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Chapter 4
Understanding Culture
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
• Define the characteristics of culture
• Explore the concept of co-cultures and understand their role in communication
• Discuss the impact of ingroups, outgroups, and prejudice on communication
• Understand the ways in which cultural differences influence communication
• Learn how to improve your intercultural communication competence
CHAPTER OUTLINE
WHAT IS CULTURE?
Whether you realize it or not, your culture affects your communication all the time. More than
just your race or ethnicity, cultural traits like age, physical abilities, social class, and even
your values and beliefs influence how you view yourself as well as how you perceive others.
• Cultural diversity is rapidly increasing in the United States. In 2020, more than half the
nation’s children (people under age 18) will be nonwhite—including Latino, Asian, African
CULTURE DEFINED
are
1. Learned. You learn your cultural beliefs, attitudes, and values from many sources,
2. Communicated. Each culture has its own practices regarding how to communicate.
3. Layered. Many people belong to more than one culture simultaneously. This means they
4. Lived. Culture affects everything about how you live your life. It influences the
neighborhoods you live in; the means of transportation you use; and the way you think,
dress, talk, and even eat. Its impact runs so deep that it is often taken for granted. At the
same time, culture is often a great source of personal pride.
CO-CULTURES
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• Co-Cultural Communication Theory asserts that the people who have more power within
a society determine the dominant culture because they get to decide the prevailing views,
values, and traditions of the society.
• Co-cultures are formed by members of a society who don’t conform to the dominant
culture by way of language, values, lifestyle, or even physical appearance. They have their
own cultures that coexist within a dominant cultural sphere.
○ Co-cultures may be based on age, gender, social class, ethnicity, religion, mental and
physical ability, sexual orientation, and other unifying elements, depending on the
society.
○ U.S. residents who are not members of the dominant culture exist as distinct co-cultures
○ Suppressing reactions when members of the dominant culture make offensive comments
(assimilation)
○ Trying to excel in all aspects of their professional and personal lives to counteract
negative stereotypes about their co-culture (accommodation)
○ Individuals from many different social groups can be ingroupers as long as they share
important cultural commonalities with you such as nationality, religious beliefs, ethnicity,
age, socioeconomic class, or political views.
○ People often feel passionately connected and committed to their ingroups, especially
when they reflect central aspects of their self-concept such as sexual orientation, gender
• Race classifies people based on common ancestry or decent, and it is judged almost
exclusively by a person’s physical features.
○ Race is one of the strongest determinations of ingroup and outgroup status.
○ Perceiving someone’s race almost always means assigning him or her to ingrouper or
outgrouper status and communicating based on that status.
• It is easy to make mistakes when categorizing other people as ingroupers or outgroupers.
PREJUDICE
• Stereotypes are a way to categorize people into a social group and then evaluate them based
on information you have related to this group. They play a big part in the formation of
impressions during the perception process.
• Prejudice is when stereotypes reflect rigid attitudes toward groups and their members.
Because prejudice is rooted in stereotypes, it can vary depending on whether those
stereotypes are positive or negative.
• The Stereotype Content Model proposes that prejudice centers on two judgments made
about others: how warm and friendly they are and how competent they are, leading to two
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▪ The supposed incompetence is considered intrinsic to the people: “They’re naturally
lazy,” “They’re all crazy zealots,” or “They’re mean and violent.”
▪ The group has received many opportunities to improve (“They’ve been given so
much”), but their innate limitations hold them back (“They’ve done nothing but waste
every break that’s been given to them”).
Overcoming Prejudice
• Prejudice, no matter what form, is destructive and unethical.
○ Benevolent prejudice leads to condescending and disrespectful communication.
○ Hostile prejudice is the root of every exclusionary “ism”: racism, sexism, ageism,
classism, ableism, etc.
• If you think you have prejudiced beliefs, your communication skills can help you confront
them and permanently give them up by doing the following:
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○ Be open to new people and experiences.
• If you’ve been on the receiving end of prejudice, try not to generalize your experience with
that one person (or persons) to all members of the same group.
CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON COMMUNICATION
Your cultural background differs from other people’s in many ways. One way those differences
are expressed is through your communication—such as how you deal with power structures,
share emotions, and even view time. Understanding and adapting to such factors will help you
communicate more competently.
INDIVIDUALISTIC VERSUS COLLECTIVISTIC CULTURES
• In individualist cultures, people tend to
○ Value independence and personal achievement.
○ Focus on themselves and their immediate family.
• In collectivist cultures people tend to
○ Emphasize group identity and the sense of belonging to groups or “collectives” that look
after you in exchange for your loyalty.
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• Examples of collectivist countries include Guatemala, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Japan.
HIGH AND LOW CONTEXT
• High-context cultures use relatively vague and ambiguous language and even silence to
convey important meanings.
○ People often talk indirectly (using hints or suggestions) because they presume that
members of their ingroup will know what they’re trying to say.
○ People don’t feel a need to provide a lot of explicit information.
• Low-context cultures tend not to presume that others share their beliefs, attitudes, and
values.
○ People strive to be informative, clear, and direct in their communication. People work to
make important information obvious rather than hinting or implying.
○ People openly express their views and try to persuade others to accept them.
UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE
• Uncertainty avoidance addresses how cultures vary in how much they tolerate and accept
unpredictability.
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• High-uncertainty-avoidance cultures place a lot of value on control, define rigid rules and
conventions to guide all beliefs and behaviors, and often feel uncomfortable with unusual or
innovative ideas.
○ People want structure in their organizations, institutions, relationships, and everyday
lives.
• Low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures place more emphasis on “letting the future happen”
without trying to control it.
○ People care less about rules, tolerate diverse viewpoints and beliefs, and welcome
innovation and change.
○ People feel free to question and challenge authority.
EMOTION DISPLAYS
• Display rules are the cultural norms that exist regarding how people should and shouldn’t
express emotion; they provide guidelines for when, where, and how to manage emotion
displays appropriately.
○ Display rules govern very specific aspects of nonverbal communication, such as how
broadly you should smile or whether or not you should scowl when angry.
○ They vary across cultures because of differences in socialization and traditions, making
an awareness of differences in emotional expression during communication important.
For example, a loud shout of intense joy might be considered shocking and inappropriate
in some cultures but perfectly normal and natural in others.
POWER DISTANCE
• Power distance is the degree to which people in a particular culture view the unequal
distribution of power as acceptable. It affects how people deal with conflict and also
influences how people communicate in close relationships, especially families.
• In high-power-distance cultures, people of different social and professional status have
different levels of power and give privileged treatment and extreme respect to those in high-
status positions.
• In low-power-distance cultures, people in high-status positions try to minimize the
differences between themselves and lower-status persons.
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VIEWS OF TIME
• Monochronic time (M-time) orientation is when people who view time as a precious
resource that can be saved, spent, wasted, lost, or made up—it can even run out.
• Polychronic time (P-time) orientation is when people don’t view time as a resource to be
spent, saved, or guarded; they are flexible when it comes to time. They believe that
harmonious interaction with others is more important than “being on time” or sticking to a
schedule.
• Differences in time orientation can create problems when people from different cultures
make appointments with each other, but communication can be improved by doing the
following:
○ Attempt to understand other people’s views of time.
○ Learn about the time orientation prior to traveling abroad.
○ Respect others’ time orientation.
CREATING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
Even when you understand what culture is, how co-cultures work, and the ways cultures
influence communication, you can still have trouble communicating with people from different
backgrounds. To work toward competence, be mindful of the differences discussed so far,
actively seek to understand other cultures, and adapt your communication as needed.
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• Intercultural competence is the ability to communicate appropriately, effectively, and
ethically with people from diverse backgrounds.
WORLD-MINDEDNESS
• World-mindedness is your ability to demonstrate acceptance and respect toward other
cultures’ beliefs, values, and customs. You can practice world-mindedness in three ways:
○ Accept others’ expression of their culture or co-culture as a natural element in their
communication, just as your communication reflects your culture.
○ Avoid any temptation to judge others’ cultural beliefs, attitudes, and values as “better” or
“worse” than your own.
○ Treat people from all cultures with respect.
• Practicing world-mindedness can be challenging when differences seem impossible to
bridge or when the other person’s beliefs, attitudes, and values conflict with your own.
ETHNOCENTRISM
• Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own cultural beliefs, attitudes, values, and practices
are superior to others’; it is the opposite of world-mindedness. You can be culturally proud,
or nationally patriotic, and not be ethnocentric.
○ Tend to see their own communication as competent and that of people from other cultures
as incompetent.
ATTRIBUTIONAL COMPLEXITY
• Attributional complexity is practiced by acknowledging that other people’s behaviors have
complex causes. You can develop this ability by doing the following:
○ Observing others’ behavior and analyzing the various forces influencing it.
○ Learning as much as you can about different cultures and co-cultures so you can better
understand people’s communication styles and preferences.
○ Experiencing other cultures through observation, travel, or interactions.
COMMUNICATION ACCOMMODATION
• Communication accommodation is the process of adjusting your communication to mesh
with the behaviors of people from other cultures. Research suggests that people who use
communication accommodation are perceived as more competent.
• Communication accommodation theory states that people are motivated to adapt their
communication when they seek social approval, when they wish to establish relationships,
and when they view others’ language usage as appropriate. In contrast, people tend to
accentuate differences between their communication and others’ when they wish to convey
emotional distance and disassociate themselves from others.
• To practice communication accommodations, do the following:
CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Does your family view time as more monochronic(M-time) or polychronic (P-time)?
Give an example to support your opinion. Explain how your views of time may affect
how you judge others or how they judge you.
• Students may easily understand how time is viewed differently in different countries,
but they may have more difficulty understanding how it affects them on a local or
2. Discuss the differences between benevolent and hostile prejudice. How can
benevolent prejudice be as destructive as hostile prejudice?
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• Make sure students clearly understand the differences between the two forms of
prejudice. Provide some examples of benevolent prejudice to help clarify. Consider
3. If you were asked to travel outside of the United States to secure a large contract for
your company, how would you culturally prepare for your trip to ensure your sales
pitch would be most effective? A translator will be provided throughout your visit,
so language barriers won’t be a concern.
• Explain to students that an effective salesperson must thoroughly research a culture
prior to a sales trip. Discuss how many factors can affect how the culture receives the
4. Explain the differences between high- and low-context cultures and why
communication between individuals from these two types of cultures might lead to
misunderstandings. Give an example.
• Understanding high and low context is an important, but subtle, concept for students to
grasp. Ask students to share their examples with the group, and then have an open
discussion about how the simplest remarks could be misunderstood or even offensive to
5. Discuss how power distance affects how we communicate during conflict. Do you
identify with high power distance or low power distance more? How can
understanding these differences improve how we handle conflict?
• Help students understand that other people don’t necessarily view confrontations in the