356 final, chapter 12

Howell's four levels of intercultural communication competence

(ladder) unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence

component model of intercultural effectiveness

(picture "E" from slide) motivation, knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviors

conscious competence ladder

(see below) unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence

conscious competence

a conscious, intentional level focused on analytic thinking and learning; reaching this level is a necessary part of the process of becoming a competent communicator; reaching this level is necessary but not sufficient

critical perspective

a critical perspective reminds us that individuals' competence may be constrained by the political, economic, and historical contexts; the concept of competence includes issues of stereotyping, powerlessness, and authenticity; powerful groups are not likely to focus on these issues, and yet they must be taken into consideration when trying to understand the dimensions of competence; we need to understand that notions of communication competence depend on specific social, political, and historical contexts, and we need to question who is setting these standards; it is worth examining our own and others' goals in intercultural encounters and to ask whose interests are being served

D.I.E. exercise

a device that helps us determine if we are communicating at a descriptive, interpretive, or evaluative level; only descriptive statements are nonjudgmental; it is helpful in developing a nonjudgmental attitude; descriptive statements convey factual information that can be verified through the senses; interpretive statements attach meaning to the description; evaluative statements clarify how we feel about something; this exercise can help us recognize whether we are processing information on a descriptive, interpretive, or evaluative level - confusing the different levels can lead to misunderstanding and ineffective communication; it is impossible to always stay at the descriptive level, but it is important to know when we are describing and when we are interpreting - most communication is at the interpretive level

social initiative

a tendency to approach social situations in an active way and to take initiatives; an ability to establish and maintain contacts; interpersonal skills are very important - one must be able to interact with people from the host country and to make friends among the locals; the courage to make things happen has been cited as important for the international executive; D.A.P. - do something once you acknowledge there is trouble and have paid attention to it

knowledge

about how others think and behave; the cognitive information you need to have about other people, the context, the norms of appropriateness that operate in a specific culture; 3 types: self-knowledge (knowing how you are perceived as a communicator), other-knowledge (knowing how others think and behave; culture general - provides insight into intercultural communication process abstractly, regardless of culture; culture specific - used to understand a particular culture); linguistic knowledge - understanding the challenges of learning a second language

forgiveness

although limited and problematic, forgiveness is an option for promoting intercultural understanding and reconciliation; it si more than a simple rite of religious correctness - it requires a deep intellectual and emotional commitment during moments of great pain and requires a letting go, a moving on, a true transformation of spirit; if you set out to build the forgiving society, a society in which forgiveness flourishes and revenge is ever more infrequent, what sorts of conditions and institutions would you need to put in place?; leaders must construct conditions of contact among groups that lead to decategorization and recategorization, opportunities to develop intimate positive knowledge of each other, and provide superoridinate goals that foster cooperation; religions are tricky because they are capable of great good and also violence - they promote forgiveness yet some people within these religions also have strong beliefs in revenge

attitudes

an individual's dispositions or mental sets - as a component of intercultural communication competence, attitudes include tolerance for ambiguity, empathy, and nonjudgmentalism

motivation

as an individual component of intercultural communication competence, the desire to make a commitment in relationships, to learn about the self and others, and to remain flexible; if we aren't motivated to communicate with others, it probably doesn't matter what other skills we possess; we can't assume that people always want to communicate; reasons why people may not be motivated: (1) members of large, powerful groups tend to think they don't need to know much about other cultures - there's no incentive, (2) intercultural communication can be uncomfortable - anxiety, uncertainty, fear - people do not address delicate intercultural issues out of fear of being isolated from friends and family members who may be prejudiced and not motivated themselves, (3) motivation is lacking in contexts in which historical events or political circumstances have resulted in communication breakdowns; reasons people may be motivated: (1) people from less powerful groups have a strong incentive to learn about and interact with more powerful groups; sometimes people can become motivated due to the impact of a specific event or influence in their lives; *individually, when we are not motivated to reach out across cultural divides, we suffer from distorted perception (we don't really know how individuals from other cultures may view us or a particular situation) and a lack of personal growth* *on the societal level, when we are not motivated to embrace other cultures and other ways of thinking and behavior, our organizations suffer from a loss of productivity and human potential (not everyone gets the opportunity to contribute ideas)

knowledge

as an individual component of intercultural communication competence, the quality of knowing about oneself (that is, one's strengths and weaknesses), others, and various aspects of communication

conscious incompetence

aware something's wrong but don't know why; realize ability is limited

8 habits of intercultural competent communicators

be aware that what you understood may not be what was meant; try not to assume sameness, especially when you share a language; what you think of as "normal behavior" may only be cultural; be aware that familiar behaviors may have different meanings; it's okay not to feel good about "different" behavior, but try to understand where it comes from; keep in mind that people from other cultures are not acting a certain way just to make you mad - most people behave rationally - you just have to discover the rationale; if you know you're going to be interacting with another culture, try to learn as much as you can about what makes up the culture's iceberg model; allow yourself (and others) to make mistakes

unconscious incompetence (bottom of the ladder)

blissfully ignorant of incompetence, unaware you lack skills, confidence may far exceed abilities

intercultural alliances

bonds between individuals or groups across cultures characterized by a shared recognition of power and the impact of history and by an orientation of affirmation; (1) in relation to power and privilege, intercultural friends recognize and try to understand how ethnic, gender, and class differences lead to power and try to manage these power issues, which includes understanding and acknowledging one's privilege; (2) in relation to the impact of history, intercultural friends recognize that people from historically powerful groups view history differently than do those who belong to less powerful groups - history often plays an important part in intercultural interactions; true intercultural friends accept rather than question others' experiences, particularly when historical inequities and power issues are involved - they recognize the importance of historical power differentials and affirm others' cultural experiences even when this calls into question their own worldviews; (3) in relation to orientations of affirmation, intercultural friends value and appreciate differences and are committed to the relationship even when they encounter difficulties and misunderstandings

building coalitions

coalitions can arise from a person's multiple identities (ex: Seeds of Peace project which brings together Jewish and Palestinian young people to work toward peace and harmony, and other local coalitions that work to promote dialogue between blacks and whites/gays and straights; as you strive to build better intercultural relations, you may need to transcend some of your identities, or you may reinforce other identities; these shifting identities allow you to build coalitions among seemingly different peoples, to foster positive intercultural relationships for a better world; *coalitions, which are built of multiple identities, are never easy to build*

transpection

cross-cultural empathy; the process of achieving cross-cultural empathy and trying to see the world as the other person does; transpection is a postmodern phenomenon that often involves trying to learn foreign beliefs, assumptions, perspectives, and feelings in a foreign context; Milton Bennett suggests a "Platinum Rule" - "Do unto others as they themselves would have done unto them" instead of the Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" - this of course requires movement beyond a culture-bound sympathy or empathy for others

what the future holds

economics - more and more foreign investments; military - need to be culturally aware to promote a positive image of the US; politically - rise of anti-Americanism (without understanding the reasons for anti-American feelings, it is difficult to engage in meaningful intercultural dialogue); the lack of understanding of other cultures is often felt by those who think the US should be more sympathetic to their situation; in the context of this new global world, with its emerging national security concerns, anti-Americanism, global economic relations, and political challenges, US Americans may need to rethink their easy isolation in a monolingual society

conscious competence

focus on analytic thinking and learning; acquire new skills and knowledge; put learning into practice and gain confidence; aware of new skills and work on refining

nonjudgmentalism

free from evaluating according to one's own cultural frame of reference; we might like to think that we do not judge others according to our own cultural frames of reference, but it is very difficult not to do so

interpretive perspective

in this perspective, an important aspect of being a competent communicator is understanding the context in which communication occurs; intercultural communication happens in many contexts, and an interpretive perspective reminds us that a good communicator is sensitive to these contexts; definitions for competence may vary from one cultural context to another (ex: work vs. social, cross-cultural medical contexts); nonverbal cues are often absent in mediated communication; different cultures value identity expression in different ways - some cultural groups place high importance on knowing the identity of a person before entering into relationships - since much of our identity is expressed nonverbally (how we look and our conversational style), mediated conversations pose challenges; identity is also expressed verbally through communication style and humor (not always easily translatable across cultures and particularly difficult in cyberspace); identity expression can also involve bragging - not viewed positively in all cultures; mediated contexts can actually facilitate communication between persons not sharing a native language, since they have more time to interpret and understand the other as well as time to phrase their own messages; probably best to use humor sparingly since it is even more difficult to translate in cyberspace and is viewed in different ways in various cultures; recognizing your own relation to the speech community and the context will help you better understand intercultural communication

becoming interculturally effective

intercultural competency and effectiveness is one of the main goals of the study of and training in intercultural communication; becoming interculturally competent leads to being interculturally effective; the result of intercultural effectiveness is the ability to function in culture

intercultural competence is contextual

it is not independent of the relationship and situation in which communication occurs

linguistic knowledge

knowledge of other languages besides one's native language or of the difficulty of learning a second or third language; awareness of the difficulty of learning a second language helps us appreciate the extent of the challenges that sojourners and immigrants face in their new cultural contexts; knowing a second or third language expands our communication repertoire and increases our empathy for culturally different individuals

social science perspective - individual components

motivation, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors & skills

the components of competence

motivation, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, skills

flexibility

one must be able to switch easily from one strategy to another; elements of flexibility: ability to learn from mistakes, adjustment of behavior when required, ability to learn from new experiences

conscious incompetence

people realize that things may not be going very well in the interaction, but they are not sure why; most of us have experienced intercultural interactions in which we felt that something wasn't quite right but couldn't quite figure out what it was

being interculturally effective

personality characteristics for being interculturally competent are tested in the Multicultural Personality Questionaire; (1) open-mindedness, (2) emotional stability, (3) flexibility, (4) social initiative

other-knowledge

related to intercultural communication competence, knowledge about how people from other cultures think and behave that will also help you be a more effective communicator; however, learning about others in only abstract terms can lead to stereotyping - it is often better to learn through relational experience; we can't know everything about all cultures or develop relationships with people from all cultural groups, so it's important to develop some general knowledge about cultural differences - to avoid stereotyping, perhaps it is better simply to be aware of the range in thought and behavior across cultures, and not to assume that because someone belongs to a particular group, he or she will behave in a particular way

self-knowledge

related to intercultural communication competence, the quality of knowing how one is perceived as a communicator; as well as one's strengths and weaknesses; acquiring self-knowledge is a long and sometimes complicated process - it involves being open to information coming in many different ways; we often don't know how we're perceived because we don't search for this information or because there is not sufficient trust in a relationship for people to reveal such things

cultural competence

requires more than acquiring knowledge - it is leveraging a complex combination of knowledge, attitudes, and skills to engage and intervene appropriately and effectively across cultures

behaviors and skills

some universal behaviors: a display of respect, interaction management, ambiguity tolerance, empathy, relational rather than task behavior, interaction posture; these skills become problematic when we try to apply them in specific ways - for example: being respectful works well in all intercultural interactions, and many scholars identify this particular skill as important, but how one expresses respect behaviorally may vary from culture to culture and from context to context; it is not enough to know how competent behaviors vary from culture to culture - one needs to be able to put that knowledge into practice by demonstrating those behaviors appropriately; intercultural communication competence means being able to exhibit or adapt to different kinds of behaviors, depending on the other person's or group's cultural background

unconscious incompetence

the "be yourself" approach in which we are not conscious of differences and do not need to act in any particular way; being ourselves works best in interactions with individuals who are very similar to us; in intercultural contexts, being ourselves often means that we're not very effective and don't realize our ineptness

open-mindedness

the ability to have an open and unprejudiced attitude toward others; one needs to have freedom from prejudice; achieving nonjudgmentalism (D.I.E. model)

empathy

the capacity to "walk in another person's shoes"; empathic skills are culture bound - we cannot really view the world through another person's eyes without knowing something about his or her experiences in life; empathy is the capacity to imagine oneself in another role, within the context of one's cultural identity; to achieve empathy across cultural boundaries, people must forge strong relationship and strive for the creation of shared meaning in their interpersonal encounters, but because this is difficult to achieve when people come from different cultural backgrounds, it is suggested that this shared meaning must be seen as both provisional and dynamic, that understanding is not an all-or-nothing proposition; cross-cultural empathy must integrate both thinking and feeling - we must try to understand not only what others say (content) but also how they feel (empathy)

becoming interpersonal allies

the dialectical approach involves becoming allies with others, in working for better intergroup relations, but we need a new way to think about multiculturalism and cultural diversity - one that recognizes the complexities of communicating across cultures and that addresses power issues, otherwise we can get stuck within a competitive framework - if we win something, the other person or group loses, and we can only win if others lose - this kind of thinking can make us feel frustrated and guilty; the goal is to find a way in which we can achieve equitable unity despite holding many different and contradictory truths, a unity based on conscious coalition, a unity of affinity and political kinship, in which we all win

applying knowledge about intercultural communication

the dialectical approach recognizes the important role of individual skills and contextual constraints in improving intercultural relations, and emphasizes the relational aspects of intercultural communication is to recognize the connectedness of humans and the importance of dialogue

tolerance for ambiguity

the ease with which an individual copes with situations in which a great deal is unknown; whether we are abroad or at home, interacting with people who look different from us and who behave in ways that are strange to us requires a tolerance for ambiguity; tolerance for ambiguity is one of the most difficult things to attain - people have a natural preference for predictability - uncertainty can be disquieting

Eastern model of listening

the effective intercultural communicator, sensitive to the other, thinks carefully before speaking and delivers a message that is never threatening or condemnatory and one that appears open to multiple possible interpretations; the listener hears the message, considers it, reconsiders it, trying on different possible interpretations - trying to understand the speaker's possible intent; when the listener believes he or she has understood the point being made, he or she frames a response, again in a nonthreatening manner; ambiguity is a feature of such listening, which may seem contradictory to other guidelines for competent communication that extol being clear and concise; intercultural dialogue may have to be clear and somewhat ambiguous

social justice and transformation

the first step in working for social justice is acknowledging that oppression and inequities exist within a hierarchy in which some are privileged and set the rules for others; social inequities are sometimes manifested in work contexts (ex: workplace bullying - the ill treatment and hostile behavior toward people at work; while laws and norms no longer condone overtly racist behaviors, the workplace provides many opportunities for subtle, even unconscious manifestations of racism, including neglect, incivility, humor, ostracism, inequitable treatment, and other forms of micro-aggression); intercultural listening should be followed by application - dialogue should ultimately set things right that have been wrong; good listening promotes intercultural and interracial harmony, the amelioration of poverty, the introduction of justice, and mutual respect and harmony

unconscious competence

the level at which communication goes smoothly but is not a conscious process; this level of competence is not something we can acquire by consciously trying to - it occurs when the analytic and holistic parts are functioning together; the most competent communicators are those who consciously acquire knowledge, but who also strive for an "unconscious competence"

motivation

the most important - if you're not motivated, skills don't matter; motivation to communicate and reach out to others; the overall set of emotional associations that people have as they anticipate and actually communicate interculturally; skill is not important; feelings - the emotional or affective states that you experience with someone from a different culture; intentions - what guides your choices in particular intercultural interactions - your goals, plans, objectives, desires, etc.; people with less power are more motivated

emotional stability

the tendency to remain calm in stressful situations, dealing effectively with psychological stress

social justice

to achieve this we must (1) acknowledge that trouble exists, (2) pay attention - intercultural listening, not relying on the media for meaningful analysis of social oppression and inequalities, seeking out marginalized voices; (3) do something - (a) make noise, be seen, don't be silent, (b) dare to make people feel uncomfortable, beginning with yourself, (c) actively promote change in how systems are organized around privilege. (d) don't keep it to yourself - work with other people - build interpersonal alliances and coalitions

behavior and skills

to put knowledge into practice it is the actual performance of behaviors regarded as appropriate and effective; *you can have the necessary information, be motivated by the appropriate intentions, but still lack the behavior skills necessary to achieve competence; the model reminds us to value the skills we have so painstakingly acquired*

entering into dialogue

to recognize and embrace our connectedness, even to people who are different from us, we have to engage in true dialogue; a central notion of dialogue is sharing and reciprocity; a focus on mutual listening, instead of talking, forms the core of successful intercultural dialogue, which can be done through a "sharing of narratives" metaphor - we come to the world with a master narrative that explains what things are, which ones count for what, what is good or bad about them, and we "braid" these accounts of fact and value into a somewhat coherent personal web of meaning; a good intercultural listener exchanges narrative accounts to expand his or her repertoire of possibilities in explaining the world - and this interest and skill is built on a foundation of openness, curiosity, and empathy; of all the messages you hear every day, the most obvious voices and images are often the most privileged; to resist the tendency to focus only on the loudest, most obvious voices, we should strive for "harmonic discourse" - discourse in which all voices retain their individual integrity, yet combine to form a whole discourse that is orderly and congruous; any conciliation between cultures must reclaim the notion of a voice for all interactants - in intercultural contexts, there are 2 options for those who feel left out - exit or expression; when people feel excluded, they often simply shut down, physically or mentally abandoning the conversation - when this happens, their potential contributions - to some decision, activity or change - are lost; the preferred alternative is to give voice to them - people's silence is broken when they feel that they can contribute, that their views are valued; those who have historically been silenced sometimes need an invitation, or those who have a more reserved conversation style may need prompting

attitude

toward cultural difference; having tolerance for ambiguity (most difficult to attain); having cultural empathy (also referred to as cultural sensitivity); definition of empathy: the capacity to clearly project an interest in other, as well as obtain and to reflect a reasonably complete and accurate sense of another's thoughts, feelings, and/or experiences; very important to be able to empathize with the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of members from different cultural groups; cannot be empathetic without knowing others; transpection - learning foreign beliefs, assumptions, and feelings in a foreign function - can only be achieved with practice; platinum rule - do unto others as they themselves would have done unto them; D.I.E. exercise - describe events in just facts, interpretive statements, evaluation statements

unconscious competence (top of ladder)

unaware of competence because habitual; when attitude and cognitively mindful of conscious thought; automatic ease when in contact with other cultures