SKILL BUILDING EXERCISES IN INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 

Here are two brief exercises that might be interesting woven into discussions of culture and interpersonal communication:

Describing Cultural Attitudes

Attitudes strongly influence communication. Understanding your cultural attitudes is prerequisite to effective intercultural communication. One of the best ways to appreciate the influence of culture on communication is to consider the attitudes people have about central aspects of culture. In a group of five or six people—try for as culturally diverse a group as possible—discuss how you think most of the students at your school feel (not how you feel) about each of the following. Use a five-point scale on which 5 = most students strongly agree; 4 = most students agree; 3 = most students are relatively neutral; 2 = most students disagree; 1 = most students strongly disagree. Also, note any gender, affectional orientation, and racial differences.

______ 1.   Too many feminists are too sensitive about sexism.

______ 2.   Courses on “women’s studies” should be required in our schools.

______ 3.   Gay rights means gay men and lesbians demand special privileges.

______ 4.   Homosexuals have made many contributions to their societies.

______ 5.   Racism isn’t going to end overnight, so minorities need to be patient.

______ 6.   White people benefit from racism whether they want to or not.

Source: These statements were adapted from the Human Relations Attitude Inventory (Koppelman, 2005). The authors note that this inventory is based on an inventory developed by Flavio Vega.

 

Confronting Cultural Differences

Confronting intercultural differences is extremely difficult, especially because most people will deny they are doing anything inappropriate. Approach these situations carefully, relying heavily on the skills of interpersonal communication identified throughout this text. Here are a few cases of obvious intercultural differences and difficulties. Assume you’re a mediator and have been called in to help resolve or improve these difficult situations. How would you mediate these situations?

1.  A couple is in an interracial, inter-religious relationship. The family of one partner ignores their “couplehood.” For example, they are never invited to dinner as a couple or included in any family affairs. Neither the couple nor the family is very happy about the situation.

2.  The parents of two teenagers hold and readily verbalize stereotypes about other religious, racial, and ethnic groups. As a result, the teenagers don’t bring home friends. The parents are annoyed that they never get to meet their children’s friends. It’s extremely uncomfortable whenever there’s a chance meeting.

3.  A worker in a large office recently underwent a religious conversion and now persists in trying to get everyone else to undergo this same conversion. The workers are fed up and want it stopped. The worker, however, feels it’s a duty, an obligation, to convert others.

Cultural Sensitivity and the Cultural Defense

In Interpersonal Messages, I include this discussion prompt.

The Cultural Defense

Consider these two cases (Sikora, 2001): (1) A Chinese immigrant discovers that his wife has been unfaithful. In a rage, he kills his wife. His defense was that this is the way his culture has taught him to react to infidelity. (2) An Iraqi family flees to the United States to avoid a dictator and while in the United States their daughters (ages 13 and 14) are wed to Iraqi men in their 20’s, and their parents are charged with child abuse and delinquency of a minor. Their defense was that they were simply following Iraqi tradition which permits marriages of young girls of this age. If you were on the jury listening to these two cases, how would you respond? More generally, how do you feel about “cultural defenses”? Are there some cultural defenses you’d accept and others you would not?

More recently there appeared this news item of a man who prevented a rescuer from saving his drowning daughter so that she would not be touched by a “strange” man. This is an even more dramatic example and the question I would pose as a teacher is "How accepting and sensitive must we be of cultural differences and cultural practices?" If this man were brought to trial and you were the defense attorney, how would you defend your client? If you were the prosecutor, how would you prosecute this case?

Cultural Rules

Take a look at this article. It's a great example to use in class to illustrate the differences in cultural rules within the United States/Canada and the consequences of violating them.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/justin-bieber-revenge-blackhawks-fans-step-singer-face-234024433.html

Living Without the Internet

 

One way to introduce computer-mediated communication and its role in our everyday lives would be to identify important lifestyle habits that we’d be willing to give up as long as we could keep our Internet connection. It would be interesting to poll a class on this and compare the results for different age groups, for men and women, and even for academic major. Here, for example, are some interesting statistics, reported in the Harvard Business Review (October, 2012, pp. 32-33), on the percentage of people in various countries who would be willing to give up an important lifestyle habit to keep the Internet:

·         89% of those in Indonesia and 65% of those in the United Kingdom would give up alcohol instead of the Internet.

 

·         91% of those in the United Kingdom and 67% of those in India would give up fast food rather than the Internet.

 

·         56% of those in Japan would give up sex rather than the Internet but only 12% would in Brazil.

 

·         56% of those in China would give up driving a car (but only 10% in South Africa) instead of giving up the Internet.

 

·         86% of those in Japan and 59% of those in Brazil would give up chocolate rather than the Internet.

 

·         85% of those in China and 55% of those in Germany would give up coffee rather than the Internet.

 

·         78% of those in Indonesia but only 5% of those in France would give up showing rather that the Internet.

 

·         60% of those in Japan and 42% of those in France would give up exercise rather than the Internet.