attitudes, feelings and emotions; adopting the appropriate proxemic posture;
understanding the gaze patterns of the people with whom they are interacting;
carrying out ritualised routines such as greetings, leave-taking, self-disclosure, and making or refusing requests; and asserting themselves (Trower, Bryant and Argyle, 1978). These acts tend to define the tenor of the relationship by indirectly conveying feelings such as liking, friendliness, dominance, and trust, and the term ‘relational communication’ has been used to refer to such implicit messages (Burgoon, 1995). There is empirical evidence to indicate that the elements of social interaction listed vary across cultures (Argyle, 1982; Brislin, 1993; Furnham, 1979, 1983; Hall, 1959, 1966; Hall and Beil-Warner, 1978;
Leff, 1977) and that many travellers do not easily learn the conventions of another society. More recent research has integrated these behaviours under the general heading of communication style or communication competence, and there now exists a growing literature dealing with communication issues in intercultural encounters (Chen, 1995; Gibson, 1997; Gudykunst and Shapiro, 1996; Wiseman, 1995). This includes the specific problem of what has been called intercultural communication apprehension, or the anxiety that can be aroused by interacting with culturally dissimilar people (Gudykunst, 1995;
Neuliep and Ryan, 1998).
There are individual differences in the extent to which people exhibit perceptual sensitivity and are prepared to behave flexibly. Socially skilled individuals tend to be sensitive to how others respond to them and to what is going on around them psychologically. They acquire a flexible behavioural repertoire that enables them to respond appropriately in various social milieux.
Thus, socially inadequate individuals may not have mastered the conventions of their society, either because they are unaware of the rules of social behaviour that regulate interpersonal conduct in their culture or, if aware of the rules, are unable or unwilling to abide by them. Their performance may also be affected by anxiety about whether their behaviour is being positively evaluated. In this regard, socially unskilled persons behave like strangers in their own land, suggesting that people newly arrived in an alien culture or subculture will be in a similar position to socially inadequate indigenous individuals. It is ironic to note that individuals in this predicament, such as foreign students, business people, or diplomats, often tend to be highly skilled in the customs of their own society and find their sudden inadequacy in the new culture to be particularly frustrating.
Competent adults in their home culture come to feel like helpless children in the other.
THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CROSS- CULTURAL ENCOUNTER
The advantage of applying the social skills/communication deficit formulation to intercultural contact difficulties is to place the interaction problems of culture travellers within the general literature on communication theory, in effect saying
that a meeting between two culturally disparate persons is in principle no different from any other social encounter. There are various ways of conceptualising troublesome social interactions. An early approach (Argyle, 1982; Bochner, 1982) was to regard unsuccessful social episodes as instances of failed verbal and non-verbal communication. This idea still permeates much current research and theorising, particularly with respect to cross-cultural interactions, and is supported by the core finding that a major problem in such encounters is the inaccurate exchange of information and affect. From the point of view of the sender, the intended messages may not have reached the receiver, or if they did, they were incomplete, garbled or distorted. From the point of view of the receiver, the messages may have been difficult to interpret, were ambiguous and, in more extreme cases, offensive. And since receivers are also senders, the spiral of miscommunications can quickly accelerate into a vicious circle of misunderstanding. The rest of this chapter will provide examples and a review of the relevant literature.
CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN HOW PEOPLE COMMUNICATE
Research has shown that there are consistent and systematic cultural differences in the way in which people send and receive information, prescriptions (commands and wishes), and affect (Gallois et al., 1995). One dimension along which members of different cultures vary is the preference for high versus low context communications (Gudykunst and Matsumoto, 1996). Members of low context cultures convey information directly and rely heavily on verbal communication. Members of high context cultures convey limited information in coded messages; they are more apt to be influenced by situational cues and communicate in an indirect and often ambiguous fashion. Other important dimensions of cross-cultural variability include differences in self-disclosure/
social penetration (Gudykunst and Nishida, 1986), the importance of face negotiation (Ting-Toomey, 1988), and proxemics (Argyle, 1982). In many cases these dimensions are related to broader social values, particularly variations in individualism and collectivism across cultures (Andersen, 1994).
When persons from two different cultures meet, they will have difficulty in communicating with one another to the extent that their respective ‘codes’ differ (Fox, 1997). It is also quite possible that they may be unaware that these differences exist. The latter situation is particularly problematic in encounters between two groups that share the same linguistic forms (or at least speak mutually intelligible dialects) because the similarities in language may obscure any differences that might exist in their subjective cultures (Triandis et al., 1972). Consequently, the participants may not realise that they are sending unintended messages and distorting incoming information (Witte and Morrison, 1995).
For instance, when a North American says ‘Would you like to…?’ (e.g. as in
‘write a report on the sales prospect of a particular product’), this is not a question but a polite order; if an Australian subordinate were to answer ‘No’, the American might be offended and the Australian out of a job. In general, however, the evidence indicates that as differences (including differences in language) between the cultures of the participants increase, so do the difficulties in communication (Levy et al., 1997), due largely to differences in the elements that enter into and regulate interpersonal behaviour.
The psychological literature describing these processes is voluminous, and a comprehensive review is beyond the scope of this chapter. What follows is a brief list of those aspects of interpersonal communication that are known to differ cross-culturally and which contribute significantly to the effectiveness of information exchange. The underlying principle is that both emitted and received/
perceived behaviours occur within a complex sociocultural context with particular rules and conventions.
Polite usage: Etiquette
Cultures differ in the extent to which people are direct or indirect, how requests are made, and more importantly, how requests are denied or refused (Dillard et al., 1997; Kim, 1995). For instance, Filipino social interaction is based on smooth interpersonal relationships. Yet Americans assigned to the Philippines as Peace Corps Volunteers were initially told to be perfectly frank in their dealings with the locals, which turned out to be a devastating piece of advice, because the directness of the Americans was regarded as tactless and brutal (Guthrie, 1966).
The Chinese use ambiguous forms in communication to a much greater extent than is the case in Western societies, mainly due to a greater emphasis on polite usage and face-saving (Lin, 1997), a direct function of their collectivist, other- oriented, self-concept (Gao, 1998). Turn distribution also varies across cultures, the Japanese taking short turns which they distribute evenly, whereas Americans take longer turns which are unevenly distributed in favour of the participant who has initiated the topic (Gudykunst, 1998a).
In many Asian countries the word ‘no’ is seldom used, so that ‘yes’ can mean
‘no’ or ‘maybe’. Rules surrounding invitations and how these are to be extended and accepted are highly culture-bound. There are many stories of Westerners extending an invitation to an Asian acquaintance, receiving what they consider to be an affirmative reply, and then becoming angry when the visitor does not show up (Brein and David, 1971). Triandis (1975) relates how an American visitor asked his Greek acquaintance what time they should come to his house for dinner. The Greek villager replied ‘any time’. In American usage the expression
‘any time’ is a non-invitation that people give to appear polite but which they hope will not lead to anything. The Greek, however, actually meant that the Americans would be welcome any time, because in his culture putting limits on when a guest can come is deemed insulting. Triandis does not reveal how the
incident ended, but it is quite likely that the Americans would have taken what they thought was a hint and withdrawn from the engagement, thereby seriously offending their Greek host.
Some cultures use linguistic forms like ‘thank you’ to show their appreciation, whereas in other cultures ‘thank you’ is signalled non-verbally. A visitor from a
‘linguistic’ culture unaware of this custom may come to regard the hosts as rude and uncouth; the hosts, in turn, may wait in vain for the visitor to exhibit the appropriate gesture of appreciation. The intensity with which speech is uttered is also a variable. For instance, Arabs tend to speak loudly which Europeans interpret as shouting. Americans speak louder than the English, to whom they sound brash and assertive. Americans and Japanese differ with respect to the situations that require an apology and the form in which an acceptable apology should be phrased and delivered (Sugimoto, 1998). The are many opportunities for cultural travellers inadvertently to infringe the rules of cross-cultural etiquette (Axtell, 1993).
Resolving conflict
Dealing with embarrassing predicaments and face-saving are additional minefields for culture travellers (Earley and Randel, 1997; Imahori and Cupach, 1994; Ting-Toomey and Kurogi, 1998; Tsai, 1996). For example, in a study of American executives supervising Mexican assembly line workers, the direct manner in which the expatriate manager reprimanded poorly performing workers was found to violate the Mexican cultural norm of saving face and to lead to absenteeism, high labour turnover, and poor morale (Lindsley and Braithwaite, 1996). More specifically, being publicly and openly criticised is regarded as shameful and insulting in Mexican culture, unlike in American work settings where managers regard it as their duty to provide frank feedback on the performance of their staff.
Two cultural dimensions that significantly affect interpersonal communication style and content are individualism-collectivism and power distance (Hofstede, 1980). These highly complex constructs were elaborated in Chapter 1, but they may be briefly summarised as follows. Power distance refers to the extent to which there is general acceptance of status inequality while individualism- collectivism refers to the extent to which the needs of the group predominate over those of individuals (Triandis, 1995a).
Examples of where differences in these values have led to communication difficulties can be found in a 23-nation study conducted by Smith et al. (1998) in various industrial organisations. Their research revealed systematic differences in the handling of disagreements across cultures. In low power distance and individualist nations, managers tended to rely on their own training and experience in resolving conflict and showed a greater readiness to involve subordinates and co-workers. In collectivist countries formal rules and procedures were given more importance. Differences such as these may lead to
serious consequences as demonstrated by Orasanu, Fischer and Davison (1997) in their study of safety in the airline industry. In this research the authors found that the unwillingness of first officers to challenge the decisions of airline captains or to use circumspect, indirect language as a means of preserving the captain’s face contributed to aircraft accidents, particularly in high power- distance cultural contexts.
Negotiating styles also differ between cultures. Pearson and Stephan (1998) compared Brazilian and American approaches to resolving conflict. Brazilian participants, coming from a collectivist society, preferred a negotiating style that included taking into account the interests of the other party. In contrast, the American participants, reflecting the individualistic orientation of their culture, were more inclined to use negotiating strategies that maximised their own interests at the expense of the other party. A laboratory study comparing the negotiating styles of American (individualist) and Mexican (collectivist) students also found that the Mexicans showed a greater preference for strategies such as accommodation and collaboration, which take an opponent’s outcomes into account. In addition, the Mexican participants tended to avoid strategies leading to animosity, conflict and competition (Gabrielidis et al., 1997). There is no doubt that cross-cultural differences in Individualism-Collectivism and power distance may hinder effective intercultural communication, particularly when the interaction occurs between persons of unequal status and when there is a need to achieve agreement on some important issue.
Non-verbal communication
Non-verbal signals play an important role in communicating attitudes, in expressing emotions, and in supporting speech by elaborating what is said. They also provide feedback from listener to sender and assist in synchronising verbal interactions by indicating to the participants when it is their turn to speak, when it is their turn to listen, and when it is appropriate to interrupt (Argyle, 1975, 1980). Although the meaning of some non-verbal signals is universal, many vary across cultures.
Communication elements that have been studied cross-culturally include the face, eyes, spatial behaviour, bodily contact, and gestures (Duncan, 1969; Ekman and Friesen, 1972, 1975; Mehrabian, 1972; Sommer, 1969). For instance, Japanese display rules discourage the use of negative facial expressions (Shimoda, Argyle and Ricci Bitti, 1978), making them relatively ‘inscrutable’ to members of low context cultures, and Filipinos may smile and laugh when they are very angry (Guthrie, 1975), which could give outsiders a completely false impression of the impact they are making.
Mutual gaze
Levels of mutual gaze vary across cultures. Arabs and Latin Americans display a high frequency of mutual gaze while Europeans display a comparatively lower frequency (Watson, 1970). When persons from high and low-gaze cultures meet, the behaviour of the low-gaze participant may be interpreted as impolite, not paying attention and dishonest while the high-gaze person may be seen as disrespectful, threatening, or insulting (Burgoon, Coker and Coker, 1986). Spatial behaviour also varies across cultures, some groups standing much closer to each other than others (Aiello and Jones, 1971; Baxter, 1970; Brein and David, 1971;
Hall, 1959, 1966; Jones, 1971; Scherer, 1974; Watson and Graves, 1966).
Bodily contact
Cultures also vary in the extent to which they allow bodily contact (Argyle, 1982).
Contact cultures include Arab, Latin American, and Southern European groups.
In non-contact societies, touching is only allowed under very restricted conditions, such as within the family, in brief handshakes with strangers, or in specialised role relationships (e.g. doctors, dentists, and tailors). Contact outside these approved settings can be a source of considerable anxiety. When a high-touch culture meets a low-touch one, the low-contact person is seen as aloof, cold and unfriendly, whereas the high-contact person may be seen as sexually predatory.
Northern Europeans are very sensitive about having their personal space invaded, unlike the Southern Europeans, who prefer to sit and stand much closer to each other. They also engage in much more physical contact than other Europeans, the Italians probably being the most tactile (Collett, 1994). Arab societies are high contact cultures. However, this only applies to same-sex touching. Physical contact between members of the opposite sex in public is rare and regarded as offensive (Feghali, 1997). East-Asian societies, particularly China, Korea, and Japan, tend to be low tactile cultures, the reluctance towards interpersonal touch by members of those societies being ascribed to the influence of Confucianism with its emphasis on prescribed public social deportment (McDaniel and Andersen, 1998).
Immediacy refers to behaviours that invite communication and imply psychological closeness. This is mostly conveyed through non-verbal signals which vary cross-culturally (McCroskey et al., 1996). Complicating the issue further are differences between cultures regarding the extent to which their members welcome psychological closeness. For instance, members of a high- context culture such as the Japanese rely more on non-verbal than verbal communication channels and do not seek psychological closeness. In contrast, a low-context culture such as the United States relies more on verbal than non- verbal means of communicating affect, and its members value psychological closeness (Hinkle, 1998).
Gestures
Gestures and their significance vary widely across cultures (Collett, 1982; Morris et al., 1979). Some gestures are used in one culture and not in others, and the same gesture can have quite diverse, indeed opposite, meanings in different cultures. For instance, in the United States a raised thumb is used as a signal of approval or approbation, and even has a name, the ‘thumbs up’ signal. However, in Greece the same sign is employed as an insult, often being associated with the expression ‘katsa pano’ or ‘sit on this’. Another example is the ring sign, performed by bringing the tips of the thumb and finger together so that they form a circle. For most English-speaking people it means ‘okay’ and is widely known as the ‘OK’ gesture. But in some sections of France the ring means zero or worthless. In English-speaking countries disagreement is signalled by shaking the head, but in Greece and southern Italy the head-toss is employed to signify
‘no’.
Among Europeans, Italians are probably the most intense users of expressive hand movements in conversation. ‘As points and arguments fly back and forth, the hands gyrate and puncture the air, throwing cryptic signs in every direction’
(Collett, 1994:65). Other groups who gesticulate a great deal are the French, Eastern European Jews, Greeks, Spaniards, and the Portuguese. Nordic peoples—
the Swedes, Finns, Norwegians, and Danes—make very little use of gesticulation. The British, Germans, Dutch, Belgians, and Russians use gestures in moderation, particularly facial expressions such as smiling and gaze (Argyle, 1981).
Social-skills training has always placed a great deal of emphasis on non-verbal behaviours. The complexity and variety of these signals across cultures attest to their importance in effective cross-cultural interaction, and experimental research has shown that culturally congruent non-verbal behaviours are a more powerful predictor of interpersonal attraction than ethnicity (Dew and Ward, 1993).
However, it should be noted that some aspects of non-verbal behaviour are more important than others. For instance, facial expressions and gaze play a greater role in communicating affect than does spatial behaviour. Nevertheless, in a specific instance even the smallest variation in non-verbal behaviour may lead to a major failure in communication.
Rules and conventions
Cross-cultural differences in the rules that govern interpersonal behaviour are another major source of difficulty in intercultural communication (Driskill and Downs, 1995). For instance, rules about punctuality vary from culture to culture (Argyle, 1982; Brein and David, 1971; Collett, 1994). LeVine, West and Reis (1980) found that Americans regard someone who is never late for an appointment as more successful than someone who is occasionally late, who in turn is perceived as more successful than a person who is always late. Exactly
the opposite is the case in Brazil, where arriving late for an appointment is indicative of success.
In an unobtrusive study of attitudes to punctuality, LeVine and Bartlett (1984) checked the accuracy of clocks in cities in Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Italy, England, and the United States. They found clocks to be most accurate in Japan and least accurate in Indonesia. In another aspect of the same study, the walking speed of pedestrians was measured in the same cities. Again, the Japanese were the fastest and Indonesians the slowest strollers. Data such as these can be interpreted to reflect cultural differences in attitudes to pace of life.
Conventions about punctuality are only one example of the many social rules that cross-cultural travellers must take into account. Furnham and Bochner (1982) identified forty routine social situations which sojourners have difficulty in negotiating to varying degrees, partly because the rules regulating these encounters vary from culture to culture and may not be obvious to an outsider.
Furnham (1983) administered the Social Situations Questionnaire to African, Indian, and European nurses in Natal, South Africa. He found significant differences in reported difficulty between the three groups, with the Europeans expressing least and the Africans expressing most problems. In this case, although all the subjects were in a sense insiders, black Africans had been kept separate from the dominant sectors of their society and hence had fewer opportunities to acquire and rehearse mainstream socially skilled acts and their respective ground rules.
In a more direct demonstration of the existence and effects of cultural differences in social rules, Noesjirwan (1978) contrasted Indonesia and Australia on three general cultural themes: first, that Indonesians value maintaining friendly social relationships with everyone, in contrast to the Australian preference for a few exclusive relationships and personal privacy; second, that Indonesians value conformity to the group and the community in contrast to the Australian emphasis on individuality; and third, that Indonesians prefer an interpersonal lifestyle that is smooth, graceful and restrained in contrast to the Australian preference for an open, direct social manner. On the basis of these themes, Noesjirwan then generated a number of common social situations, and Australian and Indonesian participants were provided with alternate choices about how they would manage the encounter. The study confirmed that Indonesian and Australian preferences differed in terms of how congruent they were with each culture’s rule structure.
Social rules tend to operate below the level of consciousness. Often, people only become aware of the existence of a particular rule if they have broken it. Or rather, their social environment ensures that they realise that they have transgressed. Outsiders lack easy access to such information. Unless they have a host culture friend who can serve as a mentor in this regard, even sensitive sojourners may miss some vital cues and behave inappropriately from their hosts’ perspective.