Discover the multiple meanings of ‘culture’ and why you belong to many not just one. Learn about cultural universals: how we are more alike than we are different. Think about this model for understanding cultural differences.

1. Cultural Intelligence
Understanding
• The multiple meanings of ‘culture’ and why you belong to many not just one.
• Cultural universals: How we are more alike than we are different.
• Cultural variation: A model for understanding cultural differences.
• Language and culture.

2. The presentation is NOT about
• Personal experiences
• Opinions
• Prescriptions
• Specifically Thai-farang
IS about
• A brief tour of the scientific literature
• A reflection on the meaning of ‘culture’
• Insights from research into more effective cross cultural communication
• At the end, a handout: 10 Things I have learned living in another culture

3. The phrase ’cross-cultural communication’ describes the ability to
successfully form, foster, and improve relationships with members
of a culture different from one's own. It is based on knowledge of
many factors, such as the other culture's values, perceptions,
manners, social structures, and decision-making practices, and an
understanding of how members of the group communicate--
verbally, non-verbally, in person, in writing, and in various social
contexts.
Source: East-West Business Strategies
http://www.ewbs.com/descr.html
Now we talk about “cultural intelligence” (IQ, social, emotional
intelligence)

4. Cultural Intelligence, cultural
quotient or CQ, is a term used in business,
education, government and academic
research. Cultural intelligence can be
understood as the capability to relate and
work effectively across cultures.

5. What is cultural intelligence?
Drive: Your interest and confidence in functioning effectively in culturally diverse settings. It includes:
Intrinsic Interest - deriving enjoyment from culturally diverse experiences; Extrinsic Interest - gaining benefits
from culturally diverse experiences; Self-efficacy - having the confidence to be effective in culturally diverse
situations.
Knowledge: This is your knowledge about how cultures are similar and how cultures are different.
Strategy This is how you make sense of culturally diverse experiences. It occurs when people make
judgments about their own thought processes and those of others.
Action: Action is your capability to adapt verbal and nonverbal behavior to make it appropriate to diverse
cultures.
Source: Ang, Van Dyne, & Livermore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_intelligence

6. What is culture?
The term ‘culture’ covers a lot of ground. The first thing most people think of is ‘national culture’ most
easily exemplified as national costumes, language and food. In many ways, national culture is the most
superficial level of the meaning of culture. Nation states are relatively new phenomena.

7. Here is a map of Europe in 1400. Most of France, England and Portugal are there,
but no Spain, no Italy, no Germany, no Russia. Just a hodge podge of principalities
and little kingdoms.

8. The more familiar shape of the Europe we know today starts emerging in the 1500s. Significant
events in the 1500s included the Protestant Reformation, Henry VIII taking over the church in
England, Queen Elizabeth I, and European exploration.

9. 1800
By the 1800s, we have a Europe that looks a lot like it does now; only Germany to unify.

10. 1900
And by the 1900s we have a modern looking Europe.

11. If we were to overlay the shape of modern Europe on top of 15th Century Europe, we would find that many of the local
variation in customs and norms, even attitudes and beliefs, can be traced back to the Europe of the 1400s. In Bavaria
for example, they have this lovely custom of knocking on the stammtish table when they arrive and leave. Proves you
are not the devil. So modern national cultures overlay older ethnic cultures.

12. But how ‘deep’ are national cultures? What is German culture? French culture? Can anyone define American culture? If you have been to
the US, to North America, you know that the culture in California is very different from that in New York. The North, the South. White,
black and Hispanic American culture. Then there is upper, middle and working class culture. Youth culture, street culture, Wall street
culture…the list goes on.
In “Nine Nations of North America” journalist Joel Garreau redrew the map of North America based on common economic, political,
and cultural characteristics. Growing up in Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada and living for a time in New Jersey, it was obvious to
me that I had a lot more in common with New Englanders than I did with my fellow Canadians in Quebec for Ontario or Alberta.

13. Language is a good indicator of culture. Language is one of the most important ways in which culture is encoded. I’ll say
more about that later. Generally, if you have a distinct language group, that includes a dialect group, you have a different
culture.
In the USA, there are 24 linguistically distinct dialects of English. The cultural differences may be subtle but they are real.
Think Texas drawl and “pahk yah cah in Hahvad yahd” (Boston) and the very different cultures of those two regions.

14. Despite the apparent differences: Cultural Universals
In his book Human Universals (1991), Donald Brown defines human
universals as comprising "those features of culture, society, language,
behavior, and psyche for which there are no known exceptions“.
Cultural universals are basic needs and social experiences found in all
societies, past and present (Alleman & Brophy, 2002).

15. All societies have ways of organizing things like…families, class, gender
roles.
Social Aspects: how humans live together in communities and groups
• Family life
• Class
• Roles (gender, familial, leadership, community)
• Education
• Leisure activities
• Community life (cities, farms etc.)
• Food
• Clothing and Beauty

16. Cultural Arts: how humans create, express, and appreciate beauty
• Art
• Music
• Dance
• Literature
• Science
• Leisure activities

17. Economics: decision making that relates to the production, development,
management and consumption of goods and services

18. Beliefs: convictions held by a community, group, or individual
• Religion
• Myths
• Rituals, traditions, customs (birth, marriage, death)

19. Politics: How humans relate to government and governing
• Citizenship
• Leadership
• Laws
• Institutions
• Decision-making

20. So, if underneath we are all similar…what accounts for huge variation in
how societies organize themselves? This is one of the great mysteries of
culture. To understand that mystery, we need some sort of framework.
What we need is a model or framework for understanding this variation.

21. Here is one model.

22. Mar
BIG IDEAS
The Self Institutions
Adapted from Markus & Conner, 2014
stable patterns of behavior
that define, govern, and
constrain action
Interactions
In this model, Big Ideas shape institutions which shape individual selves and behavior. But it works the other way as
well, individuals interact with one another and with institutions to influence Big Ideas. Take marriage as an example.

23. BIG IDEA
The Self Institutions
MARRIAGE
Church
Same sex
Marriage: man & woman, sanctified by the Church, then “or by the state” then common law, then same sex.
One of the myths of culture, more like a misperception, more like an examined assumption, is that cultures are
static, when in fact they are constantly changing.

24. Big Ideas
Western cultures
The Greeks
Judeo-Christian religion
The Protestant Reformation
The Enlightenment *
Industrial Revolution
Imperialism
Produced selves that focus on:
Personal agency
Individualism
Parts
Control/mastery
Asian cultures
Taoism
Buddhism
Confucius
Produced selves that focus on:
Harmony
Interdependence
Holism
Change & contradiction
These big ideas influence everything from systems of governance to child rearing practices and lead to the
construction of different social identities which Markus and Conner (cultural psychologists) refer to as
‘independent’ and ‘interdependent’ selves.
* Enlightenment: 1650s to the 1780s in which cultural and intellectual forces in Western Europe
emphasized reason, analysis and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority.

25. Inter-dependent
Relational
Similar
Adjusting
Rooted
Ranked
Independent
Individual
Unique
Influencing
Free
Equal
Construction of the self
EAST WEST
Types are not either/or; we are all a bit of both.
Is there any evidence?
If there are two distinct types of selves, we should be able to find some evidence. This is what Markus
and Connor have done in their own research along with research by other cultural psychologists and
sociologists. They devised many clever experiments like the following:

26. Testing the hypothesis
Choose a pen
In this experiment, researchers approached Asians and Westerners at the San Francisco Airport and
asked them to complete a short questionnaire. As a reward they were offered the choice of a pen. This
was the real experiment. Four of the pens were identical and one was different. Westerners most often
chose the one different pen (indicating their independent personality) and Asians most often chose one
of the similar pens (indicating their desire to fit in with the crowd). The differences were statistically
significant.

27. West: Talking helps thinking
Shows you are ‘good’ thinker
East: Those who know don’t speak.
Those who speak don’t know.
Talk or not talk: Does talking help thinking? Thinking out loud versus not.
College professors in Western universities complain that Asian students won’t speak up in class or express
their opinions. The same thing happens in meetings of multi-cultural groups in in business and the public
sector. Is this based on the different selves the two cultures produce? In this experiment, American and
Chinese students were asked to take the Raven Progressive Matrices test. In this test, you have to decide
which of the figures 1 to 8 goes in the box at the end of the third row above. Both groups did the
experiment under two conditions. In one condition, students were told ‘no talking’ and in the other
condition they were instructed to ‘think out loud’. The results: American students performed better when
they could talk and Chinese students performed better when they could remain silent.
Which of the patterns
below goes in the blank
space here?

28. Tokyo subway poster:
Board the train in an
orderly fashion.
Templeton Global Investments
Only dead fish swim with the
current.
Mass media reflects and reinforces how we think.
Mass media reinforces independent and interdependent selves. In the West, and now in most ‘developing
economies’ (like Thailand) the average person is exposed to up to 5,000 advertising images per day. Markus
and Connor use this example where in Tokyo the message is that the proper behavior is to line up and be
orderly, whereas in the West the message is conformity is not a good thing.

29. I’m smart, maybe not
brilliant, but well-organized, a
good sport, I plan for the
future and make choices
about what I want, feel and
want to be.
I know what’s right and
wrong. I’m kind to people. I
never talk down to anyone
and I never talk behind their
backs.
Working class / middle class
Working class versus middle class
There are cultures within cultures. Any advanced
economic society (think Asian Tigers) has upper,
middle and working class plus a class of rural farmers,
and an underclass. Studies show that working class
people display more inter-dependent values and
people in the middle class more independent values.
This applies to the USA and most Western European
countries.

30. North and South
Politeness
Courtesy
Deference (sir and ma’m)
Honor (defense of)
Higher rates of violence
Armed Forces: 43% of recruits but only 36% of males
18-24
Gun ownership: 57% (US average: 47%)
Anyone who knows even a bit about the USA knows that
the former Confederate States (Dixie on Garreau’s Nine
Nations map) are big on ‘honor’. If you should do or say
something that even implies your are ‘disrespecting’
someone, someone’s wife, girlfriend, sister, pet dog,
choice of automobile, you could end up getting shot. You
find honor cultures in Mediterranean countries, Latin
America and Arabic countries. What they all have in
common is a history of pastoralism (herding cattle, sheep,
camels…). The South was settled by large numbers of
Scottish Highlanders where there was no formal law so if
someone stole your cow, pig, horse, either you showed
them there were serious consequences or they came back
for more.

31. BIG IDEA
The Self Institutions
HONOR
The duel
So we see how a big idea, like honor, can shape individual beliefs and attitudes, that are reflected in institutions
(the duel) which shape behavior, which shape attitudes and beliefs and on and on. Big on honor: Mediterranean
cultures, Latin America, Arabic cultures
One of the myths of culture, more like a misperception, more like an examined assumption, is that cultures are
static, when in fact they are constantly changing.

32. Culture shapes the way we think.
Perception
Cognition

33. Based on research
Here I am drawing on the work of Yale psychologist
Richard Nisbett. He and his graduate students and
now colleagues have done scores of studies that
seem to show significant differences in how
Westerners and Asians literally ‘see’ the world and
how they think in very different ways.

34. East West
Patterns of
attention and
perception and
explanations
Environments and
relationships
Objects
Composition and
organization of the
world
Substances
Relationships
Objects
Categories
Stability vs Change Change Stability
Use of formal logic Context Logic
Dialectical
approaches
Seek the middle
way
Either/or
Right or wrong
Some of their findings…

35. East West
Patterns of
attention and
perception and
explanations
Environments and
relationships
Objects
Japanese & American
In one experiment, students were shown
pictures of fish in an aquarium. They were
told they would be asked to recall which
fish they had seen. There were two recall
conditions. In one condition, students saw
new and previously seen fish against a
background that was the same as the
original aquarium. In the second
condition, new and previously seen fish
were shown against a new background.
The American students recalled more fish
in both conditions. The Japanese students
did better when the background was the
same as the original aquarium. What
Nisbett infers from this is that Asians are
more sensitive to “things in context”
whereas Americans are more focused on
‘objects’.

36. East West
Composition and
organization of the
world
Substances
Relationships
Objects
Categories
In this experiment, American and Chinese students were asked to pair two of the three pictures.
Americans more often paired the cow and chicken (both mammals, farm animals, both in the
same category) and Chinese students more often paired the cow and the straw (cows eat straw; a
relationship). Notice I keep saying “most often” because ‘independent’ and ‘interdependent’
selves are not mutually exclusive. We are all a mix of the two but for most of us, one way of
seeing/being is predominant.

37. East West
Preference for collective action Insistence on freedom of individual
action
Blending harmoniously with the group Desire for individual distinctiveness
Acceptance of hierarchy and ascribed
status
A preference for egalitarianism and
achieved status
Take into account the context and
relationships involved
Rules governing ‘proper’ behavior
should be applied universally and
regardless of circumstances
General findings…

38. Language
Encodes culture
Determines how we think

39. Personal pronouns
English (8)
I
You
He/she/it
We
You
They
If you want to understand a culture, learn something about the
language. You don’t have to learn to speak a language to learn
something about it. For example, in English we 8 personal pronouns.
That’s it. Men and women use the same pronouns. Kids and CEO’s or
multinational corporations use the same pronouns. Not so in Thai.

40. Thai (10 forms of I)
I (said by women)
Rao or Kao: very informal, with intimate friends
Chan: common ,informal
Dee chan: More formal, e.g. at a reception where you don’t know people
I (said by men)
Phom, chan, rao, gan
I (said by children)
Noo
Very formal (e.g. speeches)
Ka pha jao
7 you, 5 he/she/it, 2 they, 4 we = 27 pronouns depending on the gender and age of
the speaker and the situation they are in.
In Thai there are at least 27 personal pronouns. Which one you use
depends on your gender, age, social status and the situation in which
you are speaking. What does that say about Thai culture? That Thais
are acutely sensitive to status and that status is a highly nuanced topic.
See Thai Reference Grammar: The Structure of spoken Thai. James
Higbie and Snea Thinsan.

41. My final example of language is Christopher G. Moore’s ‘heart talk’.
Moore has collected over 700 words and phrases with the Thai word
for ‘heart’ (jai). In English we might have something in the range of 50-
100. What does that tells us about the culture? That Thais place a high
value on emotional states? Which might feed into the need to
maintain ‘harmony’ at all costs? Which is why they discount Western
‘logic’ that we prize so highly?

42. Thank you.