COMMUNICATING ACROSS CULTURES AT WORK 3RD EDITION COMPANION WEBSITE CHAPTER FOUR HOW CULTURE AFFECTS BEHAVIOUR As with

Chapter Three, the changes in this chapter are relatively minor. The division into two sections (Internal factors and Social cognition processes) has been retained as have the various subdivisions of these sections. Apart from new coverage of beliefs about agency, and that the coverage of values has been consolidated in Chapter Two, the topics are the same, although I have been more consistent in giving a (very) brief introduction on the meaning of each. The main changes therefore, are updates with new research findings and new illustrations. ANSWERS TO THE CH.4 QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS ON THE EXERCISES Q.1 The answer to the first part of the question is obvious that it occurs in all human beings: thus, all human beings have motives, attitudes, etc. Cultural difference occurs in the content of those psychological constructs. By answering the question, students get a clearer understanding of this distinction than if they merely read the text. Q.2 The obvious answer is that male housing managers will be more managerial, objective and political. This should produce discussion! Q.3 In many Western organisations, emotions receive little recognition and have low legitimacy. Suppression is or has been the most common response to emotion. Q.4 The obvious reason for cross-cultural differences in beliefs about how the world works is that they are responses to different cultures experiences. These differences in experiences result both from environment and from history. Within-culture variations, both by individuals and subgroups, are likely to be less, because the members of a culture share most environmental and historical experience and because cultures are instruments for imposing beliefs on their members. However, there is room for some within-culture variation. With a little help, students should be able to explore this question in some depth. Q.5 Because it is correlated with a groups social position. Q.6 Those groups in powerful positions upper classes, majority (or dominant minority) ethnic groups, males in traditional societies. Q.7 The point of this question is to make the students think about this statement. Additional value can be gained by asking how else moral reasoning might be honed, whether reduced personal interaction as a result of CMC means less well-honed moral reasoning, whether societies that abolish business, as under communism, end up less moral, etc. Q.8 Beliefs about aspects of organization tap into unconscious assumptions which are influenced by culture; strategy is a more conscious type of cognition, probably influenced by globally available ideas and knowledge. Q.9 The clearest differences should emerge in the sales managers assumption that only individual targets work while the sales rep only understands group targets. Q.10 Ethnocentrism is a biased set of assumptions in favour of ones own ethnic group; bias, which does not necessarily apply to stereotypes and the focus on ones own ethnic group differentiate it from stereotyping; students should be able to find numerous examples of ethnocentrism leading to discrimination, exclusion, etc. Q.11 Lack of cultural awareness and prejudice on both sides are the main factors. Lack of awareness regarding how things are done, as shown by the householder, is not necessarily cultural, but is a significant factor in the difficulties experienced by many immigrants and sojourners; the receptionists lack of cultural awareness regarding the importance of the cultural festival (and the collectivism of the ethnic minority householder) is less excusable, as

she should have been trained; in fact this case was used as a training example by a London local authority working to raise the diversity awareness of its staff. Another factor is misperception of aggression the most common cause of aggressive behaviour is feeling attacked. Q.12 The text gives: values, social cues (information imparted by those they mix with), how much they know about that culture, what they believe and what their attitude is to that culture, stereotypes of individuals from that culture, their own self-concept (for example as proud to be British or as a citizen of the world), whether they have roles which require interfacing with people from the other culture, previous experience of people from the other culture, perceptions of their own and the others relative status. Q.13 The exercise is designed to make real the point about different expectations in high power-distance countries. The HR manager may suspect that the complaint originates in part in the different culturally-induced expectations of a senior manager from Southern Europe about the amount of deference subordinates will show to him/her. The fact that the complaint has been referred across by the CEO to a manager slightly lower in the companys status hierarchy may add to the newly-appointed managers emotional upset. Q.14 (Sub)cultural differences which Expectations that may be influenced influence expectations Individualism Desire to avoid submission to authority figures; preference for doing things ones own way; length of view; willingness to take advice; Standards of behaviour;emphasis on displaying self-respect vs emphasis on harmonious relationships and maintaining face. Expectation that power within institutions will be distributed unequally and authority centralised; acceptance that power holders will negotiate special privileges for themselves. Versus their opposite expectations. What constitutes honest or cheating behaviour and corruption Expectations of role holders

The relative importance of self-respect and harmonious work relationship; the centrality of work. Power distance

Definitions of honesty Roles

Q.15 Trust is the attitude of placing reliance on another person in the belief that they will not harm you. It influences levels of disclosure, openness and formality on the part of speakers and willingness to listen, believe and be persuaded on the part of receivers. There is a theory that high trust is linked to economic prosperity but this is not universally true. (It is also supposedly higher in market than command economies and in economies in societies with highly developed civil society.) In individualist cultures, people set limits to trust but will extend it to an out-group member; in collectivist cultures, limits are fewer but only with members of the in-group. Q.16 Social psychological perspectives view identity as affected by communication but centred in individual psychology; communication perspectives view identity as existing only within the framework of interaction. Q.17 Teachers may use this exercise here instead of or as well as in relation to Chapter 2. The outcomes should be different as the students focus on different aspects of their self. EXTRA QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

Do business/the professions depend on underlying ethical principles? Are those suggested in the text (trust and co-operation) the most important ones? What others might be contenders? Compare your views with those of someone from a different culture. 2. Compare the following beliefs in your own culture with those of someone from a different culture: beliefs about distributive justice, bribery, lying, justice versus interpersonal responsibilities, failure to pay taxes, financial fraud among partners and deceptive advertising. 3. Compare the list of work-related motivations given by Aycan (2002) (p.138) for developing countries with those you perceive as most common in your own culture. 4. In what ways do beliefs about diversity relate to increased and decreased prejudice?. 5. In what ways do the entity and incremental theories (beliefs about the malleability of human attributes) relate to prejudice? 6. Which of the following, if any, define the term stereotype? a) schemata to categorise people and entities b) unfavourable beliefs about an outgroup c) preconceived ideas about the characteristics of groups of people d) ways to avoid information overload 7. Devise a questionnaire to identify individuals stereotypes of one of the following groups: lawyers, doctors, teachers, investment bankers. Administer the questionnaire to as many individuals from different (sub)cultures as possible. What differences do you find in their stereotypes? 8. Which, if any, of the following are implied by an interdependent self-construal? a) more responsiveness to feedback b) showing leniency in self-ratings of performance c) using strategies for self-enhancement that are adjusted to the feelings of others d) operating with a false uniqueness bias 9. With which, if any, of the following, have self-construals been shown to vary? a) nationality b) gender c) level of disability b) 10. Complete the table. The material in the text may be helpful. Type of self-construal Independent Effects on behaviour _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________

1.

Interdependent

_________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________

_________________________ _________________________ _________________________ 13. How do biases in social perception affect peoples ability to assess others work behaviour? See p. 144 of the text.

14. Find additional examples to those given in the text of cultural or sub-cultural differences in the following aspects of thinking processes: categorizing, logic style, learning style and problem-solving. 15. Complete the questionnaire. Note that stranger here just means a person not met with before.
Strongly Agree 1. I often find that encounters with strangers turn awkward 2. I rarely ask questions early on in encounters with strangers 3. I think most people would regard me as a competent communicator 4. I try to avoid too many meetings with new people 5. I usually tell new people I meet, a good deal about myself 6. Meeting strangers of the opposite sex is more awkward than other meetings with strangers 7. Meeting strangers with disabilities is more awkward than other meetings with strangers 8. Meeting strangers from foreign countries is more awkward than other meetings with strangers 9. Meeting strangers who are ethnically different from myself is more awkward than meeting other kinds of strangers. Agree Neither Disagree agree nor disagree Strongly disagree

Scoring: For all questions except Q3, score 5 for Strongly agree, 4 for Agree, 3 for Neither agree nor disagree, 2 for Disagree and 1 for Strongly disagree; Q3 is inverse scored. This questionnaire scores different types of communication apprehension (CA). Add your scores for questions 1 to 5: scores above 20 and 16 to 20 indicate very high and moderately high CA; below 6 and 6 to 10 very low and moderately low CA; 11 to 15 are indeterminate. Questions 6 to 9 score different kinds of CA: 6 with people of the opposite sex,

7 with people with disabilities, 8 with foreigners, 9 with people from other ethnic groups. For each of these questions, scores of 4 or 5 indicate high CA, 1 or 2 low CA and 3 is indeterminate. Teachers and facilitators may prefer to administer this questionnaire in the context of Chapter 5, since its focus is on communication apprehension as a barrier to intercultural communication. However, comparing scores of students/participants from different (sub)cultures makes an interesting exercise for Chapter 4, though great care is needed before asking students to reveal their scores. That is always true but especially here. 16. Complete the questionnaire. Strongly Agree 1. When I communicate with others, I am always aware of my relationship with them. 2. In communication with others I am mainly concerned to have them understand where I am coming from. 3. I like the people I meet to know my tastes and preferences at an early stage in our acquaintance. 4. When I communicate with others, I try to maintain an even balance between meeting my own needs and meeting theirs. 5. I place a high value on self-expression. 6. I like the people I meet to understand my important beliefs and values. 7. It is important to get across ones personality in social conversations. 8. I am generally concerned with how other people see me what they think of me. 9. I am very concerned that my interactions with others should be at all times harmonious. 10. I use other peoples attitudes and behaviours as ways of setting standards for my own. Scoring: This questionnaire scores self-construals through their effect on communication. For questions 1, 4, 9 and 10, score 5 for Strongly agree, 4 for Agree, 3 for Neither agree nor disagree, 2 for Disagree and 1 for Strongly disagree. For questions 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8, score 1 for Strongly agree, 2 for Agree, 3 for Agree Neither Disagree agree nor disagree Strongly disagree

Neither agree nor disagree, 4 for Disagree and 5 for Strongly disagree.

Add your scores for all ten questions; scores above 40 indicate strong interdependent self-construals (InterSCs); scores of 31 to 40 indicate moderately strong InterSCs; scores below 11 indicate strong independent self-construals (IndSCs); scores from 11 to 20 indicate moderately strong IndSCs; scores between 21 and 30 are indeterminate. 17. Does the following example illustrate differences in ethical standards? In India, negotiations over leasing a new office were in train. They seemed to proceed smoothly until at the last minute the landlords asked for a postponement. The excuse was that their CEO was away. According to the start-ups British MD, That has more plausibility here than in the West, because all major decisions are set aside when the CEO is away. There are other possibilities, though: they might be playing around, trying to get a better price from someone else that would be very naughty, outside the accepted bounds, because we have already signed a pre-agreement and paid over money; but you never know. Another possibility, believed by our Finance Officer, is that there is a problem with the documentation in effect that they dont actually have the right to let the offices. When this turned out to be the case, the search had to be resumed and eventually another set of offices was found. Source: authors research

EXTRA MATERIAL AND COMMENTS ON THE TEXT The text pays relatively little attention to the debate over how, precisely, culture influences behaviour. Sorry! Data from one research project showed that culture dictates (and helps to develop) what is important for survival and that education could be considered as a type of subculture* that facilitates the development of certain skills instead of others. * used in a different sense from in the text.
Ostrosky-Solis, F., Ramirez, M., Lozano, A., Picasso, A. and Velez. A. (2004) Culture or education? Neuropsychological test performance of a Maya population, International Journal of Psychology, 39(1): 3646.

4.1 INTERNAL FACTORS p.137 Motives a. General need-based models of motivation, such as those of Maslow (1970), can be applied to communication, but a more tailored set, such as that suggested by Turner (1988) may provide a better account. In this model, the following needs interact with basic drives to both motivate people to communicate and influence their behaviour during interactions: needs for security, especially for confirmation of identity, group inclusion (affiliation), avoiding diffuse anxiety, sense of a shared common world, symbolic and material gratification and predictability. Needs for power, esteem and autonomy are also thought to be influences.
Communicating Across Cultures, 1st Edn.
Maslow, A.H. (1970) Motivation and Personality, (2nd edn) New York: Harper & Row. Turner, J.H. (1988) A Theory of Social Interaction, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

b. Needs particular to Middle Eastern students except Israelis include respect for his or her culture, close personal relationships or friendships, relaxed social relationships, hospitality accompanied by the offering of food, interaction with fellow Arabs, having a mentor from the same background, and having a satisfactory relationship with faculty and administrative advisors.
Parker, O.D. (1976) Cultural clues to the Middle Eastern student, URL: http://www.flstw.edu/pderic.html

d. Motives for communicating affect communicative traits or styles. One piece of research allocated communicators to one of four groups based on their communication styles, which

were classified as competent communicators (defined by the researchers as high in both assertiveness and responsiveness), non-competent communicators (low in both), aggressives (high in assertiveness, low in responsiveness) and submissives (low in assertiveness, high in responsiveness). The findings were that the communication motives of competent communicators were needs for affection (affiliation), pleasure (gratification) and inclusion to a greater extent than any of the other three groups. Aggressive types communicated more from control (power) needs, while non-competent communicators and submissive types communicated from escape (autonomy) needs.
Anderson, C.M. and Martin, M.M. (1995) Communication motives of assertive and responsive communicators, Communication Research Reports, 12: 18691.

p.139 Respondents from the more collectivist cultures of Japan and Hungary showed the lowest level of achievement motivation. This finding by Sagie et al (1996) conflicts with Hofstedes finding that the Japanese showed very high level of masculine values, as these include valuing achievement. If the explanation is the difference between motivation and values, a big question is raised about the relationship between values and motivation. This is clearly an important issue, but not one much explored in the literature.
Sagie, A., Elizur, D. and Yamauchi, H. (1996) The Structure and Strength of Achievement Motivation: a Cross-Cultural Comparison, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17(5): 43144.

p.139 In the literature on culture and work motivation, organizational loyalty or commitment (OC) is a major concern. Age and tenure are often considered important correlates of OC, but a meta-analysis found little support for this. The relation between OC and age was strongest for the youngest subgroup. The relation between OC and tenure was strongest for the oldest tenure subgroup. However none of these relations were very strong.
Cohen, A. (1997) Age and tenure in relation to organizational commitment: a meta-analysis, Journal of Social Psychology, 27(12): 1085114.

Emotions and moods p.141 In one study, directors from 48 separate factories in the People's Republic of China said they experienced intense pleasant and unpleasant emotions as a result of social, moral and material/economic conditions. a. According to Krone et al (1997), in China emotions are understood as natural or biological experiences that are connected to reasoning processes, not necessarily subordinate to them.

Threats to and confirmations of the social order (i.e. perception that an individual or unit had behaved appropriately or inappropriately given their place within the social/organizational hierarchy) were the most frequent source of managerial emotional experience (88%), followed by material and economic matters (71%) and then moral circumstances (44%). Pleasant managerial emotion is evoked by demonstrations of everyones willingness to solve problems by smoothly navigating their way through the socially prescribed web of relationships. Managerial anger is triggered in response to an employee who acts on his intense feelings rather than thinking them through to a more harmonious solution. Both pleasant and unpleasant emotional experiences are seen as destabilizing and the managers experiencing them described the need to calm themselves so that they could act with good judgement. Some would do this by inner reflection; others in discussion with colleagues (or, in one case, his wife). The best processes were those listed at Question 9.

Krone, K.J., Chen, L., Sloan, D.K., and Gallant, L.M. (1997) Managerial emotionality in Chinese factories, Management Communication Quarterly 11(1): 650.

b. Burleson and Mortenson (2003) found significant cultural differences between individualists and collectivists in evaluations of support behaviours. These differences were partially mediated by interaction goals and value orientations. Differences were found in the perceived appropriateness of using solace, solve, dismiss, and escape behaviours and the perceived sensitivity of comforting messages varying in degree of person centredness.
Burleson, B.R., and Mortenson, S.R. (2003) Explaining cultural differences in evaluations of emotional support behaviors, Communication Research, 30(2): 113146.

p.141 A deaf man who worked as a systems analyst for Procter & Gamble The deaf man who reported challenges with interaction relied mostly on e-mail, instant messaging, a text pager and a whiteboard, and said, I work closely with my supervisor to get assignments that let me be most productive. That usually means they require minimal face-toface communication. He said he found that his companys strong diversity awareness programmes reduced common workplace problems and misconceptions about the deaf and hard of hearing. But I still need to encourage co-workers to include me in their conversations and meetings. Over time, the communication barrier does break down as the comfort level increases. But in our fast-paced work environment, it takes longer for this to happen. One deaf man whose firm gave him a text pager device discovered that not everyone was ready to use it. Most hearing people who have not used a text pager shy away from it because they dont feel comfortable with it, he said.
McKee Ranger, L. (2002) Communication is key for deaf and hard of hearing technical pros, Diversity/Careers Professional, Oct/Nov. URL: http://www.diversitycarrers.com/articles/pro/octnov02/fod_com_deaf.htm

p.142 Emotional intelligence a. Up to now most research into EI has related to the ability to recognize facial expressions. The evidence is that using or judging emotions intelligently does involve this ability. A recent meta-analysis of cross-cultural research on emotion recognition found evidence for both universality and cultural differences.1 Although emotions are recognized at above chance levels across cultural boundaries, there is also evidence that individuals judge emotions expressed by members of their same national, ethnic or regional group more accurately. In one large-scale study, American and European groups identified from photographs 7583 per cent of the facial expressions displayed by Americans, while Japanese scored 65 per cent and Africans correctly identified only 50 per cent. 2 Females are better able than males to perceive facial expressions of emotion. This applies to children as young as three years of age, and across many cultures. Psychologists have linked the finding to a wide range of other gender differences, including womens greater empathy, greater expressiveness, greater practice, greater tendency to accommodate others, greater breadth in using emotional information and subordinate role in the larger culture.3 Other evidence on subcultures includes that individuals of a higher socioeconomic status (SES) appear to perform better on tests of non-verbal skill in general and on tests of facial expression more specifically than do lower SES individuals.
1. Elfenbein, H.A., Mandal, M.K., Ambady, N., Harizuka, S. and Kumar, S. (2002) Crosscultural patterns in emotion recognition: Highlighting design and analytical techniques, Emotion, 2: 7584. 2. Izard, C.E. (1971) The Face of Emotion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. 3. Elfenbein, H.A., Marsh, A.A. and Ambady, N. (2003) Emotional intelligence and the recognition of emotion from facial expressions, in Barrett, L.F. and Salovey, P. (eds) The Wisdom of Feelings: Processes Underlying Emotional Intelligence, NY: Guilford Press.

b. Sharma et al (2009) reported finding that EI and personality are different constructs.
Sharma, P., Tam, J.L.M. and Kim, N. (2009) Demystifying intercultural service encounters: toward a comprehensive conceptual framework, Journal of Service Research, 12: 22742.

Perceptions p.144 Robinson (1997) agreed with the centrality of culture in perception, arguing that culture lies at the very roots of perception. One could even go so far as to say that deep culture leads to a distortion of reality. However, it would be more accurate to say that deep culture is the source of the inaccurate restructuring which takes place when things emanating from one place are perceived by people from another. Their restructuring is inaccurate because of the self-referential nature of human perception.
Robinson, S. (1997) Intercultural management: the art of resolving and avoiding conflicts between cultures AIESEC Global Theme Conference: Learning and Acting for a Shared Future. URL: http//www.eye.ch/~gtc97/intercul.html.

p.144 People from different cultures exhibit dramatic and consequential differences in constructing social meaning. According to Menon et al (2000), the need for closure leads attributors to respond to an ambiguous social event by increasing reliance on implicit theories received from acculturation. Hence the influence of need for closure should be shaped by chronically accessible knowledge structures in a culture, and likewise the influence of culture should be moderated by motives such as need for closure. Individuals do not always make judgements and decisions through top-down application of cultural knowledge; often they process in a more bottom-up perception-driven manner. (One key finding was that cultural knowledge is recruited when individuals are required to provide reasons for a judgement or choice. What cultural knowledge provides to the individual is a set of highly accessible cognitive tools that can be applied to a problem to reach a quick articulation and interpretation of one's answer (Briley et al in press). Other findings: 1. an information processing strategy previously assumed to be universal (i.e. accentuated focus on personal dispositions under high need for closure) was found to be culture bound. But 2. dramatic differences can involve comparable processes: the epistemic need to construct an orderly interpretation of social reality operated in the same way across cultures evoking attributions to dispositions. (Hong et al 1997)
Menon, T., Chi-yue C., Morris, M.W. & Hong, Y.Y.(2000) 'Motivated cultural cognition: the impact of implicit cultural theories on dispositional attribution varies as a function of the need for closure', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2):24759. Briley, D., Morris, M.W. and Simonson, I. (in press) 'Culture, reasons and compromise: Chinese and American cultures bring different reasons to mind', Journal of Consumer Research, Hong, Y., Chiu, C. and Kung, M (1997) ''Bring culture out front: effects of cultural meaning system activation on social cognition' in Leung, K.,Kashima, Y., Kim, U. and Yamaguichi, S. (eds.) Progress in Asian Social Psychology, 1 Singapore: Wiley, p135-46. Shore , B. (1996) Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture and the Problem of Meaning, New York: Oxford University Press.

p.144 The following has been removed from Box 4.2: An American manager, from a highly individualist culture, expects to gain status at work from the performance produced by his or her department, such as increased market share, higher profitability or product innovation. To a Japanese manager, from a collectivist culture, such achievements belong to the group, and it is mainly from the development of subordinates that his/her own status derives. High power distance may tend to make people perceive the top managers in their organizations as infallible, not expect that they themselves will reach positions of power during their career, be motivated to work hard by loyalty to the godlike Chief Executive and think that a steeply hierarchical work organization is natural and fitting.

p.146 Beliefs
Cultural cognition refers to the disposition to conform one's beliefs about societal risks to one's preferences for how society should be organized. Based on surveys and experiments involving some 5,000 Americans, the Second National Risk and Culture Study presents empirical evidence of the effect of this dynamic in generating conflict about global warming, school shootings, domestic terrorism, nanotechnology, and the mandatory vaccination of school-age girls against HPV, among other issues. The Study also presents evidence of riskcommunication strategies that counteract cultural cognition. Because nuclear power affirms rather than threatens the identity of persons who hold individualist values, for example, proposing it as a solution to global warming makes persons who hold such values more willing to consider evidence that climate change is a serious risk. Because people tend to impute credibility to people who share their values, persons who hold hierarchical and egalitarian values are less likely to polarize when they observe people who hold their values advocating unexpected positions on the vaccination of young girls against HPV.
Kahan, D.M., Braman, D., Slovic, P., Gastil, J. and Cohen, G.L. (2007) The Second national risk and culture study: making sense of - and making progress in - the American Culture War of Fact, GWU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 370; Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 154; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 370; Harvard Law School Program on Risk Regulation Research Paper No. 08-26. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1017189.

In a series of papers on cultural cognition, Dan Kahan and his coauthors point out that competing cultural visions of how society should be organized affect peoples beliefs about the risks associated with culturally charged public policy issues. The point is welcome, as appreciating how peoples cultural commitments inform their perceptions of risk may allow for a richer behavioral account of human risk assessment. Yet Kahan and his coauthors (hereinafter Kahan) draw several further conclusions that do not follow from their examination of competing worldviews. Among the most questionable of these are the claims that individuals do not engage in any expected-utility weighing when considering culturally-charged policies2 and that cultural preferences are cognitively prior to facts, in that they wholly determine individuals beliefs about the risks and benefits of such policies.3 This paper challenges those conclusions, arguing that Kahans evidence supports only the relatively conventional point that different individuals possess different and conflicting normative value sets. The paper proposes an alternative model of culturally-charged risk/benefit weighing, which suggests that the risk/benefit disputes reported by Kahan do not reflect a unique type of cultural cognition, but rather an interaction between individuals varying normative value sets and the cognitive heuristics described in conventional behavioral economics. What remains of Kahans account is the useful point that, in culturally-charged policy domains, even a neutral assessment of the costs and benefits of policy proposals may benefit from taking into account the intrinsic utility that individuals assign to a certain cultural/political worldview.
Tokson, M.J. (2008) Weighing utility in culturally-charged policy disputes: a critique of Dan M. Kahan's cultural cognition theory. Available at SSRN: ttp://ssrn.com/abstract=1250562

Religion p.148 Religious belief is clearly a strong influence on behaviour, at work as elsewhere

a. Religion has been described as a center from which all other forms of human motivation gradually diverged. It is a unifying principle with endless varieties of action and passion deriving from it. Some social scientists contend that too little research concerns the role of religiousness in social interaction.
Burke, K. (1966) Language as Symbolic Action, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

b. The Prophet Mohammed's view of religion is unique and simple: Al-din alamamla (religion is found in the way of dealing with other people).
Ali, A.J. (1995) Cultural discontinuity and Arab management thought, International Studies of Management & Organization, 25(3): 730.

c. Greeley (1990) argued that ritual, story and the variety of social rituals that accompany such events as first communion as well as a sense of the importance of community, institution and hierarchy are among the reasons why Catholics remain loyal to their Church. Australian research has also reported the continuing value of communal identity amongst Catholics.
Greeley, A. (1990) The Catholic Myth, New York: MacMillan.

d. The overarching theme to the fundamentalist, whether Muslim or Christian, is that God is to be worshipped, respected, feared and obeyed above all else. All other considerations take a back seat to God. This intense and abiding devotion means that there are some things that are completely, utterly non-negotiable. An important element of the fundamentalist mindset is the rejection of modernism. Message from Usama bin Laden to his Muslim Brothers in the Whole World and Especially in the Arabian Peninsula: Declaration of Jihad against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques; Expel the Heretics from the Arabian Peninsula (Washington File, 1999). Although we may read of it in this context, its [jihads] common, usual meaning is that of a struggle to purify oneself. In many ways, it is more appropriate to consider jihad as having the connotation similar to that of a fast, or going on a retreat, to a Christian. People who view bin Laden as a typical Muslim make a serious mistake, as do those who view any single individual as a prototypic example of any group This was not the first time that extreme views have resulted in extreme behavior. Nor will it be the last, because attitudes do affect behavior. e. According to Allport and Ross, people who view religion as the source of meaning in life (called intrinsics) have personalities negatively related to Machiavellianism and dogmatism, are generally unprejudiced and tolerant of differing views, more mature, see their religion as unifying and integrative and as important to mental health, and are regular church goers. Extrinsics are people who view religion as more self-serving and instrumental, as one of many influences on life. Extrinsics have personalities positively related to Machiavellianism and dogmatism; they are more prejudiced, exclusionary, dependent, seek comfort and security and are utilitarian and irregular churchgoers.
Allport, G.W. and Ross, J.M. (1967) The religious context of prejudice, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5: 44757 .

p.148 A study of 277 Moslem immigrants to the USA found that acculturation to US organisational practices was related to different factors from those which affected acculturation in private and/or social lives. No direct relationship was found between adjustment to US organization culture and degree of religiosity, demographic variables or years of residence and acculturation patterns chosen, but the strong link of these variables to national acculturation mode and from national acculturation mode to organisational acculturation mode means there is an indirect link.
Alkhazraji, K.M., Gardner, W.L. III, Martin, J.S. and Paolillo, J.G.P. (1997) The Acculturation of immigrants to US organizations: the case of Muslim employees, Management Communication Quarterly, 11(2): 21765.

p.149 Assumptions Schein (1992) identified two subcultures (he called them cultures), based on occupational communities, who are quite stable in the assumptions they hold: engineers, the practitioners of the organizations core technology, who prefer solutions without people; and executives CEOs especially for whom their role brings about the perception that financial criteria always have to be paramount. The engineers resist the new organizational learning culture because it does not match their preferred type of solution. The executives resist giving time and resources to building learning capacity, which does not give quick returns; they are overconcerned with the control system and, like the engineers, play down the human factor. As a result, New methods of learning or solving problems do not diffuse or even become embedded in the organizations that first used them, and, Individual projects learn new methods of operating, but these methods do not diffuse to other groups or organizations.
Schein, E.H. (1992) Organizational Culture and Leadership (2nd edn), San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

p.149 Stereotypes a. The power of stereotypes has been demonstrated by research in which people are primed to adopt stereotypes. Priming refers to the incidental activation of knowledge structures, such as trait concepts and stereotypes, by the current situational context. Many studies have shown that the recent use of a stereotype, even in an earlier or unrelated situation, carries over for a time to exert an unintended, passive influence on how people interpret the observed behaviour of members of the group to which the stereotype relates. b. Another study showed that the influence of the social context on whether and how people apply stereotypes is complex and specific. It was found that being induced to express gender bias without censure increased stereotype application but primarily by highly prejudiced participants and mainly towards a woman who behaved stereotypically. Even people who were gender biased and expressed it did not evaluate a woman who behaved assertively according to the stereotype.
Dovidio, I.F., Kawakami, K. & Gaertner, S.L. (2002) Implicit and explicit prejudice and racial interaction, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82: 628.

c. Thompson reserved the word stereotype for rigid typifications. Thus, while the use of typifications can be positive, stereotypes go a step beyond this, insofar as what happens in the process of stereotyping is that typifications become rigid and resistant to change, amendment or renegotiation. A stereotype is a typification that is maintained despite evidence to the contrary. Stereotypes commonly apply to members of particular cultures, and are often derogatory or unduly negative.
Thompson, N. (2003) Communication and Language: A Handbook of Theory and Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

p.152 The following has been removed from Box 4.3:

There is a direct relationship between the masculinity of clothing worn by female managerial candidates and judgements of masculine managerial traits. But masculinity of dress is unrelated to perceptions of feminine managerial traits because women applicants are rated high on feminine attributes regardless of their attire. The language used by speakers affects how they are perceived. For instance, speakers of all kinds who use she instead of he can come to be seen as less socially attractive, although using they has no such effect. A study found that speakers who addressed the topic of engineering were regarded as more dynamic than speakers who discussed nursing. As public speakers, females were perceived as more credible than males especially more dynamic and more socially attractive. Male listeners were especially

harsh toward same sex speakers with respect to perceived competence. These findings may reflect the popular view that women generally display superior verbal skills.(b)
(b) Salter, M.M., Weider-Hatfield, D. and Rubin, D.L. (1983) Generic pronoun use and perceived speaker credibility, Communication Quarterly, 31(2): 180-84.

p.154 Expectations Cultural and social expectations enable speakers to interpret meaning during the course of a conversation. Ducharme and Bernard assert that these expectations are both part of the invoked context of the interaction and co-constructed during the interaction. This differs from the view that the relationship between speaker and situation are stable and produced by externally caused cultural rules and content.
Ducharme, D. and Bernard, R. (2001) Communication breakdowns: An exploration of contextualisation in native and non-native speakers of French, Journal of Pragmatics, 33: 82547.

p.156 Attitudes a. Tulvist et al (2003), in a study of Estonian, Swedish and Finnish mothers, showed that both ethnic origin and immediate social environment influenced mothers attitudes and behaviour towards the control of children. They also found an attitude/behaviour discrepancy. While mothers attitudes to children may not be obviously work-related, there is the possibility that the findings on ethnic origin, social environment and attitudes are generalizable.
Tulviste, T., Mizera, L., De Geer, B., Tryggvason, M-T (2003) A comparison of Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish mothers controlling attitudes and behaviour, International Journal of Psychology, 38(1): 4653.

b. Park (2000) applied the theory of reasoned action to cultural difference. The theory distinguishes social attitudes towards a behaviour (those attitudes which are displayed on social occasions and reflect the individuals assessment of others attitudes) from personal attitudes. Social attitudes are significantly related to subjective norms; personal attitudes are not. Members of a collectivistic culture tended to score higher on both subjective norms and social attitudes. However, the high score on subjective norms and social-attitudes does not necessarily contribute to predicting behavioural intention, which reinforces the weakness of the link between behaviour and attitudes.
Park, H. S. (2000) Relationships among attitudes and subjective norms: testing the theory of reasoned action across cultures, Communication Studies, 51(2): 16275.

p.157 Trust a. Interpersonal trust is a relatively enduring characteristic of given societies: it reflects the entire historical heritage of a given people, including economic, political, religious, and other factors. Interpersonal trust (with other cultural factors) is conducive to stable democracy, as the political culture literature has long claimed but could not demonstrate directly. Democratic institutions do not necessarily produce interpersonal trust. A society's political institutions are only one among many factors involved in the emergence of a culture of trust or distrust. Thus, although the United States has had democratic institutions throughout the twentieth century, interpersonal trust among the U.S. public has declined significantly during the past four decades.
Inglehart, R. (1999) Trust, well-being and democracy, in Warren, M. (Ed.) Democracy and Trust, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 88120.

b. Ahmed and Salas () tested the proposition, put forward by Francis Fukuyama (), that the higher the level of trust in a country the less corrupt, the more developed, and wealthier its economy will be. Using a one-shot and three-person public goods game experiment in India and Sweden, they studied trust and voluntary cooperation. The results showed that the average contribution was significantly larger in Sweden, implying a higher level of trust and cooperation in Sweden than in India; this finding was taken as

supporting the conjecture.

Ahmed, A.M. and Salas, O. (0) Trust in India and Sweden: an experimental examination of the Fukuyama conjecture Cross-Cultural Research

c. As Adler (2007) pointed out, within the same overall relationship there may be a combination of trust and distrust. For instance, On an individual and team basis, many firms hire employees with a high trust and high distrust relationship either for reasons of security, or compartmentalization of access to parts of the firm, or for strategic human resource compliance in privacy or intellectual property protection.
Adler, T.R. (2007) Swift trust and distrust in strategic partnering relationships: Key considerations of team-based designs, Journal of Business Strategies, 24(2)

p.158 Findings from a comparative survey of 153 Mexican and 177 US subjects showed that people from individualist cultures most valued willingness to trust an agent from outside ones group to act on ones behalf, while setting limits to trust. In contrast, people from collectivist cultures most valued setting the level of trust according to the relationship. These findings can be explained as follows: because people from individualistic cultures are relatively more comfortable moving among different groups, they need to balance prudent caution with the potential for gaining from mixing; and because individualistic cultures generally adopt a universalistic approach to value standards and think in terms of indistinct group boundaries, they feel relatively comfortable with institutional agents external to their immediate ingroup. People from collectivistic cultures, who are prone to particularism, and to invoking different value standards for in- and out-groups, do not trust external agents and do not consider it an important form of trust. On the other hand, for collectivists, the nature of the relationship and group membership is particularly relevant, and so relationship trust is the most valued.
Nicol, D. (1994)Trust: critical and cultural, URL: http://blue.temple.edu/~eastern/nicol.html.

Abilities Since the findings on cross-cultural differences in abilities are very few, I have omitted this topic in the third edition. This is the material from the 2nd edition: Those individuals who choose to be managers might be more similar in their business skills than they are to non-managers, independent of their national cultural or subcultural backgrounds. This view is supported by a study that found no relationship between managerial skills and national cultural backgrounds of managers in three countries.
Lubatkin, M.H., Ndiaye, M. and Vengroff, R. (1997) The nature of managerial work in three developing countries: a test of the universalist hypothesis, Journal of International Business Studies, 284: 71133.

p.158 Personality According to Draguns, Lee and McCauley (1999), studies of personality and studies of culture are [both] studies of human differences. Their book identified ten different research issues concerned with personality in culture. These were: perceived individual differences, perceived group differences, actual individual differences, actual group differences, validity of perceived individual differences, validity of perceived group differences, origin of perceived individual differences, origin of perceived group differences, origin of actual individual differences, and origin of actual group differences. These 10 research issues correspond to major subdivisions of psychology that are familiar under somewhat different designations.
Draguns, J.G., Lee, Y.-T. and McCauley, C.R. (1999) Personality and Person Perception across Cultures. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

p.159 Contrary to expectations, the greatest gender differences in traits like assertiveness were found in modern European countries and the least in traditional cultures (like South Korea). Earlier research showed that African-American women were more assertive than White American women. One explanation for this greater assertiveness can be based round social role theory - the theory that people's behaviour is strongly influenced by their normal social role. This theory suggests that gender stereotypes and differences in gender-related social behaviours can be traced to differing distributions of men and women into the employee role (which is associated with active (agentic) qualities) and the homemaker role (which is associated more with communal [supportive] qualities). Historically, African-American women have been more likely than White women in America to go out to work, often carrying a primary responsibility for supporting their families. These findings are an example of culture-gender interaction effects on communication.
Singhal, A., and Motoko, N. (1993) Assertiveness as communication competence: A comparison of the communication styles of American and Japanese students, Asian Journal of Communication 3(1): 118.

p.159 Identity and self-construals a. Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003) conceptualised identity as requiring identity work and struggle.
Sveningsson, S. and Alvesson, M. (2003) Managing managerial identities, Human Relations, 56(10)

b. Identities are dynamic and are created by the self and others in relation to group membership. Participants from ten collectivist cultures placed greater emphasis for their selfconstruals on family values than did those from the individualist cultures. However, this cultural difference was not found for social relationships. The expected gender differences, with females valuing family values and social relationships more highly, were found only for the individualist countries. The findings indicate that there may be a strong culture-level interaction effect between gender and individualism-collectivism on the nature of selfconstruals, and that the family and social aspects of self-construal in collectivist countries need to be considered separately.
Thompson, N. (2003) Communication and Language: A Handbook of Theory and Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

c. There is a major debate about the validity of the self-construal construct and its measurement. Three articles in Human Communication Research, 2003, Volume 29, cover this debate. i. Gender-role feminine women tend to select female-dominant careers that offer low status and limited opportunities. At work, such women receive approval from others and experience less interpersonal strain likely due to their socially prescribed behavior, but this femininity may undermine future career progress.
Gianakos, I. (2002) Predictors of coping with work stress: the influences of sex, gender role, social desirability, and locus of control, Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 42: 105979.

ii. Eisenberg (2001) criticised theories that treat the main function of human communication as uncertainty reduction, accomplished through the maximization of clarity, openness and understanding. He argued that these theories originate in a (Western) cultural flight from ambiguity, which emphasises instrumentality, intentionality and the autonomous self. From now on, social life will be characterized by a much broader view of information exchange . Less concerned with persuasion than connection, less focused on self than system, and less preoccupied with maintaining a fixed identity (of persons, organizations, nation-states) than with developing a robust but dynamic conception of identity that continually adapts to a turbulent environment. Clearly these ideas could be discussed in the context of AUM theory (Chapter 6) as well as identity.

Eisenberg, E.M. (2001) Building a mystery: Toward a new theory of communication and identity, Journal of Communication, 51:534550.

iii. Verkuyten (2002) found that boys had stronger ethnic identity than girls and ethnic identity was negatively linked to perceived discrimination for the boys but not for the girls. The study also found that more group than personal discrimination was reported independently of ethnic group, gender, allocentrism, and ethnic identity.
Verkuyten, M. (2002) Perceptions of ethnic discrimination by minority and majority early adolescents in the Netherlands, International Journal of Psychiatry, 37(6): 32132.

c. Linh et al (2002) found that ethnic group self-identification, negative and positive interracial experiences, perceptions of racial bias, social support, just-world beliefs, and psychological distress affected willingness to interact with people from a different ethnic background. The study demonstrated the usefulness of examining multidimensional aspects of ethnic identity. Findings: Different factors emerged as influential in predicting feelings of affirmation and belonging. Strong, socially supportive friendships were predictive of this aspect of ethnic identity (social identities are typically supported and sustained by a network of social relationships). African American students differed significantly from Caucasian students in having a higher sense of affirmation and belonging within their ethnic group. This finding addresses the protective nature of a group identity in situations in which the group is a numerical minority that is possibly faced with discrimination from the majority group. Finally, an unexpected finding was that high just-world beliefs predicted a stronger sense of affirmation and belonging within a student's own ethnic group. Perhaps major life experiences with racism and discrimination lead to an erosion of trust in others and to a sense of hopelessness and alienation. This study also showed how interracial experiences and beliefs influenced a student's interest in interacting with members outside his or her ethnic group. Ethnic group membership was the single most significant predictor of interest in other groups (explaining 10% of the variance). Greater prior positive interracial experiences and fewer prior negative experiences accounted for an additional 14% of the variance. Asian American, Hispanic, and multiracial students were significantly more interested than Caucasian students were in interacting with others outside their group. Students who held lower beliefs in a just world were also more open to interacting with other groups. This suggests that openness in interracial encounters may be facilitated by a cognitive understanding that unfair, undeserved things can happen to anyone and that individuals cannot always prevent bad outcomes through hard work. Research participants who had experienced more severe negative interracial experiences were less willing to interact with people outside their ethnic group, whereas those whose prior contacts had been positive were significantly more open to such interactions. Consequently, the authors argued, Negative interracial interactions may result in more segregation, greater alienation from others of different ethnic backgrounds, and an increase in suspiciousness and expectations of prejudicial treatment.
Linh, N., Littleford, M., O'Dougherty, W. {2002) Experiences and beliefs as predictors of ethnic identity and intergroup relations, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 30: 220.

p.160 In individualist models, the self comprises a unique, bounded configuration

of internal attributes, such as preferences, traits, abilities, motives, values and rights, and behaves primarily as a consequence of these internal attributes. Markus and Kitayama (1994) is at the centre of a storm alleging that they essentialized culture. I have touched on this in Chapter 1 but have not picked up anywhere on these points: The authors (a) argued that a groups cultural ideal of the relation between the self and the collective is pervasive because it is rooted in institutions, practices and scripts, not just in ideas and values; (b) showed how a given cultural ideal, whether it is independence or interdependence, can shape the individuals experience and expression of the self; and (c) discussed how a comparative approach may enrich and expand current theory and research on the intedependence between the self and the collective.
Markus R.H. and Kitayama, S. (1994) A collective fear of the collective: implications for selves and theories of selves, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5): 56879.

p.160 People with interdependent self-construals, such as the Japanese, may have less clarity about their selves than people with independent self-construals, such as Canadians. Satterwhite et al (2000) showed that collectivists perceived their in-group to be relatively less similar to themselves as compared to the individualists. The researchers proposed an explanation for this less than obvious finding in terms of the differential relationship between self- and other representations for people from collectivist versus individualist cultures. That is, they argued that collectivists self- and other- images are not distinct.
Satterwhite, R.C., Feldman, J.M., Catrambone, R. & Dai, L.-Y. (2000) Culture and perceptions of selfother similarity, International Journal of Psychology, 35(6): 287 93.

p.161 Ethnic identity is a complex cluster of factors that define the extent and type of involvement with one's ethnic group. Phinney (1996) contended that ethnic groups are often thought of as discrete categories to which people belong and that explain some aspects of psychological functioning. However, ethnicity is a complex multidimensional construct that, by itself, explains little. To understand its psychological implications, it is necessary to identify and assess those aspects of ethnicity that may have an impact on outcomes of interest. Phinney (1996) examined three key aspects of ethnicity: cultural norms and values; the strength, salience, and meaning of ethnic identity; and the experiences and attitudes associated with minority status. These aspects, it is claimed, are best understood in terms of dimensions along which individuals and samples vary, rather than as categories into which individuals can be classified. These dimensions clearly cluster together in ways that make ethnicity a highly salient and meaningful construct in [American] society. Yet the boundaries are blurred and flexible, and the implications of ethnicity vary widely across individuals. Therefore, to explain outcomes that are influenced by ethnicity, we need to explore at least three dimensions of difference that vary within and across ethnic groups. First, cultural norms and attitudes that may be influential in psychological processes need to be identified and measured to determine the extent to which they covary with membership in a particular group or sample and have an impact on specific outcomes. Second, the strength, salience, and meaning of individuals' ethnic identities, that is, their sense of belonging to their group, need to be assessed as variables that may impact psychological outcomes. Third, individuals' experiences as members of a minority group with lower status and power need to be considered, together with the ways in which individuals respond to and deal with such experiences.

As these dimensions are more clearly defined and studied within and across groups, we will begin to get a better comprehension of the role of ethnicity for psychology. Furthermore, a greater awareness that individuals vary along a number of underlying human dimensions and cannot simply be categorized by group membership could help to break down stereotypes and contribute to understanding among all people.
Phinney, J.S. (1996) When we talk about American ethnic groups, what do we mean? American Psychologist, 51: 91827.

Self-esteem p.164 It has been asserted that culture influences the perceived gap between our actual self and our ideal self, and so decides how we evaluate our self-esteem. Path analytic analyses found that Spanish respondents were, as expected, more collectivist than their British counterparts, and that self-esteem and life satisfaction were higher among collectivists. Collectivism predicted reported family support after an event and global perceptions of available support. Global perceived support and support from friends after an event were significant correlates of self-esteem, which along with global support and support from family members, was a significant correlate of life satisfaction. These findings underline the importance of analysing cultural values and the multiple components of social support when assessing the impact of culture on support.
Goodwin, R., and Plaza, S.H. (2000) Perceived and received social support in two cultures: collectivism and support among British and Spanish students, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 17(2): 28291.

p.164 Ethics and morality a. When discussing the question of cultural differences in ethics and morality, it may be necessary to clarify some terms. Ethics is concerned with the justification of actions and practices in specific situations. Ethics generally deals with the reasoning process and is a philosophical reflection on the moral life and the principles embedded in that life. (...) Morality ... generally refers to traditions or beliefs that have evolved over several years or even centuries in societies concerning right and wrong conduct. Morality can be thought of as a social institution that has a history and a code of conduct that are implicit or explicit about how people ought to behave.... Thus, if there are cultural differences in this area, they are in morality rather than ethics, despite the common usage that prefers terms such as business ethics.
Buchholz, R.A. and Rosenthal, S.B. (1998) Business Ethics, Englewood Cliffs NJ

p.165 A comparison of beliefs about distributive justice found differences between Hong Kong and Indonesia. Cultural differences in respondents perceptions were greater for the use of merit than for the use of need. Respondents from both cultures tended to rate the allocator more positively when resources were being given out than when resources were being taken away.
Murphy-Berman, V. and Berman, J. J. (2002) Cross-cultural differences in perceptions of distributive justice, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(2): 15770.

p.165 A study that compared Indian and American moral choices found cross-cultural differences in the priority given to interpersonal responsibilities relative to justice considerations. a. According to the researchers, the findings suggested that Indians possess a postconventional moral code in which interpersonal responsibilities are seen in as fully principled terms as justice obligations and may be accorded precedence over justice

obligations. The findings also suggest that a personal morality of interpersonal responsiveness and caring is linked to highly rights-oriented cultural views, such as those emphasized in the United States.
Miller, J.G. and Bersoff, D.M. (1992) Culture and moral judgment: how are conflicts between justice and interpersonal responsibilities resolved? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(4): 541554.

b. Other researchers found that in China, beliefs about distributive justice diverged strongly from those of US managers, regardless of organisational type (joint ventures or state-owned enterprises); in contrast, Russian managers beliefs varied with organisational type those in joint ventures converged with those of US managers, those in state-owned enterprises diverged.
Giacobbe-Miller, G.K., Miller, D.J., Zhang, W. and Victorov, V.I. (2003) Country and organizational-level adaptation to foreign workplace ideologies: a comparative study of distributive justice values in China, Russia and the United States, Journal of International Business Studies, 34(4): 389406.

c. Another study examined the developmental pattern of socio-moral reasoning in two different cultural settings. Results indicated that while individuals in the two differing cultural environments went through the stages of development in the same sequence, stage endorsement differed significantly.
Markoulis, D. and Valanides, N. (1997) Antecedent variables for sociomoral reasoning development: evidence from two cultural settings, International Journal of Psychology, 32(5): 301313.

p.165 Another study found cultural variation in the acceptability of most kinds of lies, although there was cross-cultural agreement that lies perceived as told for malicious or selfbenefiting purposes were unacceptable. Students from China and the United States rated the degree to which they perceived deceptive acts depicted in written scenarios as acceptable or unacceptable. Results indicated that 1) lies told for malicious or self-benefiting purposes were perceived as less acceptable than mutually-benefiting lies and lies that benefit others, and 2) culture and the type of relationship between liars and targets of lies interacted with motive for lying to affect the perceived acceptability of deception.
Seiter, J.S., Bruschke, J. & Bai, C. (2002) The acceptability of deception as a function of perceivers' culture, deceiver's intention, and deceiver-deceived relationship, Western Journal of Communication, 66(2): 158180.

4.2 SOCIAL COGNITION PROCESSES p.167 There are different kinds of personal attributions and these differ cross-culturally. Attribution researchers generally have been criticized for assuming that their understanding of attribution itself corresponds to their subjects' ideas. The criticism particularly has force in cross-cultural research. Because researchers' conceptualisations and measures are almost always Western-based and subjects' attributional models are not, the dangers of imposedetic research are present. p.168 Categorizing One concept that has had considerable impact on the field of communication is constructivism, which is based on Kellys (1995) personal construct theory (and the Kelly grid devised to measure personal constructs). The idea is that differences people perceive such as x is tall or y is short - are not natural but derived from predetermined sets of opposites within an individuals cognitive system, which contains many such distinctions. Constructs allow individuals to give meaning to experiences. They are learned through interaction with other people, so that culture impacts strongly on how people interpret their experiences. For example, culture has an effect on how finely different subjects are categorised - a well-known example is the many fine gradations in types of snow which are given names in the Inuit language; another is the way there are many common names in

English for different types of wild flower where the languages of desert people tend to have the one word flower. Another perceptual concept which has inspired much cross-cultural research and been incorporated into intercultural communication studies is that of field independence or dependence. Witkin et al. (1975) in a series of experiments, found that in an adjustment task some individuals were less distracted than others by the frame in which the object to be adjusted was placed. Those people who were little distracted Witkin et.al. (1975) called field independents; those who were more distracted were called field dependents. Later findings established that field independent people differed from field dependents in respect of social perception, too: they were more autonomous, self-oriented, even distant. Field dependent people, on the other hand, tended to display more sensitivity to contextual cues and to be more sensitive and empathic. Though rooted in heredity, socialisation and enculturation have a strong influence on whether someone is field independent or dependent. Field independence, for example, is more prevalent among hunter-gatherers than among agriculturalists and, in general, among men than women - a finding which Witkin attributed to socialisation rather than genes.
Kelly, G. (1955) The Psychology of Personal Constructs, New York: North. Witkin, H.A. and Berry, J.W. (1975)Psychological differentiation in cross-cultural perspective, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 6: 4-87.

p.169 there are (sub)cultural differences in what is learnt, how it is learnt and the degree to which mature adults remain open to such learning. For instance, if people believe that it is proper to accept the world as it is rather than to try to change it, learning based on problem-solving and future forecasting may be difficult. The relative emphasis placed on memorizing versus understanding, knowledge versus skill acquisition and passive versus active learning similarly varies across cultures, as it has, historically, within single cultures, such as Britains. In regard to formal learning, if, as in many central and eastern European countries, teachers are highly honoured and hierarchies are important, then people may be used to learning from a lecture rather than from the give and take of a discussion. One of the greatest difficulties experienced by Western academics and others attempting to inculcate Western business education methods in the transition economies has been to make workshops, case studies and other participative learning techniques effective.
Communicating Across Cultures at Work, 2nd edn.

p.169 Problem-solving processes Radford et al (1991, 1993) found differences in decision-making style between Australian and Japanese students. Consistent with US counterparts from earlier research, Australians favored the choice style, which emphasizes careful individual thought. The Japanese, however, reported greater use of three other styles, which all involved greater reference to others. As Yates & Lee also found, the Japanese were less confident of their decisions.
Jago A.G., Reber G., Bohnisch W., Maczynski J., Zavrel J, et al. (1993) Culture's consequence? A seven nation study of participation, Presented at The Decision Sciences Instititue, Washington, DC

p.169 4.3 CONCLUSION The text does not supply a critique of this area of behavioural factors. One such critique would be that in individualist psychology culture is treated as separate from cognition. This means that the understanding of culture within psychology and even cross-cultural psychology is impoverished. Individualistic [psychological] theories organize conceptual analyses around processes and structures within the individual or between a pre-given individual structure and the immediate

social environment (e.g., family, peers). If culture, or society, is considered at all, it is taken into account only after the fact, added on as a categorical variable that mechanically interacts, or is regarded as a mediating influence, along with gender, age, and socio-economic status. Since the 1960s, the relation between culture and thought or, more recently, cognition, has shifted from views of culture as external to, or interacting with, thought toward views that emphasize the radical inseparability of culture and cognition. This inseparability has been conceptualized in different ways: seeing culture as inherent in mind, culture as a set of practices emerging from the interaction of thought and action, or culture as the product of a person's efforts to interpret reality actively. Concurrent with moves to break down the dichotomy between culture and cognition by demonstrating the role of culture in perception, memory, language, and reasoning are efforts to bring psychological explanations into analyses of cultural meanings. In general, these new views go far beyond the impoverished concepts of culture employed in most psychological literature, where culture means people living in a certain region of the world (e.g., Latin American culture), people whose ancestors came from a certain region of the world (e.g., Latino culture in the United States), people who speak the same language (Anglo-American culture), and so forth. It is not an overstatement to say that these examples are representative of what is meant when research reports assert that cultural variables were taken into account.
Sloan, T. (2001) Culture, cognition, and psychological individualism, in SchumakerJ.F. and Ward, T. Cultural Cognition and Psychopathology, Praeger Publishers, 2001 p.316.