[Music] Welcome to the Connections Cafe, where we brew healthy and effective communication by exploring the insights, strategies, and concepts of communication. I'm your host, Ripco Walker. And today, in episode two, we're going to talk about how culture may affect the way you communicate in interpersonal relationships. So, if you haven't done so already, go get you a hot cup of coffee or cold one or even a hot cup of tea or cold tea and sit down and enjoy today's podcast. So, let's talk about culture. I think it's safe to say that here in America, we are a melting pot of different cultures from the warlands. And so, we cook gumbo quite often and it's a whole bunch of different meats and spices and it's laid on top of rice, but it is literally a mom pod of whatever you have in your refrigerator that helps you to create the best gumbo. And so, when we talk about culture here in America, we sometimes get really confused because we have people from literally all over the world that has been here for generation after generation after generation. And so, people who are not from America might just say the American culture. But when we're here, we can clearly define and see cultures. Those cultures help us to navigate the world in which we live, but oftentimes people have a misunderstanding of what culture actually is. So, let's talk about it. So, for starters, the definition of culture is the specialized lifestyle of a group of people that has been passed on from one generation to the next through communication. Now, make sure you hear me. It is not something that has been passed down from generation to generation through your genes. It has been passed down from generation to generation through communication. This can be oral tradition. It could be just watching the elders over you or it could be something that has been written in a book. For me and my family, we're Hebrew. And so, the oral traditions that we have as well as what we can find in our books help us to navigate the world in which we live. Now, this process of culture being transmitted from one generation to the next is called inculturation. This inculturation helps us to navigate the world, but it also is usually left to a person that is designated to teach culture to the next generation. This could be the mom, the dad, grandparents, elders, etc. In my culture, it is the moms. So, moms are important and more ways than just rearing the child, but they are the keepers of the culture. And so, this idea or this process is called inculturation where you're inculturating your culture on someone else. Now, oftentimes when we're thinking about inculturation, we can see the formation or the ethnic identity that is grounded and rooted in ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is when you have or you take on the idea that your culture is better than everyone else's. Now, whenever we seek to learn about other people's culture, it is important that we keep an open mind. In doing so, we're able to approach interpersonal communication from a cultural perspective. Cultural understandings help us to communicate effectively from those or with those who are culturally different from us. So, let's talk about those cultural differences. It is important to understand how culture differs in how these differences influence our communication. So, there are a few cultural distinctions. They include individualistic versus collectivist orientation, high context versus low context, power struggle, how they perceive masculinity versus femininity, the tolerance for ambiguity, long term versus short term orientations, indulgence and restraints. And so, there are many different ways, many different distinctions that each culture have. So, let's talk about the first one, individual
istic versus cultivist orientation. Now, when we think about these cultures, we can say that, let's say, America versus an Asian type of culture. So, America will be considered an individualistic culture. The responsibility is for the individual, the focus is on individual goals, success is measured by individual accomplishments, we're usually more competitive, and the list goes on and on and on. Whereas in a collectivist culture, so more of an Asian culture, we can see people having more of this understanding that the responsibility is for the entire group. The focus is on the group's goals. The success is measured by the contribution to the whole by the individual. It's more focused on saving face versus on being competitive. So, we're going to do life together. Right? And so, that is a big difference. Because when we think about us here in America, we're often talking about how quick I can get, graduate from school, how much money I can make and how I can make it quickly, how I can get the best car, the nicest house, and secure my family, like my personal individual family. But we're thinking about collectivist cultures. We oftentimes see them doing business and life together. They're usually buying a communal or family home. They're usually owning a family business. They're usually building life and success together. This is more of a collectivist culture or collectivist idea of success. Okay, so the next cultural distinction would be the high context versus a low context culture. Now, before I move on though, I want to make this understanding known. When it comes on the culture, it is not just talking about your ethnicity or where you're from, but it's also talking about business culture, so company culture. It can also be referred to as your nuclear family culture. All of that can be considered a part of culture. So the examples that I'll be using throughout the different cultural distinctions will include things like community company and your communal nuclear family culture. And so you can get a full picture of what we're talking about when we're talking about culture. So going back to the idea of this high context versus low context culture, I'm going to use the example of a nuclear family. So mom, dad and children, right? So I'm a mom. We can, for me, I can talk to my children in a very vague manner and they understand what I'm talking about. This will be considered a high context culture. For example, if we're at the grocery store or just doing some normal shopping and my children are acting up, I can literally give my children a look and they understand what I'm talking about without me having to say any words at all. This is because my nuclear family, your nuclear family can operate from a high contextual understanding because you all share the same knowledge or values, beliefs, attitudes, etc. So you're able to determine what someone is talking about from just a little piece of information. The same thing is true for friendships, right? Let's say best friends are at a gathering and someone says just one word and the entire group begins to laugh. This because they share the same knowledge base about that particular experience. On the other hand, what we have a low context culture, we can talk about corporate or company culture. We can say that companies use this low context culture in order to do business. This is why we can say, or we see that contracts are used within companies. They would rather be direct and specific about what they're speaking about
versus just using being able just to allude to the conclusion. They're going to make sure that they are very specific in their deliverables. And so this is the difference between high context and low-to-context culture. Now moving on to masculine and versance feminine culture. This is dealing with the way the culture sees gender and these gender roles that have been applied to different cultures. When we think about masculine cultures, we say that men are value for aggressiveness, material success, strength. They have a clear distinction of a gender role. They do certain tasks while women do something different. They're ambitious, ambitious, assertive, and competitive. And they oftentimes look for win-lose, complex strategies. For feminine culture, we can say that women are valued more and they're valued for modesty focused on the quality of life, tenderness, they're less distinctive between gender roles. They focus on interpersonal relationship and they oftentimes look for win-win, complex strategies. And because I'm a woman, I would say that that's true. We are oftentimes looking to cooperate more than coming to aggression or showing off our strength, but rather having more tenderness and nurturing benefits. There's also a difference between power structure. So we can say that it's a high power structure or high power distance structure that power is only held by a few individuals. And so for low power distance, we say that there's an even playing field. Everyone has a seat at the table. Everyone can have this conversation. Everyone is a part of the decision making. Another distinction is the high and low ambiguity tolerant cultures. So a high ambiguity tolerant culture will say that uncertainty is normal and expected. Comfortable, we're comfortable with the unknown. It minimizes the importance of rules for relationships and communication, but it's okay with those vague details because they understand that we're learning things together. Now, a low ambiguity culture, they avoid uncertainties. They want more details. They're uncertain about any threats they may arise. Any uncertainty is a threat? They have clear rules and then timelines are really important for those type of cultures. And then there's short term versus long term orientation culture. So long term oriented cultures have focus on the importance of the future. We're planning and we're preparing for future results. Whereas the short term oriented cultures, they focus mainly on the past and the present. And the last cultural distinction would be indulgence and restrain culture. Indulgent culture emphasizes gratification of desires. They focus on fun and enjoying life. Life is controlled, but they enjoy leisure activities. They value individual desires and there's a great importance on friendship. Oftentimes, this type of culture is described as healthy and very good. On the other hand, there is restraint culture. Restrain culture often limits gratification. They value thrifting. There are social norms that regulate and reinforce. They focus on group social norms. They have a higher percentage of people who are cynical and pessimist. And because of this, they are significantly higher rates of death due to cardiovascular disease. An example that I can use to help illustrate indulgence in restrain culture could be social economic statuses. For example, an indulgence culture may be particularly significant for a person who is in the higher or wealthier class. Whereas people who are in the middle class to lower class, they most likely will have a restrain culture. Now, there could be a mixing of the two, but generally that is a really good example of how people can indulge themselves in gratification and join their life, taking more leisure time, having time and money to spend on those leisure activities in building friendships and etc. Whereas people who are pinching pennies or living paycheck to paycheck, they might find themselves valuing thrifting, valuing the sale. Sometimes they realize they can't do things. We can see these differences in culture from the higher economic status person or culture versus lower economic or middle class social economic status. Even though we can understand the cultural distinctions, it's safe to say that sometimes these cultural differences kind of merge on each other. Sometimes there can be high context and low-cost context culture that happens at the same time. It could be indulgence versus restrain culture that can happen at the same time. But these are just the different distinctions that we use when we're trying to identify cultural differences. So now that we talked about culture, let's talk about how interpersonal communication and culture collides in a term coined intercultural communication. Now intercultural communication is communication between people who have different cultural beliefs, values, or ways of behaving. The messages that they send are usually unique in cultural context that influence the content and the form. So when I was growing up, there was a term or an expression that was used that said, "We are all products of our environment." Simply put, this is saying that we will see conversation in context from a perspective of our culture. Oftentimes when we're having communication with someone of a different culture and we forget that aspect of it, we can come away from that conversation with miscommunication. So what should we do to improve our intercultural communication? The first thing that we should do is prepare ourselves. So when we're considering to prepare ourselves for conversations with someone of a different culture, the first thing that we should do is learn about the other culture. View from a realistic perspective, watch films, documentaries, or even read a book, scan through magazines or websites and just talk to someone who is a part of that culture. The second thing that you should do is reduce your ethnocentrism. Remember when we talked about ethnocentrism at the beginning of this episode, we talked about it being your understanding that your culture is better than everyone else's. We tend to see our behavior through our own cultural filters and evaluate our own as superior. And so when we're trying to have conversations with someone of a different culture, we should see others as different, not as superior or inferior. And we want to make sure that we're being aware of any cultural blinders that we may have. The third thing that you want to do is confront your stereotypes. That's stereotype is a fixed impression of a group of people. Now, personally, I've been on the opposite side of stereotypes and I can tell you that most likely your stereotypes are not true. See, bear in mind that stereotypes include things like ignoring the unique characteristics of an individual and failing to see the benefit of individual special contributions. And so when you're approaching a conversation with someone that has a different culture as you, you should open, have an open mind. See what they're really about. Judge that individual based off of your own interaction with them. The fourth thing that you want to do is make sure that you're being mindful. Use intellectual scrutiny. Use logic, critical thinking, and avoid being mindless. Recognize that other cultural systems may be different, but they're again, not superior or inferior to yours. Number five is recognize differences. Understand that differences make us unique. And failure to see the differences can oftentimes give blinders where you don't begin to see the uniqueness as someone else brings. Number six is adjust your communication. You see interpersonal communication can only take place to the extent that there are shared systems of symbols. So be aware of that and adjust your message and symbols to accommodate the person that you're in that communication or that conversation with. And the last thing that you want to do is recognize that culture shock is real. So when we're thinking about culture shock, the best example that I can give you is if you were to relocate to another area, continent, state, etc. And you probably heard or have heard of someone.
who said, "I am homesick." Culture shock is real. Culture shock is a psychological reaction of your experience when you encounter a different culture. There are four stages that you go through when you're dealing with culture shock. The first one is the honeymoon stage. This stage is where you're enjoying to learn about a new culture. You like the people, the food, the language, et cetera. But then over time, that honeymoon feeling begins to wear off. And then you enter into stage two, the crisis. This is where you most likely were here people say, "I'm homesick, I'm ready to go home." And this is often because learning and taking on the ideals of a different culture or just trying to see things from a different perspective can cause a bit of cognitive dissonance. No one likes to be uncomfortable. No one likes that cognitive dissonance feeling that we get where we're having to basically bump heads with our normal beliefs, values, attitudes, and things to understand someone else's perspective of their values, beliefs, and attitudes, and understandings. And so you go through this crisis mode where it's just a bit overwhelming. But hopefully if you push through that, you'll get to stage three. Now, stage three is the recovery. This is where you're like, you know what? I can do this. I can be able to compartmentalize where I am, my culture versus their culture, and I'm able to navigate through this new understanding, being able to see them as an individual, and myself as an individual, seeing both of our culture for what they are, none being superior or inferior, I can move forward. Now, after you go through stage number three, you enter into stage number four. Stage number four is the adjustment period. This is where you begin to feel a little bit more at home. You're able to navigate through the intricacies of that different cultural experience and begin to have a more well-rounded and meaningful conversation. (upbeat music) - Whoo, listen, culture is a lot, man. We've only scratched the surface of culture when it in terms of interpersonal communication. There is so much to learn out there. I love culture, and I love learning about new culture, especially when we're talking about communicating within those cultures. I really hope that you've learned something and have been able to take something away from it, but let's do a quick recap of what we learned today. So first and foremost, we learned about what culture really is, and we've also talked about how we can tell the difference or the distinctions of communication when it comes down to culture. And we've also talked about the different ways that we can improve intercultural communication. Listen, as I mentioned just moments ago, culture is such a broad topic, and we're just starting to scratch the surface. We're gonna talk about culture all throughout the series, and so I really hope that you can take what we've learned today and apply it to your life starting today. Okay, starting today. But before I let you go, I wanted to talk to you about a quick viewpoint, and give you something that you can apply everything that we've learned about today in your life, right? Starting today. So the viewpoint that I have is understanding that intercultural communication is especially important when we're talking about political discussions between members of widely different cultures. So when we were looking at the news today, we might see a whole bunch of different cultures and countries coming together to discuss maybe the same issues or very similar issues. So what I want you to do is take a look at at least one online news article, especially in the world section. So go to CNN or Fox News or NSBC or the BBC or whatever, and look for a particular article and see if you can identify how many news items that can profit from the understanding of intercultural communication. And then two, in what specific ways might intercultural communication competencies be of value in those situations? Now listen, you don't have to do it, but if you decide to do it, and you wanna share your findings with me, remember you can contact me at
[email protected]. That's R-I-B-Q-A-H at theinspiredroots.com. I give this
[email protected]. Alrighty, well I hope you have a wonderful morning, day or night, whenever you're listening to this podcast, Shalom Shalom. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
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