Summary: Culture and Communication

     This chapter introduced the study of culture and its relationship to communication and considered how cultures differ and some of the theories developed to explain how culture and communication affect each other. In addition, the chapter introduced the study of intercultural communication and its nature and principles.

2.1 What Is Culture?

1. Culture consists of the relatively specialized lifestyle of a group of people —their values, beliefs, artifacts, ways of behaving, and ways of communicating—that is passed on from one generation to the next through communication rather than through genes.
2. Enculturation is the process by which culture is transmitted from one generation to the next.
3. Acculturation involves the processes by which one culture is modified through contact with or exposure to another culture.

2.2 Cultural Differences

4. Cultures differ in terms of individualist or collectivist orientations, high and low context, high and low power distance, masculinity and femininity, tolerance of ambiguity, long- and short-term orientation, and indulgence and restraint.
5. Individualist cultures emphasize individual values such as power and achievement, whereas collectivist cultures emphasize group values such as cooperation and responsibility to the group.
6. In high-context cultures much information is in the context or the person; in low-context cultures information is expected to be made explicit.
7. In high-power-distance cultures there are large differences in power between people; in low-power-distance cultures power is more evenly distributed throughout the population.
8. Masculine cultures emphasize assertiveness, ambition, and competition; feminine cultures emphasize compromise and negotiation.
9. High-ambiguity tolerant cultures feel little threatened by uncertainty; it’s accepted as it comes. Low-ambiguity tolerant cultures feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and seek to avoid it.
10. Long-term-oriented cultures promote the importance of future rewards whereas short-term-oriented cultures look more to the past and the present.
11. Cultures high in indulgence emphasize the gratification of desires and having fun; cultures high in restraint emphasize the curbing and regulation of pleasures and fun.

2.3 Intercultural Communication

12. Intercultural communication is communication among people who have different cultural beliefs, values, or ways of behaving.
13. Ethnocentrism, which exists on a continuum, is our tendency to evaluate the beliefs, attitudes, and values of our own culture positively and those of other cultures negatively.
14. Stereotyping is the tendency to develop and maintain fixed, unchanging impressions of groups of people and to use these impressions to evaluate individual members of these groups, ignoring unique individual characteristics.
15. Among the guidelines for more effective intercultural communication are: prepare yourself, recognize and reduce your ethnocentrism, confront your stereotypes, be mindful, avoid overattribution, recognize differences, and adjust your communication.