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This study addresses several limitations of previous cross-cultural research of intimacy by (a) differentiating meaning and expression of intimacy, (b) developing items reflecting both cultures' concepts of the two constructs, (c) specifying the relationship context rated, and (d) examining mad adjusting cultural response sets in the data set. Findings indicated that the Japanese were more likely to conceptualize intimacy through expressive concepts such as 'consideration/love' and 'expressiveness' than did the Americans toward same-sex best friend. Likewise, 'directly verbalizing how you feel about each other' was more valued by the Japanese than by the Americans toward mother, father, and same-sex best friend, whereas the Americans valued 'indirectly verbalize how you feel about each other' more than did the Japanese toward mother, father, and lover. These results, which are contrary to those typically found in the literature, were discussed in relation to the methodologies used, which we believe reduced the possible cultural bias in research.

This article discusses the relationship between culture, touch, negative emotion, and interpersonal relations in adults and infants. Topics include child development, communication, and behavior disorder.

The study of culture, particularly popular culture, in Latin America is examined. The research on the influence of media on culture is also examined.

This article reports a comparative analysis of reactions to organizational politics (OP) in two substantially different cultures, Israel and Britain. Two resembling samples of public personnel (nl = 303 and n2 = 149 in Israel and Britain, respectively) were used to examine employees' perceptions of organizational politics as well as several possible work outcomes (e.g. intentions of exit, voice, loyalty, neglect, job satisfaction, met expectations, and absenteeism). No differences were found between employees' levels of politics perception in the two samples. However, a between-sample analysis supported the hypotheses of differences in reactions to OP across cultures. Generally, perceptions of organizational politics affected British employees more strongly than Israeli. The former responded with higher intentions of exit and neglect and lower levels of loyalty, job satisfaction, and met expectations. From these results, our main speculation is that reactions to OP may depend on cultural variants relevant to the organizational environment. Our findings are interpreted mainly in light of the idea of cultural differences in perceptions of conflict and politics. Accordingly, this study's chief merit is its indication that culture-oriented constructs may be useful determinants of reactions to OP. Other implications of the study are also discussed, as well as suggestions for further inquiry into the cultural investigation of OP. Keywords: absenteeism, cross-cultural study, employees' reactions and performance, exit, job satisfaction, loyalty, met expectations, neglect, organizational politics (OP), voice

This article examines how shared beliefs and social representations evolve from individual interactions, with particular regard to the role of communication in this process. The social cognitive processes involved in the creation, maintenance, and transformation of shared beliefs and representations are discussed.

Research presented concerns the relationship between human cognition and culture, focusing on how communication processes relate to the maintenance of cultural stereotypes. A study of the changes that occur to a story when it is transmitted between individuals reveals that stereotype-consistent information is more likely to be passed along than stereotype-inconsistent information.

With recent production innovations, such as super slo-mo, digital-editing, and advanced graphics, the Super Bowl on television has become a much more mediated experience for home viewers. This study examines network broadcast coverage of the 1969, 1978, 1987, and 1997 Super Bowls. Findings show an increase in the amount of visual-aural mediation focused on that in turn reflects an emerging cultural imperative to identify sources of credit or responsibility for team victories (or blame for losses) for the audience. The measurable difference may also reflect the impact of corporate values and the commodification of professional sports and leisure cultural activity in the information society.

This article explores computer-mediated communication for the elderly. The study focuses on how the elderly use the Internet as a tool for communication, resource and for social support.

The author discusses the concept of preliteracy through research of the Hmong culture. Topics include written communications, rhetoric, and primitive societies.

A mixed quantitative and qualitative research design compared 23 U.S. college students to 25 students from Western Samoa and 25 from American Samoa, with regard to differences in cultural beliefs and attributions. Survey responses suggested that Samoan students endorsed significantly more vertical collective and vertical, individualistic cultural attitudes than U.S. students. Qualitative analysis of narrative responses to four vignettes depicting family conflicts suggested cultural differences in patterns of attribution of blame and responsibility for resolving the conflicts. U.S. students emphasized stable, internal global attributions to character flaws. Samoan students emphasized more easily changed, situation-specific attributions; nonlinear, multifaceted judgments of blame; deference to hierarchy in group relationships; and context-oriented resolutions that avoid individual confrontation and emphasize preservation of relationships.

Language attitudes to various English accents in Denmark were investigated in relation to social and cultural values. Specifically, the study aimed to analyze the nature of national stereotypes of English-speaking cultures in Denmark and how judges assess the attributes of British, American and Australian speakers. Empirical results showed that the patterns of evaluation found in Denmark are the same as those in the US and the UK. It was also found that American culture was the preference of majority of the respondents.

Special education professionals dealing with culturally diverse families need to be aware of their own cultural assumptions, those of the families they serve and the challenges to collaborative relationships with these culturally diverse families resulting from cultural blindness. Data from participant observations of a Native American parent support group in a reservation and from qualitative interviews with three mothers and three professionals within this group are used to analyze the implications of cultural blindness for the empowerment of minority families.

Augmenting the concepts inherent in muted group and standpoint theory, this article describes the emergence of a co-cultural communication theoretical model that focuses on how those persons traditionally marginalized in society communicate within dominant societal structures. The article draws from several phenomenological inquiries that inductively gathered lived experiences from 89 people of color, women, gay/lesbian/bisexuals, and those from a lower socioeconomic status. based on oral narratives of these persons, 1 present and discuss a co-cultural framework, including a model of the process by which communication orientations are adopted.

Two interdisciplinary teams have come up with possible solutions which address the need for warning markers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The site, which is in an area rich in resources such as potash and crude oil, may be accidentally disturbed by societies in the future, putting them at risk from nuclear waste. Markers must, therefore, be large and long-wearing to serve as passive warnings. They must be also be repetitious with clear messages written in symbols, multiple languages, pictures, and icons that warn about the nature of the danger.

Increasingly, interlinked economies and advanced communication technologies are bringing people from diverse cultures together. Over the last two decades, for example, the importance of transnational corporations as 'a powerful force [...]

This study examined how organizational cultures are transmitted and maintained through interactions among organizational members across intergroup boundaries. The major hypothesis of interest was that the total number of individuals' out-group communication network links predicts the degree of individual-out-group transmission of work-related values and beliefs. The research design involved a survey of workers in international organizations with bicultural workforces (U.S. and Japanese). A total of 118 responses were submitted to a series of multiple regression analyses. The results provided evidence to support the relationship between communication and cultural transmission. Theoretically, it addressed two issues that have not been dealt with in social influence theories. First, it identified different types of social influence: agreement, accuracy, and congruency derived from the coorientation model. Second, it identified specific conditions under which social influence takes place by examining relational proximity in three different types of networks.

My purpose in this article is to introduce studying cultural variability in communication in general and this special issue in particular I begin by examining the nature of culture. Next, I review the emic and etic approaches to studying communication and culture with a focus on the major dimensions of cultural variability used to explain communication across cultures. Following this, I examine individual-level processes that mediate the influence of culture on communication. I conclude by overviewing the articles included in this issue and discussing how they are consistent with current trends in the study of cultural variability in communication., Communication and culture reciprocally influence each other. The culture in which individuals are socialized influences the way they communicate, and the way that individuals communicate can change the culture they [...]

Cross-cultural perceptions of teacher immediacy of American and Japanese college teachers were compared. American (n = 191) and Japanese (n = 227) college students completed versions of the Teacher Immediacy Scale and indices of cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning. Consistent with the general hypothesis guiding the study, perceptions of teacher immediacy were higher for the American sample than Japanese sample. Significant positive correlations between immediacy and measures of cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning were observed for both groups, but the correlations were significantly greater for the Americans. Regression analysis revealed that nonverbal immediacy was more predictive of learning outcomes than verbal immediacy for the Japanese sample, whereas verbal immediacy was more predictive of learning outcomes than nonverbal immediacy for the American sample., During the past 15 years, the topic of teacher immediacy has received a great deal of attention in the communication literature. The concept of immediacy stems from the work of [...]

This article focuses on the cultural aspect of political advertising. The form and content of political advertising messages appearing in major daily newspapers during the final phase of a presidential election campaign were analyzed to compare the differences and similarities of political communication between the United States and Korea. Political television commercials from the 1992 presidential election campaigns of both countries are also analyzed. It is obvious that the context of communication, the degree of uncertainty avoidance, and nonverbal expressions comprised important cultural parameters that ultimately serve as determinants of the different cultural orientations of the two countries. Findings from the content analysis indicate that political advertising messages transmitted by the American and Korean candidates were highly reflective of their cultural orientations. Political advertising therefore appeared as a conspicuous indicator of cultural values because it showed clear differences in American and Korean cultural patterns., The underlying relationship between the content of political advertising and the cultural values of a society has been recognized by researchers. Political advertising has an overt function - to persuade [...]

Research methodology in cultural studies deserves greater emphasis, and researchers should focus more on quantitative methodology involving statistical data rather than the more popular qualitative research methods. While quantitative research may appear dull or out-dated, it has proven useful in cultural studies requiring detailed analysis. Problems with this form of research involve out-dated empirical assumptions and inappropriate of quantitative surveys.

This study provides a cross-cultural test of Bavelas's situational theory of equivocation. Students from the United States and Japan were presented with one of four versions of a questionnaire, prepared in English and Japanese, that consisted of two hypothetical scenarios. Each scenario was altered to create either an avoidance-avoidance situation or a nonconflict situation. The imagined interaction partners in these scenarios were described as someone possessing status either equal to or greater than the students' status. For each scenario, subjects wrote down what they thought they would say in the situation and then responded to several items about their perceptions of the message and situation. Results were strongly supportive of the theory. Both American and Japanese students produced messages exhibiting substantial equivocation, but only when in an avoidance-avoidance conflict situation. Contrary to expectations, such situations did not elicit more equivocation from Japanese students than from American students; nor did relative status affect the use of equivocation. The equivocations of subjects were judged by themselves and by independent coders to be deceptive, though prosocial. Implications of these findings for the theory are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.

Interpersonal relations between the Japanese community is examined in terms of the concept of 'kenson.' Kenson is a distinctively Japanese way of speaking that is similar to the Western concept of modesty in that both involve a downplaying or denial of one's abilities or accomplishments. However, kenson differs from modesty in the sense that it is primarily a relational act that serves as a social glue that preserves interpersonal relationships. Modesty, on the other hand, is mainly an individual shield intended to help the person avoid negative attributions, such as being seen as a showoff, and the social sanctions that these elicit. The 'common sense' of kenson in terms of its forms and meanings is carefully examined using ethnographic methods.

The issue of tracing the mental abilities of prehistoric hominids is overwhelming in its complexity. Not only are there different schools of thought as regards the very feasibility of such an enterprise, but we are also facing difficulties in obtaining relevant data and their interpretation. For a while it seemed as if lithic studies could contribute but little to this domain of prehistoric research. However, it seems that there is a breakthrough both in concepts and methods which enables us a glimpse into the workings of the mind of the prehistoric flint knappers. The present article discusses the findings from the technological studies of two Levantine early Acheulian assemblages. The reconstruction of the procedures undertaken by the early hominids in order to produce discrete artefact types clearly illustrates the existence of complex cognitive abilities, rather similar to those of modern humans.

Glynn Isaac's 'home base' model of hominid social systems was, in part, the reflection of a more general focus among palaeoanthropologists in the 1970s on the importance of the sexual division of labour in human evolution. Here, I suggest that the sexual division of roles may in fact be consequent to the pattern of sex-biased dispersal and philopatry, and that dispersal patterns underlie the spatial patterning of artefact traditions in the Lower Palaeolithic record. A simple simulation model is presented which has been used to explore the consequences of dispersal patterns for spatial aspects of cultural traditions. The results of the experiments are summarized and discussed.

The primary aim of this paper is to identify cross-cultural similarities and differences in people's implicit theories of requesting. Implicit theories are conceptualized as containing information about five interactive constraints that influence choices about requests: (1) Clarity, (2) Perceived imposition., (3) Consideration for the other's feelings, (4) Risking disapproval for self, and (5) Effectiveness. The paper compares how these five constraints are perceived and rated across cultures and traces possible links between the constraints and perceptions of the likelihood of using various request strategies. Participants are a total of 595 undergraduates: 296 Koreans (native speakers of Korean) and 299 Americans (native American English speakers) studying in their respective countries. After reading a hypothetical request situation, participants evaluated request strategies along the five constraint dimensions as well as for likelihood of use. The rank-ordering of the request strategies along the dimensions were similar across cultures except for effectiveness of strategies. Striking cross-cultural differences were found in the rank and mean strategy ratings for effectiveness judgments: U.S. participants considered the direct statement strategy as the most effective way of making a request, while Korean participants rated it as the least effective strategy. Regarding the incompatibility among interactive constraints, U.S. participants saw clarity to be closely related to effectiveness of strategies; for Korean participants clarity of strategies was counterproductive to effectiveness. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

This paper reports a comparative study of the relationship between communication issues and conversational improvement strategies for African Americans and European Americans. Based on a model of interethnic communication developed in previous research (Hecht, Larkey, & Johnson, 1992; Hecht, Ribeau, & Alberts, 1989; Hecht, Ribeau, & Sedano, 1990), a sample of African Americans and European Americans were asked to describe conversations with individuals from the other ethnic group. They were also asked to identify the problematic issues in the conversations and conversational improvement strategies used to deal with these issues. Some conversational improvement strategies focused on the self, some on the other interactant, and others on the joint action of both interactants. A multiple discriminant analysis and regression analyses were computed to identify relationships between the issues and strategies used by both ethnic groups in high and low intimacy relationships. Results revealed that relationships between communication issues and conversational improvement strategies were stronger for African Americans than for European Americans. Additionally, overall, African Americans reported a predominant focus on conversational improvement strategies requiring joint actions of both interactants, whereas European Americans emphasized strategies placing responsibility on the other interactant. Implications of results for future research are discussed.

Research in the United States has identified argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness as, respectively, constructive and counterproductive forms of communication predispositions. The present study tests the conceptual equivalence of the two constructs and the measurement equivalence of the Argumentativeness Scale (Infante & Rancer, 1982) and the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale (Infante & Wigley, 1986) across cultures. College students from the United States (N = 755) and japan (N = 716) responded to a questionnaire. The results indicated that: (a) the two--factor solution o the Argumentativeness Scale and the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale was a reasonable overall fit to both samples, with some culture-specific unreliable items; (b) orthogonality of the two constructs held for both samples, (c) the factor structures (factor loading patterns and factor variance-covariance structures) of the two scales were partially variant across the samples; and (d) the two scales had satisfactory construct validity for the Japanese sample. Implications for research on aggressive communication, in connection with Hall's (1981) theory of cultural variation, cross-cultural conflict management, and measurement in cross-cultural communication research are discussed.

Compliance gaining has been widely studied in communication research as a phenomenon central to interpersonal life. Yet the category of attempts to compel the actions of others, labeled as directives in pragmatics and ethnography, has received little specific attention, despite its close connection to actual spoken life. This essay presents an ethnographic examination of directive sequences in two speech communities, one in the U.S. and one in Colombia, with emphasis on the distinctive belief systems revealed by directive use. Data from several earlier studies of compliance gaining are then reexamined to show that patterns of results obtained in those studies are consistent with the cultural values of U.S. Americans and inconsistent with the values of Colombians. The likelihood that those patterns reveal cultural underpinnings in the constructs of personality, situation, and gender is then discussed.

Written discourse produced on Nukulaelae atoll of Western Polynesia falls principally in two categories: personal letters and religious sermons. Personal-letter writing is a highly affective communicative context, in which the vulnerable aspects of the person are highlighted. Sermons, in contrast, elaborate authoritarianism and directness. The divergent characteristics of Nukulaelae literacy practices are best understood in terms of their relationship to contexts of use, particularly to the notion of person articulated through them.

Research demonstrates that facial expressions of emotion are both universal and culturally-specific, but our theoretical understanding of how cultures influence emotions has not advanced since Friesen's (1972) conception of cultural display rules. This article offers a theoretical framework by which to understand and predict how and why cultures influence the emotions. The model combines the cultural dimensions known as individualism and power distance with the social distinctions of ingroup-out-group and status. Major issues in future theoretical and empirical work are also discussed.

DISPUTE MANAGEMENT IN ROTUMA This essay concerns the genesis and management of disputes on the island of Rotuma in the Republic of Fiji. Although disputes are endemic to the culture, they rarely lead to physical violence. The analysis presented here aims to illuminate the mechanisms that keep disputes from escalating to violent confrontations. The mechanisms discussed include a socialization pattern based on a high valuation of children, shaming rather than physical punishment, and respect for others' autonomy; a strong belief in immanent justice; the use of avoidance as a means of reducing vulnerability and allowing passions to cool; institutionalized mediation; and a custom of formal apology that puts great pressure on the person or persons approached to accept. Several disputes are discussed in detail to illustrate how these mechanisms operate in context.

This study examines the relationship between climate and cultural communication predispositions within the United States. It is proposed that climate affects culture and communication in systematic ways. Three hypotheses are developed that posit a relationship between climate and cultural measures of interpersonal arousal, interpersonal power, and interpersonal affect. Results indicate that 42% of the variance in cultural interpersonal arousal can be accounted for by average temperature, two multivariate climate indices, and sunshine. Cultural interpersonal power predispositions can be explained (53% variance) by latitude, rainfall, storminess, and a multivariate climate index. Finally, cultural predispositions in interpersonal affect can be partially explained (24% variance) by latitude. Overall, in an additive model almost 75% of the variance in all three communication dimensions is explained at the cultural level by latitude. These results are discussed in light of theory and future research implications.

Culture has been neglected by researchers of intercultural communication. During the last decade, there have been scattered investigations of world regions and countries, and only Japan and the U.S. have been investigated in depth through multiple communication studies. Africa, S.E. Asia, Latin America, and Europe have been virtually ignored by intercultural researchers. Intracultural communication is described as a new research and teaching direction for the 90s.

Chewing qat in small groups is a significant aspect of North Yemeni culture. Qat sessions occur daily, separated by gender. They are not specifically task groups, but much of value occurs. As the sessions move through stages of forming, elevation, and Solomon's Hour, the participants share information, make decisions, and reinforce cultural norms. Indeed, the central feature of qat sessions is functional speech communication, not the drug itself. The analysis of qat sessions provides an opportunity to learn more about a unique culture, and to explore group developmental phases and problem solving.

This study investigated discontented responses within and between American and Chinese cultures. Previous studies suggest that Americans rely on more explicit codes than Chinese, and that while disagreement prompts less strong discontented responses than injury or disappointment in both cultures, Chinese respond to intimates more explicitly than to acquaintances or strangers. University students of both cultures were asked to respond to hypothetical episodes by indicating their degree of discontent. Results of statistical analyses demonstrate only marginal cultural differences. Possible explanations were provided based on the results.

'MA' is a central component of Japanese culture which directs and influences Japanese arts, architecture, religion, and theatre. For the Japanese ma constitutes a 'gap' or 'interval' that represents a collapse of time and space which differs from the Western notion of time and space as linear and teleological. This essay examines the concept of ma, compares it to the Western perception of time and space, and discusses the implications it carries for the study of intercultural and intracultural communication.

The later work of Canadian social scientist Harold Innis, from the 1940s until his death in 1952, concentrated on changes wrought by improved communication technology on political, economic, social and informational structures. Innis felt that organizations needed to be studied from spatial and temporal, as well as socio-economic, points of view, and both these views are influenced by the type of communications the organization possesses. Innis proposed a useful heuristic framework on which to analyze the changes that new technology brings.