Cultural Values

«Urals State Technical University - UPI»

Foreign language department

Thesis

«Cultural Values»

Student: Zaitseva S.V.

Group: PП-4

Supervisor: Hramushina Zh.A.

Ekaterinburg

2004

Table of contents:

Summary
3

Key words
4

Introduction
5

1. Definitions: beliefs, values

The value / belief puzzle

Contrastive orientations

Japanese interpersonal norms

2. Japanese and American patterns of social behavior

The national status image
25

A Cultural model of interaction
27

Seven statements about Americans 31

3. Factors influencing values

Intercultural communication: a guide to men of action

Cuisine, etiquette and cultural values

Patterns of speech

4. Contrast Russian’s stereotypes

Nine statements about Russians

Middle Eastern interview responses

5. American’s view of Russian. Russian’s view of American

American interview responses

Russian interview responses

Conclusion

Literature

Appendix

SUMMARY

A diploma work contains 80 pages, 2 tables, 1 figure, 4 books are a source of it.

Key words: cross-cultural communication, values, beliefs, clusters, stereotypes.

In detail it is said about concept "values", factors influencing values, the meaning of values in intercultural communication and understanding between different nations.

In brief it is mentioned differences between beliefs, values.

The actuality and novelty of a theme consist in the following points.

Problems of the intercultural communications and cultural values are
"young". Scientists started to consider them rather recently. In Russia researches have begun only in the 80th years. In such a way, there is not enough literature and materials on the given questions. Therefore any new works and researches make the significant contribution to studying these problems.

So in my work I tried: to research the influence of cultural values to attitude one country to another; to explore and to compare Japanese and
American patterns of social behavior; to understand the factors influencing values; to discover stereotypes between different countries.

In conclusion it is noted that excellent knowledge of language is only half-affair for successful cooperation with other country. Also it is necessary to know features of people of other country in negotiating or their attitude to business. Also it is necessary to take into account features of dialogue, etiquette, relations with grown-ups and many other things.

KEY WORDS

Cross-cultural communication is the information exchange between one person and any other source transmitting a message displaying properties of a culture different to the one of the receiver’s culture. The source of such a message can be either a person, in an interpersonal communication process, or any form of mass media or other form of media.

Values. A value is something that is important to people — like honesty, harmony, respect for elders, or thinking of your family first. They are represents what is expected or hoped for, required or forbidden. It is not a report of actual conduct but is the inductively based logically ordered set of criteria of evaluations by which conduct is judged and sanctions applied.

Beliefs are generally taken to mean a mental acceptance or conviction in the truth or actuality of something. A belief links an object or event and the characteristics that distinguish it from others. The degree to which we believe that an event or object possesses certain characteristics reflects the level of our subjective probability (belief) and, consequently, the depth or intensity of our belief. The more certain we are in a belief, the greater is the intensity of that belief.

Clusters are groups of inter-related industries that drive wealth creation in a region and provides a richer more meaningful representation of local industry drivers and regional dynamics trends than traditional methods and represents the entire value chain of a broadly defined industry from suppliers to end products, including supporting services and specialized infrastructure.

Stereotype is a fixed set of ideas about what a particular type of person or thing is like, which is (wrongly) believed to be true in all cases.

INTRODUCTION

The subject of my diploma work is cultural values.

Our perception of foreign cultures is usually based not on their complex reality, but on the simplified image they project. The clearer and more sharply defined that image is, the more convinced we will be that we are intimately acquainted with it: it is a mere outward confirmation of knowledge we already possess.

All cultures have been designed to meet universal human needs: for shelter - for love — for friendship. While they have commonalties, they have great variety too! Values - universal feature of culture, how they might vary within and between cultures.

One universal feature of culture is values. A value is something that is important to people — like honesty, harmony, respect for elders, or thinking of your family first.

We can't see values directly, but we can see them reflected in people's ordinary, day to day behavior. What we value shapes what we do. If respect for elders is important to me, I might listen very patiently to grandmother's stories and not argue with her. In fact, I might turn to her for valuable and wise advice. If I value honesty, I will hope that my friends will tell me the truth and not what they think I want to hear. If harmony is more important to me, I prefer to say things that make people happy, even if those things are not exactly true.

In the course of human interaction, evaluations are assigned to given types of behavior, attitudes, and kinds of social contact. Taken together they form the belief and value system, the cultural premises and assumptions, and the foundation for law, order, and the world view of given cultural groups. These systems embrace a number of assumptions about how the world is put together. Some values and norms, differentiate between good and evil, right and wrong. Some of these assumptions are made explicit in the beliefs and myths of the people. Beliefs, value systems, and world view often combine with other features of social and cultural organization to provide shared cultural symbols.

The actuality and novelty of a theme consist in the following points.

Objects of research in my diploma work are behavioral samples and cultural clusters.

1. DEFINITIONS: BELIEFS, VALUES

It is useful at this juncture to make some distinctions between beliefs and values.

BELIEFS

This is well attested to in the power of religious beliefs. There are three types of beliefs, all of which are of concern to us. They are experiential, informational, and inferential. Experiential beliefs come from direct personal experience, of course; they are integrated at the intrapersonal level. The second type involves information. This is transferred on the interpersonal level and shows great cultural variation.
Here cultural beliefs are stated, transferred, learned, and practiced.
Informational beliefs are connected with what are called "authority belief," or credible information sources. If a group of people believes that exercising increases the individual's physical and mental well-being, these believers may also be willing to accept athletes as authority figures even though the testimonies of these idols range beyond their physical prowess. Witness the selling success of Olympic champions and football stars in promoting breakfast food or panty hose.

Inferential beliefs are those which go beyond direct observation and information. These concern rules of logic, argumentation, rhetoric, and even establishment of facts (the scientific method). Although internal logic systems differ from one individual to another within a culture, they differ more from one culture to another. The most dramatic difference in cultural variance in thinking lies between Western and Eastern cultures.
The Western world has a logic system built upon Aristotelian principles, and it has evolved ways of thinking that embody these principles. . . .
Eastern cultures, however, developed before and without the benefit of
Athens or Aristotle. As a consequence, their logic systems are sometimes called non-Aristotelian, and they can often lead to quite different sets of beliefs.

VALUES

Values bring affective force to beliefs. Some of these values are shared with others of our kind some are not. Thus, we all adhere to some of the beliefs and values generally accepted within our cultures; we reject others. Values are related to what is seen to be good, proper, and positive, or the opposite. Values are learned and may be normative in nature. They change through time and are seldom shared in specifics by members of different generations, although certain themes will prevail. For example, the positive attributions placed upon competitiveness, individualism, action, and other general principles that pervade the belief and value orientation of members of the North American culture of the
United States remain. They include the constitutionally guaranteed and socially valued "unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in individualistic, action-oriented, and competitive ways. These values have endured their expression varies from generation to generation.

A cultural value system "represents what is expected or hoped for, required or forbidden." It is not a report of actual conduct but is the inductively based logically ordered set of criteria of evaluations by which conduct is judged and sanctions applied.

THE VALUE / BELIEF PUZZLE

Value and belief systems, with their supporting cultural postulates and world views, are complex and difficult to assess. They form an interlocking system, reflecting and reflective of cultural history and forces of change. They provide the bases for the assignment of cultural meaning and evaluation. Values are desired outcomes as well as norms for behavior; they are dreams as well as reality, They are embraced by some and not others in a community; they may be the foundations for accepted modes of behavior, but are as frequently overridden as observed. They are also often the hidden force that sparks reactions and fuels denials. Unexamined assignment of these characteristics to all members of a group is an exercise in stereotyping.

ATTRIBUTIONS AND EVALUATIONS

Often values attributions and evaluations of the behaviors of
"strangers" are based on the value and belief systems of the observers.
Have you heard or made any of the following statements? Guilty or not?

Americans are cold.

Americans don't like their parents. Just look, they put their mothers and fathers in nursing homes.

The Chinese are nosy. They're always asking such personal questions.

Spaniards must hate animals. Look what they do to bulls!

Marriages don't last in the United States.

Americans are very friendly. 1 met a nice couple on a tour and they asked me to visit them.

Americans ask silly questions, they think we all live in tents and drink nothing but camel's milk! They ought to see our airport!

Americans just pretend to be friendly; they really aren't. They say,
"Drop by sometime" but when I did, they didn't seem very happy to see me.
Of course, it was ten o'clock at night!

How should such statements be received? With anger? With explanation?
With understanding and anger? Should one just ignore such patent half- truths stereotypic judgments, and oversimplifications? Before indulging in any of the above actions, consider what can be learned from such statements. First, what do these statements reveal? The speakers appear to be concerned about families, disturbed by statistics, apt to form opinions on limited data (friendliness), given to forming hasty and unwarranted generalizations (Spanish bullfighting), and angered by the ignorance of others. No one cultural group has a corner on such behavior. Second, we might be able to guess how certain speakers might feel about divorce, hospitality, or even animals. Third, the observations, while clearly not applicable to all members of the groups about which the comments were made, represent the speakers' perceptions. To many, Americans are seen as cold and uncaring. Because perceptions and native value and belief systems play such important roles in communication, it is important to recognize and deal with these perceptions-correct or incorrect, fair or unfair.

In the following part of this chapter the concept of value orientations will be explored. This will be followed by a review of the major value orientations associated with people from the United States.
These orientations will be contrasted with those of other culture groups.
Such an approach to cross-cultural variations in values and beliefs is far more productive than flat denial or even anger, as we form evaluative frames of reference for ourselves and hold them up to the frames of others we shall, at the very least, learn a great deal about ourselves.

VALUE ORIENTATIONS

Compiling a list of cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions would be an almost endless and quite unrewarding endeavor.
Writers in the field of intercultural communication have generally adopted the concept of value orientations suggested by Florence Kluckhohn and Fred
Strodtbeck (1961).

In setting forth a value orientation approach to cross-cultural variation, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961:10) pointed out that such a theory was based upon three assumptions:

1. There are a limited number of human problems to which all cultures must find solutions.

2. The limited number of solutions may be charted along a range or
Continuum of variations.

3. Certain solutions are favored by members in any given culture group but all potential solutions are present in every culture.

In their schema, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck suggested that values around five universal human problems involving man's relationship to the environment, human nature, time, activity, and human interaction. The authors further proposed that the orientations of any society could be charted along these dimensions. Although variability could be found within a group, there were always dominant or preferred positions. Culture- specific profiles could be constructed. Such profiles should not be regarded as statements about individual behavior, but rather as tendencies around which social behavioral norms rules values, beliefs, and assumptions are clustered. As such, they might influence individual behavior as other cultural givens do; like other rules, they may be broken, changed, or ignored.

In the Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck classification, three focal points in the range of variations are posited for each type of orientation. In the man-to-nature continuum variations range from a position of human mastery over nature, to harmony with nature, to subjugation to nature. Most industrialized societies represent the mastery orientation; the back-to- nature counterculture of young adults during the 1960s and 1970s, the harmonious stance; and many peasant populations, the subjugation orientation.

The time dimension offers stops at the past, present, and future.
Human nature orientation is charted along a continuum stretching from good to evil with some of both in the middle. The activity orientation moves from doing to being-becoming to being. Finally, the relational orientation ranges from the individual to the group with concern with the continuation of the group, as an intermediate focal point.

Value orientations only represent" good guesses" about why people act the way they do. Statements made or scales constructed are only part of an
"as if" game. That is to say, people act as if they believed in a given set of value. Because the individuals in any cultural group exhibit great variation, any of the orientations suggested might well be found in nearly every culture. It is the general pattern that is sought. Value orientations are important to us as intercultural communicators because often whatever one believes, values, and assumes are the crucial factors in communication.

CONTRASTIVE ORIENTATlONS

Let us take some American cultural patterns that have been identified as crucial in cross-cultural communication and consider what assumptions, values, and attitudes support them. Edward C. Stewart was a pioneer in examining such American behavior in a cross-cultural perspective. His book
- American Cultural Patterns. This book describes dominant characteristics of middle class Americans. Stewart distinguishes between cultural assumptions and values and what he called cultural norms. Cultural norms are explicit a repeatedly invoked by people to describe or justify their actions. They represent instances in which the behavior and the value attached to it seem at odds. Stewart writes, “Because cultural norms are related to behavior as cliches, rituals or as cultural platitudes, they provide inaccurate descriptions of behavior”. He points out that Americans are devoted to the concept of self-reliance but accept social security, borrow money, and expect a little help from their friends. Culture bearers are usually more aware of their cultural norms than their systems of values and assumptions. As Stewart explains, "being fundamental to the individual's outlook, they [the assumptions and values] are likely to be considered as a part of the real world and therefore remain unquestioned".

Table 1, illustrates some of the general value orientations identified with North Americans. The left-hand column indicates what the polar point of the orientational axis might represent. The Contrast American column does not describe any particular culture, but rather represents an opposite orientation. Of course, the American profile is drawn in broad strokes and describes the mainstream culture; ethnic diversity is of necessity blurred in this sweeping treatment.

Thus, with the reservations noted above, it can be said that in the relationship of human beings and nature, Americans assume and thus value and believe in doing something about environmental problems. Nature can and should be changed. In addition, change is right and good and to be encouraged. That toe pace of change has increased to a bewildering point in the United States at the present time presents problems, but, as yet, change has not been seen as particularly detrimental.

Equality of opportunity is linked to individualism, lack of rigid hierarchies informality, and other cultural givens. It is manifested in
American laws regarding social conduct, privacy, and opportunity. This contrasts with an ascriptive social order in which class and birth provide the bases for social control and interaction.

The achievement orientation calls for assessment of personal achievement, a latter-day Horatio Alger (Lee Iacocca) orientation. A future orientation is joined to the positive value accorded change and action.
Directness and openness are contrasted to a more consensus-seeking approach in which group harmony is placed above solving problems.

Cause-and-effect logic joined to a problem-solving orientation and a pragmatic approach to problems defines the much-vaunted scientific method.
Intuition and other approaches to evidence, fact, and "truth" are associated with being orientations and philosophical approaches to knowledge and knowing. Competition and a do-it-yourself approach to life are well served by a future orientation, individualism, and the desire for change.

The statements above simply point out some very general orientations that have driven and, to some degree, still guide North American society.
Change is always in the air. Many have pointed out, as Stewart himself does, that these orientations represent white middle class American values.
They do. They serve the purpose, however, of providing a frame of reference for cross-cultural comparison.

Table 2 offers a contrastive look at some American and Japanese values.

Such culture-specific contrast alerts us to the need to examine our cultural values and assumptions from the perspective of others. As one studies the dimensions of contrast, one cannot help but marvel at the communication that does take place despite such diversity. Okabe, in drawing upon Japanese observations about some well-known American values, reveals a new perspective to us. For example, the bamboo whisk and octopus pot metaphors refer to a reaching out tendency in the United States as opposed to the drawing inward of the Japanese.

Omote means outside and omote / ura combines both the inside and outside world. In the heterogeneous, egalitarian, sasara-type, doing, pushing culture of the United States, there is no distinction between the omote and the ura aspects of culture. In the hierarchical takotsubo-type, being, pulling culture of Japan, a clear-cut distinction should always be made between the omote and the ura dimensions of culture, the former being public, formal, and conventional, and the latter private, informal, and unconventional. The Japanese tend to conceive of the ura world as being more real, more meaningful.

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