be extroverted, considerate, traditional, and dutiful. They are inclined to value new ideas, innovation, and individualism. Masculine and feminine are but two adjectives in a broad constellation of gender-related qualities. It is now commonly accepted that gender identity may change over time and is not strictly tied to physical features.
On average, 1 in 5 hate crimes in the United States targets people on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Young children have been bullied at schools, others told to go back home and social media has become at times a lot of the time an ugly place to be on.
In less extreme but still profound ways, religion may shape how and with whom people communicate. Religious teens who respect the viewpoints of multiple religions typically date more frequently than their nonreligious peers. Studies show that, if they communicate openly and respectfully about matters of faith, they are just as likely as other couples to stay together.
Individuals living in the United States typically identify as belonging to the working class hourly wage earners , middle class, or upper class, and say they feel a sense of solidarity with those in the same social stratum. They tend to feel that they are united both by common challenges and by their commitment to hard, physical work. Many such students alter their communication patterns dramatically between these two worlds, censoring their speech with classmates and professors to avoid calling attention to their status, and with family members to avoid threatening and alienating them.
Conservatives like to have fun. Liberals and Conservatives like to have fun with each other. Conventional wisdom advises people to steer conversations away from politics and religion, recognizing the sensitive nature of talking about deeply held beliefs.
Perhaps for that reason, many people use electronic means to express their views. In the United States, nearly 2 out of 3 people who use social media have posted messages encouraging others to join a political or social cause.
Social media bots short for robots are automated systems that generate and distribute social media posts. Social media trolls are individuals whose principal goal is to disrupt public discourse by posting false claims and prejudiced remarks, usually behind a mask of anonymity.
All others think they will stay the same or worsen. Deaf culture is a good example: The shared experiences of deafness can create strong bonds. Most notably, distinct languages build a shared worldview and solidarity. There are Deaf schools, Deaf competitions e. As a general rule, check to see if multiple sources with different perspectives are reporting the same information.
Resist the urge to post messages that are designed to anger or belittle others. Be open minded about different opinions. Resist the temptation to block responsible messages that differ from your own.
Imagine how odd it would seem if an 8-year-old or a senior citizen started talking, dressing, or otherwise acting like a 20year-old. We tend to think of getting older as a purely biological process. Ideas about aging change over time. At some points in history, older adults have been regarded as wise, accomplished, and even magical. On balance, people over age 40 are twice as likely as younger people to be depicted in the media as unattractive, bored, and in declining health.
Despite negative stereotypes, the data present a different story. Studies show that, overall, individuals in their 60s are just as happy as those in their 20s. People who believe older adults have trouble communicating are less likely to interact with them. Even when these speech styles are well intentioned, they can have harmful effects. Older adults who are treated as incapable tend to perceive themselves to be older and less capable than their peers.
Teens and young adults often experience intense pressure to establish their identity and prove themselves. Older adults are typically more concerned with maintaining their own privacy and that of people they know. To Generation X born between and and Baby Boomer born between and managers, it may seem like a burden to give that much guidance and feedback. Scholars suggest the following strategies for moving toward a more mindful, competent style of intercultural communication 1.
Seek out cultural information. There are two main ways to learn about cultures—passive and active. Passive observation involves noticing how members of a culture behave and applying these insights. Confess your ignorance. Spend time with people from different backgrounds. Meiga , who moved to the United States after growing up in Venezuela and Paris, says she feels different interacting with American friends more outgoing than with Hispanic friends more emotionally expressive or French friends more formal.
Her husband Zac loves that she embodies all of these roles. However, she and her now-husband Hussam connected right away. We understood each other. We are all just people, with differences and similarities, strengths and weaknesses, habits and customs.
Here is a look at six patterns that help distinguish cultures around the world. This cultural difference can lead to misunderstandings in the classroom and on job interviews. In one study, Chinese and American players were paired together in a game that required them to take the perspective of their partners. By contrast, members of high-context cultures rely heavily on subtle, often nonverbal cues— such as behavior, history of the relationship, and general social rules—to maintain social harmony.
Mainstream cultures in the United States, Canada, northern Europe, and Israel fall toward the low-context end of the scale. Partly because of these differences, American managers tend to be less attentive listeners than managers in more high-context cultures, who are more likely to focus on the speaker and to avoid distractions.
But Americans may point out directly that someone has been eating their food. But the American—who may expect his friend to say outright if he is upset—may miss the point. To members of high-context cultures, communicators with a low-context style can appear inattentive, overly talkative, redundant, and lacking in subtlety. On the other hand, to people from low-context backgrounds, high-context communicators often seem evasive or even dishonest.
Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty may be universal, but cultures have different ways of coping with unpredictable conditions. In countries that avoid uncertainty, people who are different or who express ideas that challenge the status quo are often considered dangerous, and intolerance is high. Power Distance Power distance refers to the gap between social groups with substantial power and resources and those with less. Cultures with low power distance believe in minimizing the difference between various social classes.
They tend to subscribe to the egalitarian belief that one person is as good as another regardless of their station in life—rich, poor, educated, or uneducated.
Austria, Denmark, Israel, and New Zealand are some of the most egalitarian countries. Most cultures in the United States and Canada value equality, even if that ideal is not always perfectly enacted.
At the other end of the spectrum are countries with a high degree of power distance, such as the Philippines, Mexico, Venezuela, India, Japan, and Singapore. The oldest or highest ranking person receives the deepest bows from others, the best seat, the most deferential treatment, and so on. Indeed, treating a high-status person the same as everyone else would seem rude.
Talk and Silence Beliefs about the very value of talk differ from one culture to another. Silence has a negative value in these cultures. It is likely to be interpreted as lack of interest, unwillingness to communicate, hostility, anxiety, shyness, or a sign of interpersonal incompatibility. On the other hand, silence is valued in Asian cultures. To Asians, a talkative person is often considered a show-off or a fake.
Members of some Native American communities also honor silence. For example, traditional members of western Apache tribes maintain silence when others lose their temper to avoid making the situation worse. The idea is that words are often unnecessary in periods of grief, and it is comforting to have loved ones present without the pressure to maintain conversations with them. Only when they recognize the dissimilarities in their cultural expectations can they adapt to one another, or at least understand and respect their differences.
Competition and Cooperation Cultures are a bit like people in that they may be regarded as competitive, cooperative, or somewhere in the middle. Competitive cultures—including those in Japan, Italy, Nigeria, and Great Britain—embody qualities such as independence, competitiveness, and assertiveness.
Gender roles are less differentiated in cooperative cultures—which emphasize equality, relationships, cooperation, and consensus building. This short-term gain may result in damaged relationships, however, if people on the other side feel disrespected or treated unfairly. Some countries, such as Taiwan, fall near the midpoint on the scale since they place relatively equal value on cooperative and competitive qualities.
In fact, there is speculation that the world is becoming more balanced overall. Then test your cultural knowledge with the quiz on the next page.
In what ways is your identity shaped by who you are as an individual? In what ways is it shaped by the groups to which you belong e. Do you identify more with the cultural value of individualism or collectivism? If the vice president of the company where you work initiates a conversation with you in the hallway, in what ways do you demonstrate that there is power distance between you e.
In general, do you mostly embody a high power distance or a belief that all people are equal, regardless of their rank or status?
Imagine that you are hanging out with friends when a lull occurs in the conversation. How does your comfort or discomfort with silence affect the way you communicate? Does this vary by relationship? Answer the questions below to test your knowledge about what is culturally appropriate around the world. Japanese visitors are in town. What should you know? It is not customary to wrap gifts in Japan.
You are interacting with a person who is Deaf and who uses an interpreter. What should you do? Address your comments to the interpreter, then look at the Deaf person to see how they react. Maintain eye contact with the Deaf person rather than the interpreter. Offer to communicate in written form so the interpreter will be unnecessary. Speak very slowly and exaggerate the movements your mouth makes. While traveling in China, you should be aware of which rule of dining etiquette?
Cloth napkins are just for show there. Use a paper napkin to wipe your mouth. Avoid sticking your chopsticks upright in your food when you are not using them. They favor greetings that involve shaking hands and kissing on each cheek.
Men tend to be touch avoidant and to stand at least 3 feet from one another during conversations d. They consider the left hand unsanitary and hold eating utensils only with their right hands.
The correct answer is c. Question 2 Treat Deaf people with the same courtesy as anyone else—maintain eye contact and focus on them.
Question 3 Cultures vary in terms of whether it is rude to eat everything or rude not to. In China, leaving a little food on your plate lets your hosts know they have provided plentifully for you. Question 4 Members of Arab cultures may shake hands and kiss on each cheek, but usually only with people they already know well. A handshake is more appropriate for an introductory business meeting. Men tend to speak at close distances far closer than 3 feet unless the conversation involves a woman, in which case it is rude to touch or crowd her.
The correct answer is d. One of the greatest barriers to intercultural communication is the sense that everyone should think and act the same way. We talked in Chapter 2 about perceptual tendencies to judge ourselves and members of our in-group more favorably than we do out-group members.
Where intercultural communication in concerned, perceptual biases can lead to intolerance and unfair treatment, but there is hope. Here are four conclusions from the research. We tend to think our culture is the best. An ethnocentric person thinks —either privately or openly—that anyone who does not belong to their in-group is somehow strange, wrong, or even inferior. Ethnocentrism leads to an attitude of prejudice—an unfairly biased and intolerant attitude toward others who belong to an out-group.
Stereotypical prejudices include the obvious exaggerations that all women are emotional, all men are sex-crazed and insensitive, all older people are out of touch with reality, and all immigrants are untrustworthy. Preconceived attitudes toward others can lead people to engage in unfair discrimination—depriving people of opportunities or equal treatment based on prejudice, stereotypes, or irrelevant factors such as appearance, age, or race.
Two decades of research has revealed that many people harbor stereotypes without consciously thinking about them. Look for ways to appreciate others beyond obvious cues such as race, gender, age, ability, and sexual orientation. This stage—which typically feels like a crisis—has acquired the labels culture shock or adjustment shock.
It means they have the potential to adapt and grow. With patience, the sense of crisis may begin to wane, and once again, the person may feel energetic and enthusiastic to learn more. Instead, people tend to take two steps forward and one step back, and to repeat that pattern many times. Gradually, she found the courage to initiate conversations, and she discovered that her classmates were friendly and receptive.
People with whom we identify are considered in-group and others are out-group. A coculture is a group that is part of an overarching, encompassing culture.
Judgments can lead to unfair discrimination. Mindful thinking can help reduce bias. In what situations do you feel like an in-group member?
When do people treat you like an outgroup member? How do you feel in each of these situations? List 5 to 10 of your social identities e. From the perspective of intersectionality, explain how the interface of these identities e.
In what ways does society stereotype people your age? Are these assumptions mostly true or not? How do they affect the way people communicate with you? How might the students pictured above communicate in this meeting if they embody a collectivist perspective? High reliance on context? Extreme power distance?
High tolerance for silence? Low tolerance for ambiguity? Speculate about how someone inclined toward ethnocentrism, prejudice, and stereotypical assumptions might regard the woman pictured above. What means might they use to get to know her as a unique individual instead? Think of a time when you felt homesick or out of place perhaps at a new job or school. What was most useful to you in terms of adapting to the culture? In what ways does language shape our attitudes?
Misunderstandings How can we avoid vague and confusing language? And why does the difference matter? How can we use language responsibly? Gender and Language Do men and women use language differently? Language is a collection of symbols governed by rules and used to convey messages between people.
Here are some qualities that help explain why sharing understandings through language can be challenging. Language is symbolic.
Not all linguistic symbols are spoken or written words. Although symbols are arbitrary, they are highly potent. How you react to a stranger depends partly on the symbols you use to categorize that person: rich or poor , religious or not , attractive or unattractive , and so on. Others favor a new word entirely—such as ze or e—in place of he and she. Some universities have begun allowing individuals to identify the pronouns they want to be used on student records and applications. Ask a dozen people what the same symbol means, and you may get 12 different answers.
The same goes for feminism, Republicans, rock music, and other symbols. Part of the person-centered nature of language involves the difference between denotative and connotative meanings. There is usually little confusion about the denotative meaning of words such as chair and desk. But consider terms such as survivor and victim. In reference to violent assaults, these terms have nearly synonymous denotative meanings: one who has been harmed. But for many people, survivor connotes someone who manages to thrive despite adversity, and victim suggests a sense of helplessness.
Problems arise when people mistakenly assume that others use words in the same way they do. It turns out that taking English classes in school is just a start. Keeping up to date with vocabulary and grammar is a lifelong process. Here are four types of rules that provide structure for language.
Can you correctly say comptroller, miniature, sherbet, and assuage? If you pronounced them as con-troller, min-ee-a-chore, sher-bit, and ess-wage, give yourself top marks in phonology. Mispronounced words can change the meaning of a sentence and leave you feeling foolish. Technology is spawning versions of English with their own syntactic rules. They make it possible for us to agree that bikes are for riding and books are for reading.
However, semantic misunderstandings occur when words can be interpreted in more than one way or when they have unfavorable connotations.
But problems arise when people apply different pragmatic rules. He may feel that he is being friendly, whereas she may feel he is showing inappropriate interest in her appearance. Without shared pragmatic rules, even apparently clear language can be confusing. The language we hear and read shapes our attitudes. They play a role in shaping and reinforcing a sense of personal identity. Naming a baby after a family member e.
Names can also make a powerful statement about cultural identity. Names can also be used as the basis for discrimination. An accent involves pronunciation perceived as different from the local speech style.
For example, people tend to assume that individuals who speak with British accents are smarter than normal, whereas people who sound if they are from Brooklyn or the Southern United States are believed to be less intelligent. When researchers asked women to listen to audiorecorded voices and then say which speaker they would ask for help if their handbag was stolen, the women favored people with New York accents.
By contrast, the women were more likely to ask people with Midwestern accents for directions. The researchers speculate that people with New York accents seemed tougher and more aggressive, and those with Midwestern accents seemed more approachable and friendly.
English includes dozens of dialects, as do the 7, or so other languages of the world. By contrast, language is often labeled powerless when it suggests that a speaker is uncertain, hesitant, intensely emotional, deferential, or nonassertive.
Consider the following statements a student might make to a professor: I hate to say this, but I. I had a personal emergency and. In some situations, however, less assertive speakers seem friendlier, more sincere, and less coercive than more assertive ones. However, in many cultures, saving face for others Chapter 2 is a higher priority, so communicators tend to use ambiguous, less assertive terms.
Close friends and romantic partners often use nicknames and personal references that signify the nature of their bond. Fans of the same sports team may share specialized cheers, greetings, and other linguistic rituals that make it clear they are on the same side. Communication researchers call this linguistic accommodation convergence.
The opposite is also true. Communicators who want to set themselves apart from others may adopt the strategy of divergence, speaking in a way that emphasizes their difference from others.
For example, people may use dialect as a way of showing solidarity with one another. Philadelphia natives use the word jawn to mean almost anything from a place, to a thing, to a person.
A physician or attorney, for example, who wants to establish credibility with a client might use specialized language to create a sense of distance. Do you change between different dialects and vocabularies when you interact with different types of people? If so, how and why? Describe the patterns you observe and what effects they seem to have on the conversation. In addition to being a blessing that enables us to live together, language can be something of a curse.
In this section, we examine four reasons people might misunderstand each other even when they are trying to communicate well. Language is equivocal. Many equivocal misunderstandings are unintentional.
The patient interpreted the statement to mean he was near death, whereas the nurse meant he would be going home soon. Other equivocal statements arise from cultural or cocultural differences. Whereas equivocal misunderstandings are usually unintentional, equivocation is a deliberately vague statement that can be interpreted in more than one way. Some equivocations can spare people the embarrassment that might come from a bluntly truthful answer. But other equivocations can mask deception.
Relative words gain their meaning by comparison. Is the school you attend large or small? Compared to Ohio State University, with an enrollment of more than 60, students, it may seem small, but compared to a smaller institution, it might seem quite large.
In the same way, relative words such as fast and slow, smart and stupid, short and long depend on comparisons for their meaning. Using relative words without explaining them can lead to communication problems. The problem in each case came from failing to anchor the relative word to a more precisely measurable one.
Words are imprecise by nature. However, there are ways to minimize the confusion that vague and equivocal words can cause. Social and professional groups tend to develop their own vocabularies. Slang is language used by a group of people whose members belong to a similar coculture or other group. For instance, cyclists who talk about bonking are referring to running out of energy.
Residents of the largest U. In addition to slang, almost everyone uses some sort of jargon—the specialized vocabulary that functions as a kind of shorthand for people with common backgrounds and experiences. Whereas slang tends to be casual and changing, jargon is typically more technical and enduring. Some jargon consists of acronyms—initials used in place of the words they represent. For example, the trauma team in a hospital emergency room can save time, and possibly lives, by speaking in shorthand, referring to GSWs gunshot wounds , chem 7 lab tests, and so on, but the same specialized vocabulary that works so well among insiders may mystify outsiders.
A euphemism is a pleasant term substituted for a more direct but potentially disquieting one. What advertisers refer to as direct mail most of us would call junk mail. Euphemisms often seem more polite and less anxiety provoking than other words. However, they can be vague and misleading. A term such as domestic disturbance is easy to hear, but it downplays the harsh realities involved in abusing a loved one. Here are some tips to help clarify your language and avoid mix-ups.
Use slang and jargon with caution. Explain your terms. Relative words such as good, bad, helpful, and happy mean different things to different people.
Clarify whom you represent. Be careful with euphemisms and equivocations. The data are clear: People who force their opinions on others and treat them disrespectfully are ultimately less successful than their more agreeable and respectful peers.
But irresponsible and uncivil use of language is avoidable. Sadly, there seems to be an epidemic of incivility.
More than 3 out of 4 American workers say they are treated rudely by others at least once a week. Unlike matters of fact, they can never be proved or disproved. Consider a few examples of the difference between factual statements and opinion statements: Fact: It rains more in Seattle than in Portland.
Opinion: The climate in Portland is better than in Seattle. Opinion: Kareem is the greatest basketball player in history. When factual statements and opinion statements are set side by side, the difference between them is clear. In everyday conversation, however, we often present our opinions as if they are facts, and in doing so we invite an unnecessary argument.
Consider a few examples: Fact: He hit a lamppost while driving down the street. Inference: He was probably texting when he crashed. Fact: You interrupted me. Do you like that old picture frame? They convey a subtle or not so subtle slant that supports a particular interpretation. One problem with emotive language is that it tends to inspire reactions based more on emotion than rational thought. This may lead us to believe an emotionally charged speaker even if the person presents no solid evidence.
Or it may cause us to strike out in anger against people whose arguments are different from our own. Client Reviews. Information about customers is confidential and never disclosed to third parties.
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