Cross-Cultural Training to Improve Intercultural Understanding and Communication

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Cross-Cultural Trainingto Improve Intercultural
Understanding and Communication

• Kenneth Cushner, Ed. D.
• Kent State University
• U. S. A.

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• Whether people like it or not, they are
  increasingly being expected to engage in
  interpersonal interactions with people from
  cultures different from their own

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Increased Intercultural Interaction is Evident in

• the global business marketplace
• international tourism
• changes in immigration policies and domestic
  diversity
• movement of international students
• changes in school curricula in response to above.

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• In addition, we share the limited resources of a
  relatively small planet
• The complex problems of today will only be solved
  by the contributions of many different people
  or they will not be solved!

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Goals of Intercultural Training

• Interculturally effective people are
• -able to deal with psychological
• stress
• -able to communicate effectively
• -able to develop and maintain
  interpersonal relationships
• -able to complete task

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Goals of Intercultural Training

• Teach people to distinguish between two aspects
  of culture
• Objective culture or Big C
• Tangible, visible aspects of people
• Subjective culture or little c
• Invisible, intangible elements

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Objective - Subjective Culture

• Culture, like an iceberg, tends to show only a
  small portion on the surface

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Objective - Subjective Culture

• Objective culture
• Subjective culture
• It is at the level of subjective culture where
  most intercultural misunderstandings occur.

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Goals of Intercultural Training

• Transcend ethnocentrism, thus help people become
  more ethnorelative
• Understand processes of perception and
  categorization.

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Goals of Intercultural Training

• In general, reduce culture shock and ease
  adjustment to new cultural patterns
• U-Curve Hypothesis
• U

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Goals of Intercultural Training

• Teach people to suspend judgment about others
  until more information is available by making
  isomorphic attributions
• the judgments people make about others
• Explain anothers behavior in the same way they
  would

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Approaches to Intercultural Training

• Most Common Training Strategies
• -Cognitive/University Approach
• -Experiential Approach
• -Interaction Approach
• -Attribution Training

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• Most researched of all the cross-cultural
  training approaches, and the one proven to have
  the most impact, is attribution training through
  the intercultural sensitizer or cultural
  assimilator

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• Presents a collection of critical incidents or
  stories that reflect a cross-cultural
  misunderstanding
• Readers learn of subjective reasons behind
  anothers behavior

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18-Theme Culture General Framework(Cushner and
Brislin, 1996 Cushner, McClelland and Safford,
2000)

• Identified 18 culture-general themes found to be
  common in peoples intercultural interactions,
  regardless of where they are from, their
  particular role in society, and with whom they
  will interact
• 3 general categories

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18-Theme Culture General Framework(Cushner and
Brislin, 1996 Cushner, McClelland and Safford,
2000)

• Experiences Which Engage Peoples Emotions
• Knowledge Areas
• Bases of Cultural Differences

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18-Theme Culture General Framework(Cushner and
Brislin, 1996 Cushner, McClelland and Safford,
2006)

• EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES
• anxiety
• belonging
• ambiguity
• confronting prejudice of self and others
• disconfirmed expectations

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Anxiety

• People tend to feel uncertain and anxious when in
  interaction with people of other cultures
• People with high anxiety may have a tendency to
  avoid the situation

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Belonging

• All people have a need to belong and feel as if
  their contributions are welcome
• When people do not feel as if they belong they
  may feel rejected and alienated, and may stop
  contributing

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Ambiguity

• When interacting with other cultures, all the
  necessary information may not be apparent
• People may then act from their own knowledge
  base, which may not be accurate
• People who work well across cultures have a high
  tolerance for ambiguity - and ask may questions.

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Prejudice

• Prejudice refers to the application of
  stereotypes to all members of a group,
• Also, when in an intercultural situation, people
  may confront knowledge and beliefs about others
  that they previously held that they may no longer
  support.

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Disconfirmed Expectations

• Most people expect others to think and act as
  they do
• They also have a tendency to expect certain
  outcomes
• If what they expect does not come to pass, they
  may become quite upset

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18-Theme Culture General Framework(Cushner and
Brislin, 1996 Cushner, McClelland and Safford,
2006)

• KNOWLEDGE AREAS
• work
• time/space orientation
• language and communication
• roles
• group versus individual orientation
• ritual and superstition
• class and status
• values

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Work

• Peoples orientation toward work-related behavior
  can be significantly different. This is evident
  in such areas as
• problem solving
• time-on-task versus emphasis on social relations
• decision-making practices

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Time and Space

• Various attitudes exist on the importance of
  adhering to clock time, relational time,
  flexible time, and so forth
• Peoples orientation toward others in terms of
  spatial distance, placement of furniture, etc.

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Communication and Language Use

• One of the more obvious difference between people
• Refers to verbal as well as nonverbal
  communication differences
• Nonverbal differences account for most
  communication problems at the subjective level

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Roles

• A generally accepted set of behaviors people
  perform in relation to a position
• Respect across cultures may differ in different
  roles
• Cultural differences in roles may be evident with
  regard to age, position, gender, family, and so
  forth.

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Group versus Individualism

• The degree to which people act according to their
  individual needs or group needs
• Differences across groups are most significant in
  this regard

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Rituals and Superstition

• One groups rituals are often seen as
  superstitions by another
• What one group views as intelligent behavior may
  be seen by another as superstitious

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Social Class

• People tend to divide themselves according to
  some hierarchy
• They may make distinctions based on various
  markers of high versus low status
• Status differences may be quite different from
  culture to culture

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Values

• Refer to internalized views of broad areas as
  religion, economics, education
• Accepted as proper and right
• Can be defended in extreme ways

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18-Theme Culture General Framework(Cushner and
Brislin, 1996 Cushner, McClelland and Safford,
2006)

• BASES OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
• categorization
• differentiation
• ingroup-outgroup distinctions
• learning styles
• attribution process

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Categorization

• Refers to the act of grouping similar information
  together
• Culture determines how people form categories
• For example, in some cultures a dog is an animal
  to avoid, in others it is an important member of
  the family, in others it is food.

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Differentiation

• Fine distinctions people make in large categories
  of information that is important in their culture
• For example, not all breeds of cattle do well in
  Turkey
• People who do not differentiate categories in the
  same manner as locals may be viewed as ignorant.

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Ingroups versus Outgroups

• Refers to major distinctions all people make
  regarding others
• Ingroup members are those one is close to, shares
  critical information, will marry, etc.
• Outgroup members are those often kept at a
  respectable distance
• Different groups form ingroups in different ways

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Learning Styles

• Culture teaches people how to learn
• Those serving as trainers should match their
  instructional style with peoples preferred
  method of learning.

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Attribution Process

• Attributions refer to the judgments people make
  about others
• People judge others by such things as their
  behavior, speech, and other mannerisms
• The goal is to judge people the same way they
  would judge themselves.

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18-Theme Culture General Framework(Cushner and
Brislin, 1996 Cushner, McClelland and Safford,
2000)

• The themes are introduced through Critical
  Incidents, or short stories that bring people
  from different cultures together to solve a
  problem
• Individuals read many critical incidents and
  begin to understand that subjective cultural
  elements at play

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18-Theme Culture General Framework(Cushner and
Brislin, 1996 Cushner, McClelland and Safford,
2000)

• The critical incidents are used to introduce
  readers to the important 18 culture general
  themes
• You may use critical incidents in a variety of
  ways

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Impact of Intercultural Training

• Has positive impact on cognitive, affective and
  behavioral domains
• People learn a significant amount of useful
  information
• Both parties in interaction feel more positive
• People are more effective in their work

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Incident Review

• Read one incident
• Discuss the incident in your group.
• For incidents 1 and 2, identify which
  explanations best explain the situation.
• For incident 3, what do you think is the problem?
• Identify which of the 18-themes are evident
• How are these themes evident in your work or
  experience?

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