Week 3: Barriers to Communication

In this week’s class the two most relevant aspects seen, for me, are: first, non-verbal communication as a barrier; and second, the concept of face. It’s just incredible the different barriers that can arise when communicating, so it’s of high importance to learn, not only how to cope with them once they arise; but also how to prevent them; in other words: to come up with both preventing and corrective strategies.

From these barriers, I see non-verbal communication as the most common and critical one due to the high weight it has in the communicative process.

“Non-verbal communication is actions that have socially shared meaning, are intentionally sent or interpreted as intentional, consciously sent or consciously received”

Source: Prof. Heiko Schmidt – Intercultural Management

And this especially relevant in high-context cultures in which the non-verbal component is even more important. When individuals fail to overcome communication barriers and the communicative process is frustrated it causes anxiety, anger and shame what is related to the second most relevant aspect of the class: the loss of face. Face can be simply understood as a person’s reputation and dignity.

These two aspects are interrelated, then, they become relevant whenever we are negotiating in an intercultural context.  Is a duty of the negotiator to previously do some research on the culture to understand the role non-verbal communication plays in it. The context of communication will influence the output of the negotiation, and then it can either become an advantage or an obstacle depending on the involved parties’ actions. For example, only a gesture that can be misinterpreted by your counterparty (even if you did not have any intention to offend him) can make a deal fail, but on the other hand, it can make you lose your face and create a bad atmosphere. A good example: http://www.allhatnocattle.net/Bush_Hu_Jintao_Loan.jpg. That is why identifying likely sources of misunderstandings is an anticipation strategy that cross-cultural negotiators should develop.

Research Question: Are perceptions and sensations objective?

Since sensation is all what we perceive through our senses: sight, hearing, tasting, smell and touch; we tend to believe that sensations cannot be questioned. For example, if you ask people what color blood is, you will expect everybody to answer “red”. However, according to Jay Neitz, a color vision at the University of Washington, recent experiments have evidenced we do not all see the same colors. “Our neurons aren't configured to respond to color in a default way; instead, we each develop a unique perception of color. Color is a private sensation” (Wolchover, 2012). Then, if something as evident as color is not really the same for everyone, perceptions and sensations, even obtained through our senses, can actually be subjective at all.

References

Wolchover, N. (2012) Your Color Red Really Could Be My Blue. Retrieved from: http://www.livescience.com/21275-color-red-blue-scientists.html