Intercultural Conflict - A Review and Discussion of Models

Communication, a fundamental aspect of human interaction, is required for cooperation. Human beings’ ability to cooperate with one another is an empirically important part of the success of human society and is the singular vector of our dominance over the “lower” creatures. The fact that communication and interactions are also the basis of such incredibly damaging and intractable conflicts among human beings raises questions, then, about the extent of the success of our communication within human society. In the reading from “Intercultural Conflict” the statement that “communication plays a paradoxical role in most conflicts” cannot be over emphasized. Communication is required for both cooperation and conflict to occur. It is, perhaps, intuitively obvious that good communication strengthens relationships through building understanding and trust, which, in turn, engender and enhance cooperation. But, as the opening section regarding communication and conflict implies, the counterpoint is also true; bad communication causes conflict and “is the source of much relational stress and dissolution.” In imposing judgements about what is “good” communication versus what is “bad” communication one might be tempted to invoke a near tautology. Bad communication is that which causes conflict and good communication is that which engenders cooperation. But looking into and analyzing how “good” or “bad” communication is generated in order to attempt to increase communication that elicits cooperation is a meaningful scientific endeavor.

Before looking into the science we can look to popular culture to find attempts at improving communication. But an unfortunate feature of popular communication guidelines is that they get boiled down into meaningless or abstract concepts. The guideline is often whittled down to a single word, which, ironically, trades a lack of full understanding for ease of transmission. One term often used to describe good communication is “sensitive” communication. Attempts at being sensitive when communicating are said to focus around not hurting someone else’s feelings, or, more technically, communication that avoids generating negative emotions in the listener that would lead to resistance or resentment toward what is being said and, by association, towards the speaker. One issue raised as a criticism of sensitive communication is that by not challenging people on issues that may arouse negative emotions that person may be left with a limited view of the issue. We are seeing this debated now in terms of “trigger warnings” and “safe places”.

Another term is “empathic” communication. Empathic communication has also been held out as lowering the probability of generating negative emotions in the listener. Empathic communication involves attempting to put yourself in the place of the listener in order to attempt to understand how they might feel about what you are going to say. On it’s surface this seems an easy thing to accomplish, but, in fact, attempts at empathy are fraught with problems. The central problem with practicing empathic communication is that, without the other individual’s background and experiences, it can be difficult to quickly assess how that person might react to what you might consider a joke, giving simple instructions, or even giving a compliment. For example, it might be lacking in empathy to put someone on the spot and ask them to “say a few words” at a party or event. The lack of empathy here may stem from the fact that your experience with the individual has been that they seem quite comfortable in one-on-one communication with you and so, putting yourself in this other person’s shoes, you might assume that they would be delighted to speak in front of your mutual friends. But you may be unaware that this individual is very shy in groups. As such, a request that seems trite or even like an honor to you may be perceived as an attempt to embarrass the other person. Hence, this request could easily cause tremendous conflict inadvertently. A better approach to positive communication, in my experience, than either sensitive or empathic communication may be what I call a “no assumptions” communicative approach.

An example of “no assumptions” communication might start out by asking whether or not the individual has time to speak with you even if you had previously selected that time to talk to one another since circumstances might have changed for the other person. This can, of course, lead to the absurd rather quickly as you would not assume that someone does not speak English after you heard them speak English very well. We can fairly assume that this circumstance would not change. The goal of “no assumptions” communication would be to simultaneously incorporate sensitivity and empathy by treating each encounter with someone as a fresh opportunity to work together, learning along the way what works best for each of you in the endeavor.

“No assumptions” communication would be generated by pretending that you know nothing about the other individual and, as such, asking how any communication should proceed would be a logical first step. This would be regardless of how well you actually know the other individual, even if they are your life partner or your own child. Making no assumptions about another human being is not an easy thing to do, however, even when the other person is a complete stranger. Just the very high-level categorization of “human being” requires some assumptions, and it is very easy to start layering on additional assumptions based on the visual cues we get, even without any verbal communication. A person’s clothing or style of dress, skin coloring, hair styling, facial expressions, and a whole host of other cues set our brains in motion to begin categorizing and labelling another person. We begin to assess whether they are “old versus young”, “hip and trendy versus staid and stodgy”, “good-looking versus unattractive”, and even “nice versus mean” subconsciously on the basis of visual cues alone. And many of our assumptions and guesses are affected by things totally unrelated to the other individual such as the surroundings and whether or not we are hungry. In order to truly practice “no assumptions” communication we must first recognize that our brains are inclined to assumptions and biases.  We often must make conscious attempts to actively counter these biases, assumptions and categorizations in order to clear our brains of these impediments to good communication. This is no easy task and may be more art than science at this point in time.

Upon moving away from general interpersonal conflict into intercultural conflict we delve into an area where conflict can more easily be based on irrational behavior, and where communication becomes a salient means of avoiding conflict. Scientific research is resulting in predictive models of behavior that cause intercultural conflict. Researchers are also developing interventions that prevent or ease it. “Intercultural Conflict” specifically cites the work of Stella Ting-Toomey and John Oetzel, Young Yum Kim, Michael Hammer, Elizabeth Chua and William Gudykundst. Ting-Toomey and Oetzel have found that individuals who identify strongly with a group, whether that group is a religion, people who speak the same language, or people who are of the same ethnicity or cultural heritage, etc., tend to favor the practices, behaviors, and attitudes of that group. People who are ethnocentric will often use the practices of the group they identify with to “measure or gauge the worth of all other groups” and by extension, all other individuals. The article states, “Ethnocentric persons foster cooperative relations with in-group members while competing with, and perhaps even battling, out-group members.” Ethnocentricity, therefore, creates biases toward the in-group which creates “rigid, simplistic thinking” like stereotyping and unwarranted categorization. Ironically, Ting-Toomey and Oetzel suggest that using the in-group as a gauge fosters insecurity and raises fear of the members of the other group. As ethnocentric people observe the divergent behavior of out-group members, assumptions and irrational conclusions are quickly drawn (e.g. “they will steal our jobs” or “they are not patriots”). According to Ting-Toomey and Oetzel, intercultural conflict tends to occur when group membership factors influence how individuals approach, avoid, and manage conflict.

Another researcher, Young Yum Kim, has developed a model of intercultural conflict with three interdependent levels; the Micro, Intermediate, and Macro Levels. The model moves from an individual’s experience and identity in the first level, to the individual’s interpersonal interactions in the second, to the actions, experiences, culture, and history common to particular groups in the third and highest level. The model is employed to predict where and when intercultural conflict will arise and become a problem. Kim poses that “to the extent that groups are culturally distinct, the communicative (style) of the less powerful group will clash with those of the majority group members.”  This has been observed throughout history. The subjugation of minorities or technologically less advanced peoples can be thought of as the result of in-group bias. Rather than attempting to communicate with and learn from an out-group, a majority in-group may first employ avoidance tactics as a means of managing conflict. But avoidance can promote fear of the differences in the minority group’s culture, and the fear can evolve to feelings of threat. Threat results in the need to dominate, which is often expressed as aggression. Domination is considered an “Approach” tactic in conflict. Another management tactic by the majority group, known as “Suppression”, is less overt but is often equally as harmful to communication as “Dominance”. Suppression involves pressure, through political actions, legal rulings, or individual or group decisions on the part of the majority, to force the out-group to conform to the in-groups ways or to refuse interaction with the out-group. The unfortunate end result can be as dramatic as revolution, civil war, and riot or as subdued as structural racism and bigotry. Mutual distrust is often a precursor to intercultural conflict. Trust is built through relationship work, but differences in approaches to managing conflict can, ironically, contribute to the distrust.

An adjacent theory that explains intercultural conflict is known as Face Negotiation Theory. Within this theory, researchers use the term face as a proxy for the experience of positive self-image, self-concept, or identity during interpersonal communications. The idea of “saving face” is considered to be universal in interpersonal interactions and communications. Ting-Toomey’s work identifies three different senses of face: self-face, other-face, and mutual face. As the terms suggest, these three different concepts refer to the individual’s focus during communication and conflict. That is, whether the person is concerned solely with their own sense of self-worth in the interaction, whether they are concerned mostly with the other individual in the interaction, or whether their focus is on preserving each person’s sense of self worth simultaneously. Ting-Toomey and her colleagues maintain that all people attempt to maintain face during communication and negotiate face by using different tactics during the communication. The researchers find that people from more individualistic cultures are more concerned with self-face than other or mutual-face than are people from more collectivistic cultures. They also find that the overall concept of face and maintaining face becomes highly  relevant when the situation being addressed involves a high level of uncertainty.

An individual’s attempts to preserve their sense of self-worth during communication is known as Facework amongst the researchers. In times of conflict, Facework is employed when an individual’s sense of identity is attacked or threatened. Depending on the strength of the individual’s psychological connection to their in-group, an individual may feel that their sense of self is being threatened when, for example, she perceives that her in-group is being maligned, when she feels she exhibits a particular aspect of the culture of her in-group and that characteristic is being maligned, or when a negative characteristic is being attributed to her in-group as a whole. The individual will then employ Facework communication to defend their own face or to attack that of another. John Oetzel and Michael Hammer have studied Facework and has drawn several similar conclusions. Oetzel has categorized the types of facework strategies used in intercultural conflict: Dominating, Neglect, Avoiding, Obliging, and Integrating.  These different communication styles fall in different areas within a matrix of “Self-face Concern” versus “Other-face Concern”. Research has found that, in general, when both parties use an Integrating style that involves compromise, attempts to resolve conflict will look for mutually acceptable solutions, the win-win situation, and avoid or minimize conflict successfully.

Michael Hammer developed a model of intercultural conflict communication that incorporates the his Intercultural Conflict Styles (ICS) of communication. He employs a matrix framework where the vectors are spectrums. Along one axis is a spectrum of “Directness” of communication to “Indirectness”, and along the other axis is “Emotionally Restrained” communication to “Emotionally Expressive” communication. His work finds that the different styles of communication can be generally identified by two characteristics in the vectors, and therefore, fall into one of four quadrants in the matrix. For example, the “Discussion” style of conflict communication is generally associated with both Directness of communication and Emotional Restraint, whereas the “Engagement” style of conflict communication is associated with both Directness of Communication and Emotional Expressiveness. The Accommodation Style utilizes both Indirect communication and Emotional Restraint and, finally, the Dynamic Style is generally viewed to employ Indirect Communication and Emotional Expressiveness.

Another interesting facet of conflict communication that has been studied is high-context versus low-context cultures. Researchers Elizabeth Chua and William Gudykundst define a high-context culture as one where the individuals communicating focus largely on the non-verbal elements of the interaction. The Chinese people, in general, are considered to have a high-context culture. To illustrate the difference in a high-context culture versus a low-context culture, it may be considered rude to directly disagree with another in a high-context culture and the individual who openly expresses disagreement will lose face. In low-context cultures, like that of the United States, the verbal communication is relied upon to provide the entire basis of communication. Individuals tend to be more direct, and verbal disagreement is common. Clearly, individuals of varying cultural context would have difficulty resolving conflict if they fell to the extreme of either style.

It is clear from the research that intercultural conflict has many sources and characteristics. Knowledge of disparate cultural contexts is likely to have a positive impact on conflict resolution. The models of intercultural conflict should raise awareness of one’s own biases towards our in-groups. This should, in turn, help us to see that others might have the same biases and help us to adjust our mindset to be more open to out-groups. Awareness of different intercultural communication styles, and when they can be effectively used, can help individuals to generate sensitive, empathic, and even, perhaps “no assumptions” communication that should increase the success in attempts to avoid and mitigate conflict. As human beings, the primary source of our success is communication. Knowledge of the universal employment of Facework, active self-monitoring, and moving toward an Integrating style of communication and conflict resolution may help to decrease the stress involved in disagreement and reduce the dissolution of relationships. Acknowledging difference and adjusting communication accordingly can have a tremendous positive impact on the future success of society. The scientific research described in “Intercultural Conflict” and dissemination of communication strategies resulting from that work are tremendously valuable for that reason.

Intercultural Communication - Review of Research Toward a Meta-ethic

In their essay entitled “Ethical Issues in Intercultural Communication”, Judith N. Martin, Lisa A. Flores, and Thomas A. Nakayama discuss ethics within the context of communication between members of differing cultural groups. They explore a concern that there is currently no accepted meta-ethic to help guide decisions about good intercultural communication. These researchers acknowledge the daunting task of creating a meta-ethic of intercultural communication due to the tremendous differences in even what might appear to be fairly similar cultures. In reviewing general models of ethical communication they propose three “Principles for Ethical Intercultural Communication as a precursor toward a meta-ethic. In providing examples to consider as mental exercises, they allow the reader to raise their own awareness of some of the ethical issues people face in intercultural interactions.

The basic mechanistic model of communication involves a sender, a receiver, a channel, a message, and, potentially, noise. According to the authors, a successful communication is one where “the message received is the same as the message sent” despite any noise. Martin, et al, suggest that the differences in cultures can be a substantial source of noise. But cultural differences might not just cause noise that distort a message, they may even cause a message to be sent that is inappropriate and un-welcomed. Noise distortion and unintended messages may damage a valued relationship. Researching the sources of noise in intercultural communication, for example between a man and a woman, or between a religious person and an atheist, has helped social scientists develop a framework for a meta-ethic.

Martin et al explain that culture can have an impact on the ethics and morals of individuals of various cultural groups and that what is considered “right” within one cultural group might be considered “wrong” in another. It is not a stretch to assume, then, that differences in beliefs about right and wrong would impair successful communication. A hackneyed example might be from the differences in Japanese table manners versus American eating culture. In Japan, it is considered proper to pick up a small bowl and drink your soup directly out of the bowl, and slurping noodles has historically been considered a sign that you are enjoying them, whereas in the US a spoon would be used to eat soup regardless of the size of the bowl, and noodles are generally spun onto a fork and placed into the mouth whole. In China, the elders are served food first as a sign of respect and social position, whereas in Italy the patriarch of the household would be served first. In each of these cases, it might be considered rude, or even offensive, to utilize the standard behavior of the other’s culture. While tables manners are examples of indirect or non-verbal communication, the subtleties in what is considered rude or well-mannered in these areas belie the differences in the morals or ethics between cultures. In fact, the psychological model of communication views cultural differences as “filters that influence how messages are encoded or decoded.” Presumably, then, cultural differences in encoding and decoding can cause noise that distorts the message. This is especially so in cases where there are cultural differences regarding truth and honesty, and in what is considered violence or harm and what is not.

When considering what is ethical in intercultural communication, the main idea is to skillfully “deal with and minimize the impacts of cultural differences” in order to maximize understanding. Martin, et al, explain that the mechanistic and psychological models of general communication are individual-centered and thereby have certain limitations. The authors, therefore, explore the work of Metzger and Springston (1992) which reviews systems-based models of communication. “Systems models emphasize the interconnectedness of humans to each other and to their environment (the cultural context in which communication occurs).” The authors here clarify that Metzger and Springston feel that melding individual-centered models with social justice models would lead toward a more useful meta-ethic in intercultural communication.

Martin and colleagues then generate three principles for ethical intercultural communicators that embed more systems-based models: the Humanness Principle, the Dialogic Principle, and the Principle of speaking “with” and “to”. While the Humanness Principle seems self-explanatory, it is anything but. It, of course, is centered around the concept that all human beings should treat each other with respect and respond to uniqueness and difference with openness and peaceful discourse. I feel that the greatest challenges associated with this stems largely from a lack of intercultural interaction. People’s tendencies to interact with those most like them and with those logistically near to them dampens the opportunities for successful exchange of culture, ethics and communication style. The Dialogic Principle stresses relationships and emphasizes that relationships are between human beings. The Dialogic Principle suggests that empathy is required for successful intercultural communications and so is an overlay to respect in that empathy necessitates understanding the other and so requires time, caring, and engagement. The Principle of Speaking “with” and “to”. The distinction between speaking to someone versus speaking with someone is often lost in the activity itself. The practices of self-reflection and listening, practices necessary for speaking with someone and actually communicating, are very difficult. Understanding that our own social positions influence our communication requires us to “get outside of ourselves” and look at ourselves objectively.  This is not a skill that is generally taught, nor does it come naturally.  Our brains are evolutionarily designed to keep us safe from  outside threats, not inside ones. As for listening, the authors here state that, “people who are privileged are often less motivated to listen”. Their status and the ease with which they achieved it presumably contribute to the idea that everyone has the same opportunities. An unfortunate reality that all but shuts down learning within intercultural communication.

Related issues here come from digging further into the Dialogic Principle where the authors address cultural constraints, understanding contexts, and the awareness of power dynamics in intercultural interactions. I found the discussion of the role of power in intercultural communications of particular interest. The authors write that power “is an omnipresent but often hidden part of all intercultural interactions.” They even acknowledge that power, privilege, and position can contribute to scholars misinterpreting attributes of other cultures and warn readers of scholarly articles discussing other cultures to be skeptical. Power dynamics will play a tremendous role in intercultural interactions and yet often go unnoticed. We know, for example, that often times employees do not tell their bosses when they think the boss is wrong. If this happens among people of the same culture, it will certainly be amplified when cultures clash. Power is often attributed to people irrationally through a title like “Manager” or “expert” or even from some characteristic like their height, wealth, or appearance. And it can come from the attitude of either party in an interaction. A person can behave in a manner that suggests that they feel that they have power or a person can behave in a manner that projects that they feel they have no power. Either behavior gives one human being an advantage over the other. Communication among people who feel as though they are equals is often fairly productive. It is, however, apparently quite rare.

In attempting to develop a general meta-ethic for intercultural communications, scholars have a daunting task. Cultures often differ in what they consider moral (right and wrong) and can differ in their basic understandings of truth and honesty. With such fundamental differences, researchers are faced with finding ever more overarching principles to attempt to use as guides. Humanness, something so seemingly basic that we believe it should be assumed, is often completely disregarded in communication.  In these circumstances we talk “to” one another rather than “with” and the result is surely misunderstanding. The ultimate goal of communication is cooperation. Therefore, ethical communication requires that we seek to understand one another. The development of a common meta-ethic for intercultural communication is a noble endeavor and would be a highly valuable structure for society. Martin et al have created a basic framework, but implementation would require teaching intercultural communication skills to all as a social policy. Ironically, this requires a change in all cultures.