跨文化交际第四章

Chapter 4: Cultural Diversity In Perception

⏹Understanding Perception

⏹Dominant American Cultural Patterns

⏹Diverse Cultural Patterns

Understanding Perception

⏹Culture and Perception

⏹Beliefs

⏹V alues

⏹Culture Patterns

⏹Perception is an internal process whereby we convert the physical energies of the world into meaningful internal experiences. or the process by which an individual selects, evaluates, and organizes stimuli from the external world.

Cultural influence on perception

⏹The influence of culture on perception is often reflected in the attributional process. Attribution means that we interpret the meaning of other’s behaviors based on our past experience or history.

⏹Culture provides an environment for us to develop all the meanings we possess. Thus ,people from different cultures will perceive and interpret others behaviors in different ways

⏹The different attributional process may cause serious misunderstandings

in communication.

⏹Culture and perception

⏹Perception includes two –stage sequence.

⏹The first stage is recognition or identification, the second stage is the interpretation and evaluation.

⏹The result of this process is not the same for all people, because this process is learned and therefore influenced by all of our past experiences. This fact alone would make communication difficult even between people with similar backgrounds.

⏹In a word, culture provides us with a perceptual lens that greatly influences how we interpret and evaluate what we receive from the outside world.

Examples:

⏹Americans u sually hold that expressing one’s opinion as openly and forcefully as possible is an admirable trait. Hence , someone is perceived as being highly credible if he or she is articulate and outspoken. For the Japanese, a person who is quiet and spends more time listening than speaking is more credible because they regard constant talking as a sign of shallowness.

Beliefs

⏹Beliefs are our convictions in the truth of something---with or without proof.

⏹We simply accept them because we “know they are true.” “ To kn ow is not to prove, nor to explain.”

⏹In other words, as we grow up in a culture, that culture conditions us to believe what it deems to be worthy and true.

V alues

V alues are enduring attitudes about the preference of one belief over another.

⏹V alues are a learned organization of rules for making choices and for resolving conflicts.

⏹These “rules” are normative and teach us what is useful, good, right, wrong, what to strive for, how to live our life, and even what to die for. Our values get translated into action.

Dominant American Cultural Patterns

⏹Individualism

⏹Equality

⏹Materialism

⏹Science and technology

⏹Progress and change

⏹Activity and Work

Individualism

⏹Individualism refers to the doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to be paramount, and that all values, right, and duties