9.2: Outline

9.1: Intercultural Communication and Relationship

A. Establishing relationships with people different from us can be challenging and rewarding. Building relationships across cultures is influenced by our society and identity.

B. Relationships are hard work that require constant upkeep and maintenance through communication. What is said and done becomes part of the relationship. Inaccurate interpretations of messages can lead to misunderstandings and conflict, but the potential reward of new cultural knowledge.

C. There are benefits and challenges to intercultural relationships, different types of intercultural relationships, and strategies for building solid intercultural relationships.

1. Benefits of Intercultural Relationships

A. Increasing Cultural Knowledge

1. Intercultural relationships can open us to learn more about the world. One can experience new food, music, games, sport, or dialect.

2. The new “history” you learn can ground the stories you hear from friends or family rather than through school or television.

B. Learning New Skills

1. New skills are required to adjust to difficulties in intercultural relationships.

2. Newfound understanding of one culture will make it more likely make it easier for you to relate to people from other cultures.

C. Challenging Previously Held Stereotypes

1. Intercultural relationships can help us rethink stereotypes. Differences can be challenging, but when the relationship is focused on the similarities, the relationship can be strengthened and preconceived stereotypes can be broken down.

2. Challenges in Intercultural Relationships

A. Perceived Differences

1. Perceived differences within intercultural relationships can create anxiety and uncertainty, and it takes effort to find similarities.

2. Anxiety levels can be higher if people have previous negative experiences. Once similarities are uncovered, the tension can begin to balance out and anxiety lessen.

B. Motivation

1. Intercultural relationships take more work to nurture and maintain, therefore motivation is essential. All differences and similarities must be explored and explained. This requires time, effort, and patience.

C. Negative Stereotypes

1. Negative stereotypes are powerful, take a conscious effort to detect, and can hinder progress towards relational developmen

2. There are ways to reduce stereotyping discrimination within relationships.

a. Know the facts

b. Be aware of your attitudes and behavior

c. Choose your words carefully

d. Educate others

e. Focus on the positive

f. Support people

g. Include people

3. Intercultural relationships are not impossible. It is critical to affirm the other person’s cultural identity and recognize that the other person has different values. Beliefs, values, and behaviors that form their individual and cultural identities.

D. Common Types of Intercultural Relationships

1. Intercultural relationships between people with different cultural identities include romantic partners, friends, family, and coworkers.

2. Friendships and romantic relationships are the two most common types of intercultural relationships.

a. Intercultural Friendships: Friendship is a unique and important type of interpersonal relationship that constitutes a significant portion of a person’s social life from early childhood all the way through late adulthood. It is different from other relationships because it is voluntary and a person can begin or end a relationship when desired.

i. Every culture has a different idea of what constitutes a friend that is rooted in the values of individualism and collectivism. Individualistic viewpoints see friendship as a voluntary decision that is more spontaneous and focused on individual goals. Americans that follow individualistic tendencies, form relationships quickly and can be informal, forward, intrusive, and superficial.

ii. Collectivists view friendship as a long-term obligation that involves mutual gain. Collectivistic Asian cultures emphasize indirect communication patterns and more stress on maintaining soul relationships, sincerity, and spirituality.

b. Friendship and Cultural Complexity: Intercultural friendships can be hard to start, develop, and maintain, however, different cultures can have similar views on friendship.

i. Previous intercultural experience increases the likelihood of intercultural friendship. More time is needed for friendships that cross nationalities for common understanding due to language barriers.

ii. Communication exchanges through self-disclosure and increase as friendship progresses.

iii. Cultural differences can enhance friendship development. Broadening one's perspective and learning about other cultures is not balanced. Intercultural friendships highlight the complexity of culture and the importance of being mindful of your communication and the context that it occurs in.

9.2: Intercultural Romantic Relationships

A. Similar to intercultural friendships, each culture has a different viewpoint of romantic relationships. Romantic relationships are “voluntary” and most cultures stress the importance of openness, mutual involvement, shared nonverbal meanings, and relationship assessment.

1. Facilitating Factors

A. Different factors draw you to a person such as physical attractiveness. The idea of attractiveness is different for each person.

B. Similarity is more than physical attractiveness and means sharing personalities, values, and preferences. Research has shown that we are attracted to those we perceive as similar to ourselves.

C. Complementarity is the idea that we are attracted to people that are different from us. There are conflicting studies that show the desire to find someone different that can complete us and the opposite, most people are not interested in dealing with people that are not like us

D. Proximity refers to how often people are around each other and has more impact on relationships.

E. Reciprocal liking is the idea that we tend to be attracted to people who are attracted to us.

F. Resources are the final attraction foundation. It refers to qualities such as a sense of humor, intelligence, kindness, and supportiveness.

2. Individualism and Collectivism in Romantic Relationships

A. Individualistic cultures view togetherness as important as long as it doesn’t interfere with one's autonomy.

B. Collectivistic cultures often prioritize the value of “togetherness” for romantic partners. Family approval can make or break a relationship. Individual happiness is important but only can be fully realized within the family system

3. Conflict in Intercultural Relationships

A. Intercultural marriages and couples are increasing. Negotiating through the differences can be challenging. There are four distinct conflict styles that intercultural couples use to negotiate through differences.

1. Submission style is the most common and involves one partner abdicating power to the other’s culture or cultural preferences. Although the most popular, it rarely works because submission involves denying one’s own culture.

2. Compromise style means that both people sacrifice some aspect of their life. Each person gives up some culturally bound habit or value.

3. Obliteration style is when both partners try to erase the other’s original culture and create a new culture.

4. Consensus style is the ideal and is based on negotiation and mutual agreement and neither has to abandon their own culture.

4. Gay & Lesbian Relationships

A. There has been more research done on heterosexual or cisgender intercultural friendships and romantic relationships than gay or same-sex intercultural relationships. The four areas that differ between the relationships are:

1. Importance of close relationships

2. Conflict management

3. Intimacy

4. The role of sexuality

B. Every culture can have a vast difference in how they support, accept, and categorize attraction and sexual relations between persons of the same gender.

C. Although the acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships is becoming more common, there is still prejudice and discrimination that same-gender relationships face.

D. One of the challenges for LGBTQ individuals is the fear of disclosing their sexuality because of the potential discrimination. If people are not comfortable disclosing their sexuality, then they are less likely to meet others that are the same as them. Another challenge is the lack of legal support and resources for gay and lesbian couples.

E. Despite the challenges, gay and lesbian relationships are similar to heterosexual relationships. People seek similar qualities in potential mates and experience similar degrees of relational satisfaction.

5. Interracial Relationships

6. Interracial relationships have existed throughout history, there have been more taboos in the United States between African Americans and white people than any other group.

A. Antimiscegenation laws were common and made it illegal for people of different racial/ethnic groups to marry. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that these laws are unconstitutional.

B. Relational satisfaction is not different for interracial partners, although the challenges they face can be stressors that are not as strong for intercultural partners.