CHAPTER 6 Cultural Identity and Cultural Biases
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
(1) To explain the nature and formation of cultural identity.
(2) To emphasize that aspects of one’s cultural identity are fluid and can change in
encounters.
LECTURE LAUNCHERS
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Cultural Identity
A. As part of the socialization process, children learn to view themselves as members
of particular groups.
1. People have the tendency to categorize themselves and others into ingroups
and outgroups.
B. The nature of identity
1. Related to the distinction between ingroup and outgroup membership is the
concept of one’s identity or self-concept, which is built on an individual’s
cultural, social, and personal identities.
a. Cultural identity refers to one’s sense of belonging to a particular culture
or ethnic group.
2. It involves learning about and accepting the traditions, heritage,
3. People internalize the beliefs, values, norms, and social practices of
their culture and identify with that culture as part of their self-concept.
b. Social identity develops as a consequence of membership in particular
groups within one’s culture.
1. The characteristics and concerns common to most members of such
social groups shape the way individuals view their characteristics.
c. Personal identity refers to people’s unique characteristics, which may
differ from those of others in their cultural or social groups.
2. These aspects of a person’s identity have been presented as separate
categories for ease and clarity, but there is a great deal of interdependence
among these three aspects of identity.
C. The formation of cultural identity occurs in three stages.
1. The unexamined cultural identity stage involves a lack of interest in cultural
issues as a result of taking one’s own cultural characteristics for granted.
a. A person lacks an awareness of cultural differences and the distinguishing
characteristics of one culture to another.
about one’s culture in order to learn more about it.
a. By exploring their culture, individuals can learn about its strengths and
may come to a point of acceptance both of their culture and of themselves.
3. Cultural identity achievement involves the acceptance of oneself and an
internalization of one’s cultural identity.
a. People have developed ways of dealing with stereotypes and
discrimination so that they do not internalize others’ negative perceptions
D. Characteristics of cultural identity
1. Cultural identities provide a framework for organizing and interpreting one’s
experiences of others.
2. Cultural identities are central to one’s sense of self.
a. Like gender and race, your culture is more “basic” because it is broadly
3. Cultural identities are dynamic and change with one’s ongoing life
experiences.
4. Cultural identities are multifaceted.
II. Cultural Biases
A. Social categorizing
1. People impose a pattern on their world by organizing the stimuli into
conceptual categories.
2. Most people think that other people perceive, evaluate, and reason about the
world in the same way that they do.
3. Humans simplify the processing and organizing of information from the
environment by identifying certain characteristics as belonging to certain
categories of persons and events.
B. Ethnocentrism
1. Ethnocentrism occurs when the beliefs, values, and practices of one culture
are viewed as superior to those of others.
a. People have the tendency to evaluate other cultures using their own
2. All cultures have a tendency to be ethnocentric.
3. To be a competent intercultural communicator, you need to recognize how
C. Stereotyping
1. Stereotypes are a form of generalization about a group of people.
a. When stereotyping, an individual takes a category of people and makes
assertions about the characteristics of all people who belong to that
187
category.
b. The consequence of stereotyping is that the vast degree of differences that
2. Groups can be stereotyped based on their religion, age, occupation, social
class, geographical location, and many other characteristics.
3. Stereotypes can be inaccurate in three ways.
a. Inaccuracies occur when stereotypes are assumed to apply to all members
of a group or category, resulting in a tendency to ignore differences among
the individual members of the group.
b. Inaccuracies occur when the group average, as suggested by a stereotype,
is simply wrong or inappropriately exaggerated.
c. Inaccuracies occur when the degree of error and exaggeration differs for
positive and negative attributes.
1. A positive valence inaccuracy occurs when overestimating the
prevalence and importance of a culture’s positive characteristics.
D. Prejudice
1. Prejudice refers to attitudes toward other people that are based on faulty and
inflexible stereotypes.
a. Prejudiced attitudes include irrational feelings of dislike and even hatred
for certain groups.
188
2. Prejudice is a universal psychological process; all people have a propensity
for prejudice toward others who are unlike themselves.
3. Functions of prejudice
a. It helps people organize and simplify the world.
b. It satisfies a utilitarian or adjustment function.
c. It serves an ego-defensive function by protecting a person’s self-esteem.
1. If others do or say things that are inconsistent with the images we hold
of ourselves, our sense of self may be deeply threatened.
d. It serves a value-expressive function.
1. Many people believe that their group has certain qualities that are
unique, valuable, good, or in some way special.
2. Expressing prejudicial attitudes toward others is a way of expressing
those values.
e. It serves a knowledge function.
1. People hold prejudicial attitudes because of their need to have the
E. Discrimination
1. The term discrimination refers to behavioral manifestations of prejudice; it is
prejudice in action.
2. Discrimination occurs in many forms from extremes of segregation and
apartheid to biases in housing, employment, education, economic resources,
3. It is the unequal treatment of certain individuals because of their membership
to a particular group.
F. Racism
1. Scholars define racism in various ways.
a. Blauner describes racism as a tendency to categorize people who are
1. At the individual level, racism is conceptually very similar to
prejudice.
2. At the institutional level, racism is the exclusion of certain people from
equal participation in the society’s institutions solely because of their
race.
3. At the cultural level, racism denies the existence of the culture of a
particular group and involves the rejection of the culture’s beliefs and
values.
2. Although racism is often used synonymously with prejudice and
discrimination, the social attributes that distinguish it from these two terms are
oppression and power.
a. Oppression refers to the systematic, institutionalized mistreatment of one
group of people by another.
3. Forms of racism vary in intensity and degree of expression.
a. Old-fashioned racism is the most extreme form of racism.
2. Judgments of superiority and inferiority are commonplace in this kind
of racism, and there is a dehumanizing quality to it.
1. Fears that the outgroup will achieve economic or social success lead to
fears of a simultaneous loss of economic or social status by the
ingroup.
2. Ingroup members feel that members of other cultures are moving too
fast in seeking social change.
3. Symbolic racists typically do not feel personally threatened by the
successes of other cultures, but they fear for their core values and the
continued maintenance of their political and economic power.
1. It is the practice of reverse discrimination, in which people go out of
their way to favor a few members of another group in order to
maintain their own self-concepts as individuals who believe in equality
for all.
d. Aversive racism occurs when individuals who highly value fairness and
equality among all racial and cultural groups nevertheless have negative
beliefs and feelings about members of a particular race.
1. It often results from childhood socialization experiences.
appear rational and that can be justified on the basis of some factor
other than race or culture.
V. Identity, Biases, Contact, and Cultural Competence
A. Improving your cultural competence
2. Take an honest inventory of the various ways in which you categorize other
people and they categorize you.
3. Be willing to explore various cultural experiences with culturally different
others, without invoking prejudiced and stereotyped assumptions.
B. We all face intercultural challenges.
1. One intercultural challenge of living in a world where interactions with people
2. Another challenge is contending with the pressing but potentially
3. We are also challenged to function competently in a world that, increasingly,
is characterized by multiple cultures inhabiting adjacent and often-overlapping
terrain.
VI. Summary
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. If people are born into one culture but raised in another, to which culture(s) do they
belong?
2. Various of the “Culture Connections” boxes in the first three chapters, and indeed
throughout the book, describe what life has been like for people who have grown up
with multiple cultural heritages. What advantages and disadvantages are there for
such U.S. Americans?
a. It might be useful to have a student read one of the descriptions aloud. Generate a
list of advantages and disadvantages on the board after the student has finished
b. Students should now be familiar with the four metaphors of U.S. cultural diversity
(see Chapter 3). First ask for them to recall the four metaphors. Then ask how
each metaphor conveys the experience of the bi-cultural individual in the United
3. Which of the three human information processes that occur during intercultural
communication are the most damaging? The most prevalent? How can we monitor
4. Why have so many nations and cultures assumed they were the most civilized,
virtuous, or noble people on earth?
a. Begin with a review of the term “ethnocentrism.”
b. Ask students to consider why a culture would think it was the best and most
civilized culture on earth. What benefits does such a perspective have for a
5. Are there historical examples in the United States of some groups dominating and
subordinating other cultural groups? Are there contemporary examples?
6. What are some of the stereotypes that people hold of your culture?
7. Is it possible for European Americans to be the recipients of any form of racism in the
United States?
a. This discussion should begin with definitions of racism identified by students.
Some people adopt an institutional definition of racism and do not consider
8. Why might the less alarming or obvious forms of racism be just as dangerous as old-fashioned
and symbolic racism?
a. This discussion should begin with an overview of the different types of racism
(see text).
9. How have some groups dominated and subordinated other cultural groups? Are there
historical examples in the U.S. of some groups dominating and subordinating other
cultural groups? Are there contemporary examples?
10. How can we escape the ethnocentric tendency to use our own cultural categories to
interpret other cultures?
using the cultural categories of the individual doing the behavior?
INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES
Activity 6.1: Cultural Identity
Goal of this activity:
To understand issues of cultural identity.
Directions:
1. Tell the students that they have five minutes to generate individually a list of all
the cultures of which they are a member.
2. After the five minutes, assign individuals into groups of five or six students to
3. Next, go around the classroom group by group, asking all individuals to present
4. After you have heard from all class members, ask each group to take five minutes
5. Next, ask one member of each group to report the group’s comments. As each
group leader reports, draw parallels between those student comments and the
characteristics of cultural identity put forth in the text.
Time Required:
This activity could easily take two class hours if enough discussion is generated. You
may want to tailor the activity to take only one class hour by choosing students to
present their lists rather than hearing from everyone.
Additional Comments:
Activity 6.2: What Is Normal?
Goal of this activity:
To illustrate how people use categories from their own cultural experiences when
reacting to behaviors of people from other cultures.
Introductory Comments:
This exercise presents an easy way to introduce the concept of ethnocentrism.
Materials:
Directions:
1. Have students complete the worksheet entitled “What Is Normal?” on the
2. Either begin a discussion by having students share their responses individually or
3. Debrief the activity using some of the questions below.
Time Required:
With a discussion afterwards, this activity should take at least one hour. However, if
Additional Comments:
Use some of the following questions to debrief the activity:
1. Which items were “quite strange” and why? Which were “quite ordinary” and
why?
2. How did you determine what was “ordinary” and what was “strange”?
What Is “Normal”?
Respond to each of the following ten items by indicating the extent to which you would find such
a behavior or custom “quite ordinary” or “quite strange.” Use the scale below to make your
responses. Make a comment about your response after each item. Why did you respond the way
you did?
Quite Quite
Ordinary Ordinary Neutral Strange Strange
1 2 3 4 5
Item Rating
2. A person remaining silent upon meeting someone for the first time. ________
Explanation:
4. A woman breastfeeding her child in public. ________
Explanation:
6. A family taking a communal bath. ________
Explanation:
8. Eating a formal meal without utensils. ________
Explanation:
Activity 6.3: Ethnocentrism
Goal:
To illustrate the effect of ethnocentrism on intercultural communication competence.
Directions:
1. Ask students to describe what their culture sees as the appropriate or right way of
doing the following behaviors:
a. Eating (how, when, with whom)
2. Ask students to share some of their responses. Make a chart on the board or
3. After the responses have been recorded, ask students to share their thoughts about
some of their classmates’ responses. Which responses do they perceive as
particularly strange or even offensive? Which had they never thought of as a
“right” or appropriate behavior?
4. Engage students in a discussion about how we typically use our own cultural
experiences and culturally sanctioned ways of behaving when evaluating the most
mundane and basic of daily tasks performed by members of other cultures.
Time Required:
This exercise should take no longer than an hour. If you wish students to engage in
more discussion, extend the time to 1-1/2 hours.
Activity 6.4: Stereotyping
Goals:
To have students learn the pitfalls in applying stereotypes to individual members of a
group.
Directions:
1. Using the list in the text on stereotyping categories, choose one or two categories
2. Ask students to generate their stereotypes of people in these categories and record
their responses on the board or overhead projector.
3. Next, ask people in the class who are members of these categories to respond to
these stereotypes. They may be able to explain where and why some of the
4. As students are responding to these stereotypes, engage students in talk about how
stereotypes can hinder intercultural competence.
Time Required: