Challenges in Intercultural Communication

To improve our cross cultural communication, we need to be more flexible in our communications, as this course has pointed out thus far. There is more to this, however. We also need to find a way to reduce the bias that clouds our appropriate intercultural interpretations and communications. This lesson focuses on developing a greater understanding of biases that we tend to hold against out-groups to lay a foundation for improving our own intercultural communication. Most people would agree that at some point in their lives, they have been on the receiving end of discrimination. (If you have not, perhaps it is time you ventured beyond the protected gates of your immediate community, into communities of homogeneous other cultural identities and ethnicities.) However, most people would respond to the question of whether they are prejudiced with a resounding, "No!" This observation carries two important points.

First, we usually experience anxiety when interacting with someone from another culture because our knowledge base about that culture is lacking. Perhaps our stereotypic information needs updating. This lack of knowledge can lead to misunderstanding and lack of competent communication. When we do not have enough information about those from another culture, our cultural or ethnic-racial identity separation and distinctiveness may be triggered. This leads to discriminatory treatment.

Second, when we do not have enough information about this unfamiliar culture, we may resort to stereotypes. Though often grounded in some seed of truth, generalizations about cultural groups are often inaccurate.

Tendencies of human perceptions