Managing Intercultural Conflict. Becoming More Intercultural

What happens when there is conflict in intercultural relationship? One option involves distinguishing between productive and destructive conflict in at least four ways. First, in productive conflict, individuals or groups try to identify the specific problem; in destructive conflict, they make sweeping generalizations and have negative attitudes. For example, in an argument, one shouldn’t say: ”You never do the dishes”, or “You always put me down in front of my friends”. Rather, one should state the specific example of being put down: “Last evening when you criticized me in front of our friends, I felt bad”.

Second, in productive conflict, individuals or groups focus on the original issue; in destructive conflict, they escalate the conflict from the original issues and anything in the relationship is open for reexamination. For example, guests on talk shows discussing extramarital affairs might start by citing a specific affair and then expand the conflict to include any number of prior arguments. The more productive approach would be to talk only about the specific affair.

Third, in productive conflict, individuals or groups direct the discussion toward cooperative problem solving (“How can we work this out?”); in destructive conflict, they try to seize power and use threats and deception (“Either you do what I want, or …”).

Finally, in productive conflict, individuals or groups value leadership that stresses mutually satisfactory outcomes; in destructive conflict, they polarize behind single-minded and militant leadership. In many political conflicts, such as those in the Middle East, people seem to have fallen into this trap, with leaders unwilling to work toward mutually satisfactory outcomes.

Intercultural competence is the degree to which an individual is able to exchange information effectively and appropriately with individuals who are culturally dissimilar. Individuals vary widely in their ability to communicate with culturally unalike others.

The purpose of most research, training, teaching in the field of intercultural communication is to improve the intercultural competence of individuals. One of the most important skills for cultural competence is the ability to suspend our assumptions about what is “right”. The greater the range of alternatives to which we are exposed, the more choices we have for deciding what makes sense for us. Knowing another culture gives you a place to stand while you take a good look at the one you were born into. Anthropologists are taught to be nonjudgmental about cultural differences. Even though they may study a culture that has sexual practices considered bizarre by European/North American standards, anthropologists seek to understand the functions fulfilled by these sexual practices from the point of view of the culture in which they occur.

We live in a world that is increasingly diverse in a cultural sense. Large cities, for example, have diverse population. Improved communication technologies and transportation make intercultural contact increasingly common. This trend will continue in the future; the “global village” becomes more real every day. If individuals could attain a higher degree of intercultural competence, they would become better citizens, students, and so forth. Society would be more peaceful, more productive, and become a generally more attractive place in which to live. Individuals would be better able to understand others who are unlike themselves. Through such improved understanding, a great deal of conflict could be avoided, the world would be a better place.

If you want to become more interculturally experienced you should learn about individuals unlike yourselves, make friends with them, take vacations in other nations (go on student exchanges, study at foreign universities). Contacts with culturally different people provide an opportunity to become more interculturally competent, but they do not guarantee it. Our ability to learn from other individuals depends on our ability to overcome the barriers of culture.

Willingness to expand one’s skills to include intercultural communication is an essential first step in overcoming barriers to intercultural communication. Intercultural contact in many cases leads an individual to become more ethnocentric, prejudiced, and discriminatory. Even when we are aware of the barriers that make intercultural communication particularly difficult, we may mistakenly attribute problems to other people rather than examining our own skills or lack of them. Misunderstandings are as likely to result from intercultural contact as are understandings. Thus one of the most important barriers to intercultural competence is ethnocentrism.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the degree to which other cultures are judged as inferior to one’s own culture. Ethnocentrism can lead to racism and sexism. Racism categorizes individuals on the basis of their external physical traits, such as skin color, hair, facial structure, and eye shape, leading to prejudice and discrimination. Sexism is the assignment of characteristics to individuals on the basis of their sex, such that the genders are treated unequally. In many cultures, the female gender is treated as inferior and subjected to prejudice and discrimination.

How can ethnocentrism, racism and sexism be decreased or eliminated? Decreasing ethnocentrism is usually not just a matter of increased information but rather one of bringing about an emotional change on the part of the individuals involved. Greater contact between unalike individuals may be one means to lessen ethnocentrism. Many individuals study other national cultures or travel to visit them because they think that closer contact will help them toward better understanding of an unalike culture. However, the nature of such intercultural contact is an important determinant of whether such travel decreases or increases ethnocentrism toward the culture that is visited. Many tourists who visit another culture for a brief period, often without knowing the language, become more ethnocentric toward that culture. Language competence, contact over a lengthy period of time, and a more intense relationship with members of the foreign culture (such as through close personal friendships) can help decrease ethnocentrism. The key is that only positive contacts produce positive feelings about another culture.

The various elements of a culture are integrated so that each element generally makes sense in light of the other elements. When a stranger encounters only one cultural, independently of the other elements, it may seem exotic, unusual. Only when the outside observer experiences and understands all the cultural elements, does that culture make sense. This level of cultural understanding can be achieved more fully if an individual has fluency in the language that is spoken and has had extended personal contact. Only then can the stranger perceive all of the elements of an unfamiliar culture and understand that the totality is coherent.

The nature of contact also applies to the case of ethnocentrism toward another religion, race, or any outgroup within one’s own society. Just as most individuals have only limited, and socially distant, contact with foreigners. Direct, personal (one-on-one) contact with an unalike other can decrease ethnocentrism.

More individuals today have the opportunity to meet people from another culture. Frequently the reasons for increased contact are related to studying or working abroad. The special cultural patterns created, shared, and learned by individuals who have lived in a culture other than their own have been termed “third culture”. Someone who was born in the United States and then lived in India has a third culture experience in common with another individual who was born in Japan and then sojourned in Mexico.

Most people learn the third culture as adults when they sojourn abroad. Their children may learn the third culture by accompanying their parents on the sojourning experience. Third culture young people have much in common and, in fact, often marry each other. Third culture individuals are unusually tolerant and understanding of cultural differences. They are less likely to think in terms of borders between ingroups and outgroups.

Some individuals have a third culture from birth. Biracial children, for example, can often operate effectively within each of their parents’ cultures and can connect the two. Biracial people, who never leave their home nation, have a third culture. In the United States, the number of interracial marriages is increasing, as is the number of multiracial children. Today there are more than two million people of mixed racial ancestry in the United States; this number may be a substantial underestimate.

Ethnocentric attitudes are firmly entrenched in cultural norms and thus are extremely difficult to change. Change is not, however, impossible. One means of decreasing ethnocentrism is intervention through training. There are courses designed to help individuals understand the nature of their ethnocentric beliefs.

Intercultural communication training must be highly experiential in order for it to increase intercultural competence. Thus intercultural communication courses often use simulation games, exercises, videos, and other types of learning in which another culture can be experienced by the learner. In other words, if intercultural communication training is to have an effect on individuals’ behavior, the unalike culture must be experienced. One cannot just talk about intercultural communication. One has to do it.

The variable of ethnocentrism versus ethnorelativism is marked by a series of stages through which an individual may pass.

1. A denial of cultural differences, in which there is little contact with unalike others.

2. An evaluative defense against understanding cultural differences, because they may be threatening to one’s view of the world. An individual may say, “I don’t want to understand what those people think. They are so different from us”.

3. A minimization of cultural differences, through which cultural similarities are stressed.

4. The acceptance of cultural differences, which are acknowledged and understood.

5. The adaptation of one’s thinking and behavior to cultural differences.

6. The integration of cultural differences into one’s own worldview, so that one’s identity is both a part of, but apart from, the different culture, and a new “third culture” perspective replaces the native culture perspective.