Week 2: Communication, Perceptions and Sensations

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In the second week of the course, we took a look at the influence culture has on perceptions and sensations. The most remarkable lessons from this class were:

First, Edward T. Hall’s concept of High and Low Context cultures has a tremendous impact on the way we communicate in an intercultural environment. High-context cultures are characterized because context (everything apart from what is being explicitly said or written) carries the major part of the message; even the core of it so what is said can be just additional information but not the main idea. On the other side, in low-context cultures written and spoken word comprises the main portion of the message. I found this critical for international business and in multicultural organizations, because we can get an idea of how complex communication can be, but at the same time, how rich it is. When doing business, it is of vital importance to identify whether our counterpart comes from a high/low context culture, so we can pay attention to those other channels information might be transmitted through (non-verbal communication).

The second element to highlight from the class was the activity “The Derdians”, in which we had the opportunity to experience what was just mentioned above. The Derdians were a high-context culture, full of non-verbal sign that were indispensable when communicating, no matter how good the idea of the engineers was, if they were not able to understand and adopt those signs the bridge would have never been built. Even though Derdians’ rules are extreme in real life, it clearly shows that culture constitutes a fundamental input to any negotiation and, therefore, a strong determinant of the outcome of a business deal.

Research Question

Does gender influence on the interpretation of non-verbal communication?

Several studies have shown evidence of clearly differentiated patterns of behavior and way of thinking in men and women, also it is very common to hear about women’s sixth sense; but does it have any influence on how men and women perceive and correctly interpret non-verbal signs. According to the study carried out by Judith Hall (1987), women show better performance and accuracy when assessing non-verbal cues as they are better learners from those cues. Hall presents as an hypothesis that women, from school, are taught on the “how a girl ought act”; even though this does not give them direct advantage at judging non-verbal cues, overtime the added motivation to relate to others expressively and practice at attending to interpersonal expression might result in females' superior judging ability. In conclusion, gender per se does not influence on the interpretation of non-verbal communication, it is the differences in education for boys and girls what in the end gives women a better ability.  

References

Hall, A. J. (1978) Gender Effects in Decoding Nonverbal Cues. Psychological Bulletin 1978, Vol. 85, No. 4, 845-857. Retrieved from: http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/gender_effects_in_decoding_nonverbal_cues.pdf