2.6. Cultural Knowledge and Stereotypes

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En provenance du cours de National Research University Higher School of Economics

Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication

40 notes

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication

40 notes

In the course “Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communications": we will: 1) Build skills in the analysis of the intercultural communication process using Russian-Western communication as an example. 2) Apply the knowledge of interrelations between different contexts of communication (cultural, institutional, professional, social, interpersonal, etc.) to the cultural history and national psychology of Russians. The purpose of the course is to provide the students with a broad overview of the basic principles governing the past, the present and the future interactions between Russia and the West, with a focus on the culture and national psychology of Russians and Western Europeans. For example, we will look at the cases when basic cultural values of Russians show up through the linguistic choices shaping language production which is consequently misattributed by Western partners. No matter what the language of intercultural communication is – Russian, or English – the meaning of many linguistic expressions may be reconstructed wrongly by the representatives of another culture. Some of the basic questions we will tackle are: • What are the concepts of culture that have the strongest influence on communication? • What are Russian basic cultural values and how they shape modern Russian consciousness? • What are the specific communication patterns of modern Russians, including those of public and electronic discourse? • What is important to know about communication with Russians in organizational contexts? Importantly, this course is NOT just a list of practical instructions of dos and don’ts of dealing with Russians. The course contains a substantial academic component introducing the key notions and concepts of the Theory of Communication, which will be extensively introduced throughout the first few modules of the course. These theoretical grounds will be further on used as a tool for analyzing the intercultural communications with Russians.

À partir de la leçon

Culture in Intercultural Communication

This lecture will focus around Culture per se and the language we need to be able to discuss it. The more complex and less formalized is the subject of the discussion, the more crucial are its instruments. We will introduce various dimensions that are applicable to different cultures and will also start to discuss the Russian culture in these terms. Starting this week we will also present short interviews of Prof. Bergelson's with people (non-Russians culturally) who have lived and worked in Russia, and who will serve as experts on various issues and contexts of communication with Russians. As stereotypes are one of the central concepts in the cross-cultural discourse, this week we will see interviews centered on this topic. The experts you will meet -- and not only this week -- are Anna Skaya (CEO VisualDNA Russia), Michael Johnston, (Private Equity Sector Lead Director of Strategy at Deloitte), and Ilya Gnoensky who specializes in crisis management.

2.5 Culture's Consequences14:18

2.6. Cultural Knowledge and Stereotypes13:51

2.7. Interview: Stereotypes about Russia, Expats' Opinions (A. Skaya and M. Johnston)7:10

Rencontrer les enseignants

Mira Bergelson
Professor
Philological Faculty

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Our next item is cultural knowledge.

By this we understand an enormous and pervasive variety of facts and

information that makes what we consider to be our culture.

So just everything that we know about life, which makes it individual, specific,

and determined by the place where we were born, where we were socialized.

This is important because this amount of knowledge, this huge amount of knowledge,

information, data, facts, memories, process, and so on and so

forth, they determine our communicative competence.

Because the communicative competence based on

the language that we speak is still very much supported by

the culturally determined knowledge of facts and data.

Some of them are really special, we can call them pre-packed and

processed cultural knowledge.

And this pre-packed and

processed cultural knowledge is what we know under the term of stereotypes.

Stereotypes are indeed easy to study.

They're easy to see, and that's why to study.

This is what we usually think of when we first think of some foreign culture or

some group of people that we understand make group.

We usually have certain all ready well packed and

ready to use facts about this group.

What do these facts reflect?

They always reflect the mind of those, the mind,

the mindsets of those people who are judging, who are making the stereotypes.

Sometimes they are real facts and

real things about those who are being judged.

This is a very important thing to remember.

When we have certain stereotypes,

sometimes it says more about us in our culture, not necessarily negative things,

but something about us, then about another group of people.

For instance, when British specialists in management would write in

their descriptions of Russian managerial culture that Russians are very emotional,

they mean something that tells us a lot about themselves.

How they proceed in various negotiations, various conversations,

how they see things that, for instance, from Russian perspectives,

don't look emotional, and have another explanation.

For instance, being able to express attitude towards facts.

So, by saying this, the people who pronounce these words actually

tell us a lot about their own culture.

Because, of course, we always look at some other situation,

at some other cultural group and its behavior,

from our ethnocentric positions, sometimes even not knowing about it.

What is also important is that the valid part of the stereotype is a statistical

statement about a group,

it is not the prediction of the properties of particular individuals.

At best, the statements with their valid parts are half truths.

It doesn't mean that stereotype are negative things.

There are positive and negative aspects of stereotyping.

Of course, positive thing is that it's really a pre-packed and

processed knowledge, so it allows us to easily enter into communication,

into interaction with some already before that unknown part of unknown group.

So it makes it easy for us to start this interaction.

Negative aspect is, of course,

that in a way predisposes us to see certain things and not see other things.

Also there are positive, negative or neutral stereotypes in their own,

as a description of the facts that are being included into it.

Here we are entering into the field, into the area of assessing

information as being positive, there's good, or negative, bad.

Neutral stereotypes are neutral, that's clear.

For instance, and it doesn't mean whether they're correct or not.

We are not looking at the correctness of this stereotype for the moment.

We're just saying whether they're so to say good or bad.

Neutral stereotype, they say, okay, I don't know.

For instance, these are these group of people like to drink milk.

Okay, drinking milk is not bad, not good.

It's just nothing.

But there are positive stereotypes.

These people are very friendly.

Americans are very friendly, say Russians.

It's a positive stereotype.

Negative stereotypes.

As it seen by Russians, what American think about Russian.

Russians don't smile.

Don't ask me now, why?

Not smiling is bad and smiling is good.

Probably there is something about basic, that is human nature,

we believe that smiling is good and not smiling is bad.

Okay, at the moment, that's enough.

We don't describe whether smiling is good or not smiling is bad.

It will come to us later.

Also stereotypes can be divided into heterostereotypes and autostereotypes.

Well this [INAUDIBLE] just say stereotypes that a group of people have about

themselves, like what Russians think about Russians, what Finns think about Finns.

And heterostereotypes is what one group thinks about another group and vice versa.

By the way, beat heterostereotypes, or autostereotypes.

Beat positive, or negative, or neutral stereotypes can be misleading.

You can ask me why positive stereotypes can be dangerous and misleading.

They are misleading, and that's why they are dangerous, but

they can be dangerous because you make your presumptions and

then you act according to these presumptions.

And it may lead you to mistake, which means you will not be successful.

For instance, thinking that Americans are so nice and

friendly people because they smile all the time,

a positive heterostereotype that Russians have about Americans, so to say, may

lead you to the situation when you expect this person to be really friendly to you.

When after smiling and having nice conversation you expect that now

this person is your close friend and you may ask him or her about something and

expect that he or she will spend time with you.

But that was the stereotype will get you into will get you

problems because they didn't mean it.

They are not so nice only because they smile.

They can be nice or

not nice, it doesn't depend on the amount of smiling in this situation.

So two-step mistakes of stereotyping deal exactly with this.

The first mistake we can do is relying on a stereotype and

believe this is true that because Americans smile,

they will be nice to us in the situations that we consider that

belong to the situation when people smile to you.

But they are not consider to be the situations like that by Americans,

not Russians.

So this is the first mistake you can do.

And then the second, the second step in mistakes with stereotypes is about

ascribing the specific situation that you are dealing with, the specific

individual with whom you are interacting to be acting according to this stereotype.

So, if you believe that all Russians don't smile and not smile at all,

then you find a person and you believe that he would be not smiling to you.

And when she smiles, you ascribe some other meaning to this effect, because,

but these people, this person doesn't belong to

the stereotypical behavior that Russians would express in this situation.

So, that's how we can make two type of mistakes,

one following from another, relying on stereotypes.

Now let's look at the results of a research that was conducted

in 93 at Finnish universities, but with Finns and Russians,

with the heterostereotypes they have about each other.

We're interested in Russians, so we take those stereotypes that are about Russians.

How Finns perceive Russians.

They see them as backward, and artistic, lazy, and hospitable,

bureaucrats, emotional, cautious, suspicious, joyful,

power seeking, liars, strong, ready to cooperate, closed.

Very different features, don't make any actually, Connected picture,

pictures in which you can see something concise, something comprehensive.

Well, there are some clusters that you could probably make on these pictures, but

still not much information.

And of course, this type of research where you would get such information is not

the absolutely measured instrumental objective research.

It just gives you ideas.

What is interesting is that, at the same research, in the same research,

they would ask Russians about their autostereotypes.

How Russians perceive themselves.

And here we see very much, we see a lot of differences between

the heterostereotypes that Finns would have about Russians and

autostereotypes that Russians would have about themselves.

And, as you may see on this slide,

it does mean that Russians see themselves better than say Finns see them.

Well, they say that we can survive all hardships, we are patient, loyal,

wide thinking, well educated, flexible, mobile, this is pretty good.

But they're also not goal-oriented.

We have I don't care orientation, no discipline, politically passive,

depressed.

There is a lot of hierarchy and a lot of authoritarian behaviors and practices.

So this is not just good versus bad.

When speaking about stereotypes, we also need to mention one thing that

differs stereotypes from generalizations, from general knowledge.

Otherwise, it would be hard to make any abstract reasoning if we are aware

of stereotypes, and at the same time we need to make certain generalizations,

especially when you deal with such a heterogeneous,

such a huge and amorph thing as culture.

If stereotypes is a belief about a person or group considered to typify or

conform to one pattern, lacking any individuality.

Generalization, or general idea, general information,

something is slightly different.

It's an idea, having general, not specific implication.

And when you apply it to an individual, then this idea serves

as a hypothesis, and this hypothesis has to be tested and observed.

For stereotypes, when people are working under stereotypical, in stereotypical

mode, they reject any information that contradicts the stereotype.

And any information that confirms the stereotype is hugely amplified.

While for general knowledge all data is included and analyzed.

With stereotypes, they are based on judgmental attitudes.

They are selective.

They're based on selective perception.

And also they don't allow to learn.

Stereotypes usually mean refusal to learn.

With generalizations, they are based on open attitude, on curiosity,

on willingness to learn and to make certain conclusions,

come to inferences, and get new knowledge in this way.

What is the way to come out of this problem,

of this trap, that stereotypes often create for us?

The answer is clear.

We have to rely on general knowledge.

We have to find information, and to analyze it, and

to create our own conclusions based on this full scale of data.

And that will lead us to cultural dialogue that will

allow us to overcome the problems of cross-cultural communication.

And on this picture here, you see these three stages of this cultural dialogue.

It starts with analyzing the sensory information that we get,

preparing for communicating with people who may act on different,

on the base of different presumptions.

And then implementing all of the knowledge,

all the information that we acquired for

communication, for dialogue.

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