Improving Intercultural Interactions

Modules for Cross-Cultural Training Programs, Volume 2

Kenneth Cushner, Richard W. Brislin, Kenneth Cushner, Richard W. Brislin

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1997
• Print ISBN: 9780761905370, 9780761905363
• eBook ISBN: 9781506338743
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Develop a unique counseling approach for training clients, students, and target populations with Improving Intercultural Interactions, a pragmatic text that deals with concerns specific to intercultural experiences in counseling. Intended as a companion to the first volume by Brislin and Yoshida, this new book works from an educational model for counseling and presents training modules that are relevant for varying clusters of circumstances, from the world of business to the field of education. It builds upon the first book and deals with issues including ethics, ethnocultural identification, conflict and mediation across cultures, as well as empathy and cross-cultural communication. In addition, this practical text is full of exercises, activities, and self-assessment questions that promote growth and cultural awareness. By defining culture inclusively and broadly, the editors have compiled a unique collection of training modules that will be essential to professionals and researchers in a broad range of fields, including clinical/counseling psychology, educational psychology, social work, psychology, gender studies, sociology, cultural studies, ethnic studies, and management.

1

Key Concepts in the Field of Cross-
Cultural Training: An Introduction

Kenneth Cushner
Richard Brislin

Key Concepts

Intercultural education and training is a delicate and difficult endeavor that must be approached with the greatest of sensitivity. Milton Bennett (1993) points out that intercultural interaction among human populations has typically been accompanied by violence and aggression.

Intercultural sensitivity is not natural. It is not part of our primate past, nor has it characterized most of human history. Cross-cultural contact usually has been accompanied by bloodshed, oppression, or genocide. . . . Education and training in intercultural communication is an approach to changing our “natural” behavior. With the concepts and skills developed in this field, we ask learners to transcend traditional ethnocentrism and to explore new relationships across cultural boundaries. This attempt at change must be approached with the greatest possible care. (p. 21)

In addition to the intense reactions from the world’s history identified by Bennett, evidence for the unnaturalness of intercultural contact can be seen in everyday behaviors. Many people, including those who do not harbor intense prejudices, admit that interactions with culturally different others are more anxiety-provoking than interactions with very similar people. For a smaller number of people, this anxiety leads to strong preference for interactions with similar others and an active avoidance of intercultural interactions. However, such people will not fare well in today’s world, where intercultural interactions are common in business dealings, schools, the workplace, places of worship, and community neighborhoods.

This book is the second in a series of collections of modules designed to assist cross-cultural trainers and educators working with a variety of audiences. Like the first volume (Brislin & Yoshida, 1994a), each module, or chapter, recognizes certain elements that are essential to good cross-cultural training. These are presented for either context-specific settings (e.g., Managing International and Intercultural Programs, Chapter 8), or have broad application across contexts (e.g., Power in the Service of Leadership, Chapter 2). The first chapter of the first volume discussed the goals and content of cross-cultural training in some detail, and these areas will only be reviewed at this time. This chapter continues the dialogue by addressing such key elements as approaches to training, building skill in cross-cultural communication and interaction, and challenges that are unique to cross-cultural training.

Goals of Training

Although cross-cultural training can never alleviate all of the problems that people will encounter in their adjustment to living and working across cultures, it can, nevertheless, have a significant effect on people’s overall adjustment (Black & Mendenhall, 1990; Deshpande & Viswesvaran, 1992). Brislin and Yoshida (1994b) identify four goals that can guide the selection of program content that addresses people’s awareness of culture and cultural differences and attempts to effect change in people’s cognition, affect, and behavior. More specifically, training goals include (1) assisting people to overcome obstacles that could interfere with the enjoyment they experience or their sense of well-being. (2) Developing positive and respectful relationships with others in the host culture, including attention to hosts’ reactions. Most readers probably know an individual who claims good relations with others but, if those people were interviewed, they would not reciprocate. Attention to a sojourner’s feelings and to hosts’ reactions to the sojourner’s presence in their culture provides a more complete picture. (3) Assisting people to accomplish the tasks associated with their work. And, (4) helping people to effectively deal with the inevitable stress that accompanies the cross-cultural experience. Such goals should underlie all good cross-cultural training programs.

Content of Training

It is of increasing importance that trainers and teachers are purposeful and knowledgeable as they go about the work of bringing their students through four stages: (a) awareness of the issues involved, including the necessity of understanding culture and cultural differences; (b) knowledge of critical concepts useful in intercultural adjustment, including knowledge that hosts find essential for success in their own culture; (c) challenges to people’s emotional states and their sense of emotional well-being; and, (d) skills related to their ability to interact effectively across cultures. At times, this fourth stage will involve a challenge that many people find quite difficult; they will be asked to modify behaviors useful and appropriate in their own culture in favor of behaviors deemed far more acceptable by hosts.

Awareness. A critical component of any training is that of raising awareness of (a) the role of culture in people’s socialization; (b) how one’s interactions and perceptions are affected by one’s own biases and values; (c) the necessity of becoming comfortable with differences to the extent that one should not be afraid to recognize and admit that they exist; (d) the importance of recognizing that there may exist some differences to which one can not adjust (Sue et al., 1982; Pedersen, 1988); but (e) despite such differences, a person can be successful (according to the four-part criteria mentioned previously) when working in other cultures. In addition, an often-overlooked dimension of cross-cultural training is the need to raise people’s awareness of the need to develop skill in cross-cultural communication and interaction. One reason why this is overlooked is trainee resistance. Many people have been successful in their own cultures because of certain skills. For example, some people in the United States have found that the time and effort they spent becoming dynamic public speakers has paid handsome dividends. They may not welcome the advice that in some cultures the ability to quietly draw out the contributions of various group members is far more important than being the center of attention during a dynamic speech.

Knowledge. Brislin and Yoshida (1994b) differentiate knowledge into four categories: immediate concerns, area-specific knowledge, culture-general knowledge, and culture-specific knowledge. Immediate concerns encompass such issues as obtaining travel documents, housing, shopping, information on school systems, and so forth—basic early survival knowledge that people will confront. Area-specific knowledge covers such topics as geography, politics, and history—general knowledge needed to engage in intelligent conversations with others. Culture-general knowledge refers to concepts and experiences that people are almost certain to encounter regardless of their destination. Such concepts include, but are not limited to, anxiety, ambiguity, and the grouping of specific familiar pieces of information into similar categories; these are further elaborated in Cushner and Brislin (1996). Culture-specific knowledge includes rules, customs, and etiquette unique to a particular culture. Good training programs will draw from this broad knowledge base.

Challenge to People‘s Emotions. People generally expect to confront differing customs and knowledge bases when they interact across cultures. What often surprises them is the degree to which their emotions will be engaged. Interacting across cultures, and especially living overseas, can be very stressful for many people due to such issues as isolation, disorientation, general anxiety, and so forth. Bennett (1986, and described in Brislin and Yoshida, 1994b) provides a useful model for describing six phases people go through as they enter a new culture. His model describes what happens in people’s minds when they are thrust into a new and completely foreign culture where they must function according to rules that are virtually incomprehensible to outsiders. These stages include (a) denial, particularly evident in people who have had little contact with others and have difficulty entertaining the possibility that what they believe to be ‘right’ may not be seen so by others; (b) defense, whereby people feel threatened when they begin to recognize that their value system may not be absolute; (c) minimization, when people admit that differences may exist but believe them to be insignificant; (d) acceptance, marking entry into ethnorelativism, when people begin to accept that other cultures have values and norms that are just as respectable as their own; (e) adaptation, whereby people begin to empathize with individuals from other cultures and begin to change their behaviors when interacting with them; and (f) integration, whereby people integrate multiple sets of values into their identities and become increasingly bicultural or multicultural beings.

Skill Development. Some skills that people might develop are more culture-general, such as the ability to manage stress, tolerate ambiguity, establish realistic expectations, acquire an ‘antenna’ to know when a cultural difference may be playing a part in interpersonal interactions, or to develop empathy with the emotions expressed by hosts (see Chapter 12). Culture-specific skills, on the other hand, are behaviors unique to a given people or context. Examples are greetings and the exchange of business cards in Japan, answering personal questions during initial encounters with people in Greece, becoming familiar with long periods of silence in some American Indian communities, and showing one’s interest in a topic through frequent interruptions and overlapping verbal exchanges in Hawaii. Adapting such skills will facilitate an individual’s ability to interact more effectively with a specific group of individuals.

Approaches to Cross-Cultural Training

Most approaches to cross-cultural training can be classified on the basis of two major dimensions: the degree to which the method is experiential versus didactic, and the extent to which it is culture-general or culture-specific (Gudykunst, Guzley, & Hammer, 1996). The experiential approach rests on the assumption that culture learning is best realized when people have direct or simulated experiences from which to draw on. The didactic approach assumes that a cognitive understanding is essential before people can effectively interact with people of another culture. Such understanding can be encouraged through traditional means such as lectures, videotapes, and group discussions centered on adjustment issues such as ways of dealing with stress. Culture-general training attempts to sensitize people to the kinds of experiences they are most certain to encounter as they interact with people from other cultures. Culture-specific training rests on the assumption that information about a specific culture or about specific cross-cultural interactions is essential. At times, decisions about which of these dimensions is emphasized in a specific program are based on very specific practical concerns. Good training costs money, and decisions are often based on this fact. For example, if trainees are about to go to many different countries (e.g., a college’s junior year abroad program sending 50 students to 20 different countries), a culture-general program may be most practical. If a training program is for executives who are sensitive to making mistakes in an experiential program, trainers have to keep in mind that it is these executives who are paying the bills for training. A less experiential approach focusing on trainer-centered activities such as lectures and focused discussion may be best. We realize that this may not be welcome news to many readers who strongly prefer experiential approaches, but many trainers (e.g., Goodman, 1994; several cited in Ptak, Cooper, & Brislin, 1995) point out that knowing when and how to give a good lecture in a culturally appropriate manner is an essential skill.

Experiential—Culture-General

Various approaches to training can be examined with the help of the two dimensions. Experiential culture-general strategies allow people to have experiences that are designed to mimic real-life intercultural encounters. Examples of experiential culture-general approaches include the use of simulations and self-assessments. Through such approaches, trainees are encouraged to explore how their own socialization has influenced their perceptions, attitudes, stereotypes, and subsequent behavior. In a similar manner, people having simulated cross-cultural encounters can safely ‘experience’ culture shock, alienation, disorientation, and so forth—some of the common responses people report when they embark on a sojourn.

Various simulations designed to capture aspects of intercultural encounters and adjustment are also part of this combination of dimensions. A general point about simulations is that trainees move from being recipients of information (e.g., members of an audience listening to a lecture) to being active participants in a planned organization of behaviors. Culture-general simulations are designed to capture commonly encountered experiences people will confront in a variety of cross-cultural assignments. The most commonly used culture-general simulation is BAFA BAFA (Shirts, 1973), which actively engages trainees in culture learning followed by subsequent cross-cultural interaction. In BAFA BAFA, participants simulate two hypothetical cultures: Alpha culture, a male-dominated, collectivist culture; and Beta culture, a female-dominated, individualistic culture. Trainees typically spend 30 minutes learning the rules to their respective cultures before engaging in brief exchanges between the two. After everyone has had a chance to interact with the other culture, trainees attempt to describe and explain what it is that they experienced. Debriefing can explore such issues as attribution formation, anxiety, verbal and nonverbal communication, culture shock, a ‘feeling of home’ on return to one’s own group,’ and so forth. A minimum of 3 hours is typically required to carry out the simulation with a debriefing. Two trainers are required.

Other culture-general simulations, typically requiring less time, include Barnga (Thiagarajan & Steinwachs, 1990); Ecotonos (Nipporica Associates, 1993); and the Albatross (Gochenour, 1977). Readers will also find useful exercises in Chapter 6 and Chapter 9 of this volume.

Self-assessment instruments are another method of actively involving trainees. Often their use can be less threatening and potentially embarrassing than simulations because trainees can fill out and score the instruments without others knowing their responses. Trainees can actively assess themselves along a number of criteria that are at play in cross-cultural encounters. A variety of attitude, perception, and experience self-assessments are available that enable individuals to assess their motivations, attitudes, degree of prejudice, ethnocentrism, and uncertainty orientation. Gudykunst (1994) provides approximately 20 self-assessment instruments. Likewise, Brislin and Yoshida (1994a), and most of the chapters in this volume, begin with a self-assessment instrument.

Didactic—Culture-General

The combination of dimensions leading to the intersection of didactic and culture-general refers to training attempts aimed at presenting culture-general content using such cognitive approaches as culture-general assimilators, lectures, and films or videos. Culture assimilators are collections of critical incidents or short vignettes that relate the experiences of people from two or more cultures who face a problem resolving some task. Trainees typically read the incident and then are ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Introduction
• 1. Key Concepts in the Field of Cross-Cultural Training: An Introduction
• PART I: The World of Business
• PART II: Education
• PART III: Concerns in Various Types of Intercultural Experiences
• Name Index
• Subject Index
• About the Contributors