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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
Chapter 10
Culture, Communication, and Intercultural
Relationships
Learning Objectives
After studying the material in this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following
objectives:
1. Identify three benefits and three challenges to intercultural relationships.
2. Describe six dialectics of intercultural relationships.
3. Identify three approaches to understanding intercultural relationships.
4. Describe some cultural differences in the notion of friendship.
5. Describe cultural differences in relational development.
6. Describe “turning points” in intercultural friendships.
7. Explain the frequency of intercultural dating today.
8. Identify challenges of intercultural marriages.
9. Identify four interaction styles in intercultural marriages.
10. Identify and describe characteristics of gay and lesbian friendships.
11. Describe how institutional, historical, or political contexts can facilitate or hinder
intercultural relationships.
Key Terms
• Cognitive consistency
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
• Submission style
2015).
o The Obergefell decision has wide-ranging effects on how society considers same-sex
relationships.
o Prior to this ruling, 36 states and the District of Columbia recognized same-sex
marriages.
• Despite the Obergefell ruling, many in the United States have resisted same-sex marriage.
• In 2016, “at least 11 and possibly 15 counties in Alabama” have closed their marriage
license offices and were not issuing marriage licenses to any couples (Broverman, 2016).
• Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk in Kentucky, became famous for her refusal to issue
marriage licenses to same-sex couples based upon her religious beliefs.
how relationships develop over time, and identifies some cultural differences in relational
development and maintenance.
o Throughout the chapter, there is emphasis on a dialectical perspective on intercultural
relationships—both friendship and romantic.
I. Benefits and Challenges of Intercultural Relationships
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
and similarities.
• The following include the benefits of such relationships:
o Acquiring knowledge about the world
o Breaking stereotypes
▪ Relational learning is often much more compelling than knowledge gained
from books, classes, and so on.
▪ And once individuals develop one close intercultural relationship, it
becomes much easier to form others.
B. Challenges
development when people tend to exchange less personal information.
• If some commonality is established and the relationship develops beyond the initial
stages, these cultural differences may have less of an impact because all relationships
become more idiosyncratic as they move to more intimate stages.
o The differences are a given, and the challenge can be to discover and build on the
stereotype.
• Another challenge in intercultural relationships involves the anxiety that people often
experience initially.
o Some anxiety is present in the early stages of any relationship, but the anxiety is
greater in intercultural relationships.
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
ability, class, or race are likely to—at least initially.
o The level of anxiety may be higher if one or both parties have negative
expectations based on a previous interaction or on stereotypes (Stephan &
Stephan, 1992).
• Historically, the biggest obstacles to boundary-crossing friendships have come not from
minority communities, but from majority communities (McCullough, 1998).
o Those in the majority (e.g., whites) have the most to gain by maintaining social
inequality and are less likely to initiate boundary-crossing friendships.
o In contrast, minority groups have more to gain.
o That is, one can simultaneously feel the need to be both connected and autonomous
in relationships with their parents, friends, and romantic partners.
A. Personal–Contextual Dialectic
• Intercultural relationships are both personal and contextual.
o There are aspects of the relationship that are personal—consistent from situation
with people from other ethnic/racial backgrounds (Clark-Ibanez & Felmlee, 2004).
o Notions of attractiveness are defined for people and reinforced by what people see
on TV and film and in other media.
o The standard of beauty for American women seems to be white and blond, and at
least one study states that 90 percent of models in U.S. women’s magazines are
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
B. Differences–Similarities Dialectic
• According to the similarity principle, people tend to be attracted to others who they
perceive to be similar to themselves, and evidence indicates that this principle works for
many cultural groups (Osbeck & Moghaddam, 1997; Tan & Singh, 1995).
o Some individuals are attracted to people simply because they have a different
cultural background.
o In intercultural relationships, in contrast, one may be attracted to persons who are
somewhat different from oneself.
o The differences that form the basis of attraction may involve personality traits and
it is important to remember that communication is both cultural and individual.
D. Privilege–Disadvantage Dialectic
• People may be simultaneously privileged and disadvantaged, or privileged in some
contexts and disadvantaged in others.
• People in more powerful positions in particular need to be sensitive to power
relationships are both static and dynamic.
F. History/Past–Present/Future Dialectic
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
• Rather than trying to understand relationships by examining the relational partners
alone, it is helpful to consider the contexts in which relationships occur.
o Often, this means the historical context.
• Cultural groups have different relationships with each other; some of these relationships
• As with other topics, there are three communication approaches to studying intercultural
relationships, and each makes a unique contribution to researchers’ understanding of how
people develop and maintain relationships across differences.
o The social science approach identifies cross-cultural differences in how relationships
are defined, initiated, and developed.
A. Social Science Approach: Cross-Cultural Differences
• The social science approach identifies various cross-cultural differences in
relationships—including notions of friendships and the initiation and development of
relationships.
• To some people, a friend is someone to see or talk with occasionally, someone to do
(perhaps lending money or doing favors), and is a lifelong proposition.
• Friendships are seen in very different ways around the world.
o Cultural differences in notions about friendships are related to ideas discussed
earlier—ideas about identity and values.
▪ In societies that stress values like individualism and independence, as is the
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
▪ However, people who view the self always in relation to others—that is,
collectivists—hold a notion of friendship that is also less individual oriented
and less spontaneous (Carrier, 1999).
• Friendship in China cannot be understood without attention to an important related
development, in initial interactions.
o Different cultural rules govern how to regard strangers.
o In some cultural communities, all strangers are viewed as sources of potential
relationships; in others, relationships can develop only after long and careful
scrutiny.
information.
• Over a half century ago, Kurt Lewin (1948), a renowned psychologist, conducted a
classic cross-cultural study in self-disclosure whose findings still hold true today.
o Lewin proposed that the personal/private self can be modeled as three concentric
circles representing three areas of information people share with others.
▪ Then there is the inner core, which includes very personal and private
information, some of which a person share with no one.
o These spheres of information may correspond with the phases in relational
development.
o According to Lewin, there is the most variation in the extent to which the outer
• Some intimate relationships develop into romantic relationships.
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
o Several studies have compared the development of these types of intimate
relationships across cultures.
• Research on the development of romantic relationships in the United States has focused
on the importance of the individual’s autonomy.
about communicating in these relationships.
• Based on interviews with U.S. and Japanese students who were friends, researcher
Sandra Sudweeks and colleagues (1990) identified competence, similarity, involvement,
and turning points as characterizing important aspects of intercultural relationships.
• Relationships take time to develop; students interviewed by Sudweeks and colleagues
• For many people, work is the place where they encounter the most diversity—working
with people from different religions, generations, language backgrounds, ethnicity,
races, and nationality.
o These encounters may be face-to-face or mediated—through telephone or
computer.
o There are subordinate–superior relationships and peer relationships, and the nature
of the relationship constrains the interaction.
o It is difficult when race, ethnicity, and class are all part of the hierarchy—as is
common in the tourist and restaurant business.
• The first and perhaps the most important impact of new communication technologies,
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
Zickuhr, 2010).
▪ These new media technologies present one with enormous opportunities to
communicate and develop relationships with people who are very different
from him or her.
relationships; they conclude that using new communication technologies do not weaken
relationships, nor do they act as poor substitutes for face-to-face contact.
• Communication scholar Ping Yang (2012) investigated intercultural online
communication of college students and discovered that their encounters could be
described by several dialectics.
of subtle nuances; irony, sarcasm, and cynicism in online communication across
cultures should be approached with great caution (St. Amant, 2002).
o Finally, the Internet can also be an important influence in cultural adaptation and
helping new arrivals establish friendships in their new country.
• Several decades ago, researcher Phillip E. Lampe (1982) investigated interethnic dating
attraction.
▪ However, the reasons for not dating outside the ethnic group were not
having an opportunity to do so and not having thought about it.
• Researchers also found that the social context and past experiences were a strong
influence on whether young people dated interculturally.
• Why are the rates of intermarriage so low for certain groups? The answer has to do with
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
various contextual issues related to gender and social status.
o For example, there are fewer objections to Asian American–white than to black–
white marriages.
• Gender stereotypes come into play in that Asian women are, even now, viewed as
consensus. Couples may adopt different styles depending on the context.
▪ The submission style is the most common.
❖ In this style, one partner submits to the culture of the other partner,
abandoning or denying his or her own.
▪ In the compromise style, each partner gives up some of his or her culturally
• Same-sex friendship relationships may have different roles for gay and straight males in
the United States.
o This was not always the case in the United States, and it is not the case today in
many countries, where male friendship often closely parallels romantic love.
o Same-sex friendships and romantic relationships both may involve expectations of
• In more than 20 countries, including the United States, same-sex marriage is legal
nationwide.
o These changes in the status of same-sex marriages influence the development,
legal benefits, and protections of these relationships.
• Regardless of one’s position on the desirability of gay and lesbian marriage, it is
if not impossible.
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
C. Critical Approach: Contextual Influences
• It is important to consider intercultural relationships in the contexts in which they
emerge—whether the contexts are supportive or whether they discourage intercultural
relationships.
o In a recent study, it was found that women were much more likely than men to
mention pressure from family members as a reason that interethnic dating would
be difficult.
o Even more important than what parents say is what they do.
o In this same study, it was the diversity of parents’ friendship network, not the
forms intercultural friendships.
o Here, the proximity principle comes into play.
• Institutions like schools and churches/synagogues can play a huge part in promoting or
discouraging intercultural friendships.
• According to some research findings, it appears that integrated religious institutions and
o Many U.S. men in military service during various wars have returned to the
United States with wives whom they met and married while stationed abroad.
▪ And many of the servicemen who experienced such intercultural
relationships argued successfully against miscegenation laws, or laws that
prohibited interracial marriages.
1. What are some of the benefits of intercultural relationships?
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
2. What factors contribute to relationships being formed with some people and not with
others?
3. How is the development of intercultural relationships different from that of intracultural
relationships?
4. What challenges do intercultural couples face when they decide to make their relationships
permanent?
5. What are the advantages of taking a dialectical perspective on intercultural relationships?
6. How do you meet people who are different from you? What are the greatest obstacles to
starting a conversation with someone who is culturally different from yourself?
7. Should gay relationships be treated separately from romantic straight relationships as they
are in this chapter? What issues might have affected the authors’ decision to do so?
8. Are your intercultural relationships different from those that you have with members of
your own culture? How? Are they similar? In what ways?
9. Why would it be important to affirm another person’s cultural identity?
10. Why do some people marry outside their group?
11. Why don’t African American women or Asian American men marry outside their group as
often as others?
12. What are some challenges for people involved in intercultural relationships?
13. How are gay relationships different from and similar to heterosexual relationships?
14. Do you know anyone in an intercultural romantic relationship or marriage? If so, what
style of interaction do they seem to have adopted?
15. What kinds of turning points might facilitate intercultural relationship development? What
16. Has online communication facilitated the development of intercultural relationships in your
experience? Why, or why not?
17. What is the role of Hollywood in creating and perpetuating stereotypes or assumptions
1. Relationship Formation Exercise: The purpose of this exercise is to help students explore
how and with whom they tend to form relationships. Form groups of four to six students,
and ask them to identify and record responses to the following questions:
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
© 2018 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
friendships with and those that we do not want as friends?
Students should keep track of their answers. After fifteen minutes, instruct each group to
report back to the class.
2. Defining Friendship Exercise: This exercise helps students explore the characteristics of
friendship. Have students form groups of four to six members each and come up with a
definition of friendship. Explain to them that this definition needs to be specific enough to
3. Physical Attraction Exercise: The object of this exercise is to encourage students to explore
the characteristics that constitute physical attractiveness and the origin of their notions of
physical attractiveness. Divide students into groups made up of four to six students (male
and female). You will need six to eight pictures of males and females from magazines or
4. Cultural Variations in Relationships Assignment: The purpose of this assignment is to
encourage students to become familiar with relationship differences in a specific culture.
The assignment may be modified to serve as a term or chapter assignment depending on
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
• What are the cultural norms and taboos regarding meeting and dating people of the
opposite sex?
• How are marriage proposals conducted in the culture? Is it between a man and a
woman? Is parental permission needed? Is a marriage arranged by an individual’s
• If divorce occurs, what are the rights of each partner? What is the emotional impact?
• What is the general cultural attitude toward homosexuality? What legal rights or
protections do gays and lesbians have? Can they marry or adopt?
• With respect to gender roles, how are the general perspectives of this culture the
same as or different from your culture? How does this vary with regard to social
Intercultural Relationships Interview Assignment: This assignment focuses on exploring
the challenges of forming intercultural relationships. Ask students to interview someone
from their own culture who has lived in a foreign country for an extended period of time (a
minimum of three months) or someone from another country currently living in the United
States. Advise them to follow the suggestions and guidelines below and answer the
• How would you describe the experience of forming relationships with members of
this culture? Was your experience different from or similar to what you’ve
experienced when forming relationships with members of your own culture?
• Did you notice differences from or similarities to your own culture in how
friendships were formed with members of the opposite sex?
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
The following suggestions may help students set up and conduct their interview:
Preparing for the Interview
• Plan the interview several weeks before the due date.
• Decide whom you want to interview.
• Think of an appropriate place to conduct the interview—one in which both you and
the interviewee will be comfortable and will have few distractions.
• Call or contact the person to set a date for the interview. When you contact the
person, be sure to explain the purpose of the interview. Ask if he or she is willing to
help. If the person agrees, set the date, time, and place for the interview. Give her or
him an idea of how much time it will take, and ask permission to take notes or record
the interview.
• Prepare your questions so that you are comfortable with their wording and are sure
that they are clear and easy to understand. Short questions work better than detailed
questions. Avoid using clichés or slang in the questions.
• Prepare any note-taking equipment.
During the Interview
• Be professional. Dress comfortably but be presentable to show respect for the
interviewee. Ask ethical and pertinent questions that show your decency to cultural
issues and your respect for the interviewee.
• Before starting the interview, spend a few minutes to share information about
yourself to establish a rapport with your interviewee, your class, or other issues that
will break the ice and create a warm atmosphere.
• Begin the interview by clarifying its agenda and by ensuring that the person is
comfortable with the method you have chosen for recording the interview.
• While asking the questions you have prepared, ensure that you listen intently to the
5. Variation on Intercultural Relationships: Interview Assignment: This assignment is similar
to the previous two in that it focuses on the challenges of intercultural relationships.
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
romantic relationship (marriage, going steady, etc.) or another form of a committed
relationship. Encourage students to view “intercultural” broadly, including persons of
different religions, different social classes or economic groups, different ability levels,
6. Intercultural Relationships Video Assignment: The goal of this assignment is to encourage
students to explore the unique challenges and rewards of intercultural relationships. In
small groups, have students view a film or video about an interracial or intercultural
1. Halmani (Distributed by California Newsreel, Chicago, 1988, 30 minutes)
2. Hot Water: Intercultural Issues Between Women and Men (Distributed by NAFSA
Association of International Educators, Washington, DC, 1996, 27 minutes)
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Chapter 10: Culture, Communication, and Intercultural Relationships
© 2018 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
cultural variations that are discussed include intercultural marriage, homosexual
relationships, perceptions of dating, and nonverbal differences. The video also suggests
some safety issues for men and women who sojourn in other countries.
3. The Politics of Love in Black and White (Distributed by California Newsreel, San
4. In My Country: An International Perspective on Gender (Distributed by Utah Valley State
5. Naturally Native (Directed by Jennifer Wynne Farmer, Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, Produced
by The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation in conjunction with Red-Horse Native
6. Doubles: Japanese and America’s Intercultural Children (Produced by Regge Life,
distributed by Global FilmNetwork, 1999, 58 minutes)
7. Mississippi Masala (Starring Denzel Washington, 1991, 118 minutes)
An Indian family is expelled from Uganda when Idi Amin takes power. Then, they move to