北京大学新闻与传播学院关世杰

Guan ShijiePeking University

May 13, 2009 ， Sweden

Values and intercultural communication

• Beside the ways of thinking, human’s brain will treat the massage according to one’s understanding about meanings of the world, the life, values, ethic and so on to judge those message, forming one’s attitude and guiding one’s practice. The person is not easily aware of his/her weltanschauung (world view) and values usually, as they are parts of “iceberg” under deep sea.

Outline

• I. Weltanschauung

• II. Values

• III. Values and intercultural communication

I. Weltanschauung

• 1. Outlooks on world and life– Definition of Weltanschauung

• China: Weltanschauung is a philosophical concept which refers to the understanding of the basic characteristic of the world.

• Japan: the outlook on world is the opinion and attitude toward human beings and supernatural existence like Buddha, (the position, function and relations of human world) and the nature world.

– Different characteristics of different Weltanschauung are consisted of different relations among god, human and nature.

Quiz 1

• Picture the understanding of yourself about relationship among God, human, and nature using three circles.

Quiz 2

• Please using circle to picture the relationship among god, human and nature in Chinese culture, Christian culture and Japanese culture.

• According to the Jewish and Christian views, God is infinite while human and nature are finite. As finite existence, humans have souls while nature doesn’t; hence the hierarchy of the three: god- human- nature.

God

Human

Nature

Christian views

• 2. Religions and the outlook on the world– Only 1 billion out of 5 billion people had no

religions all over the world in 1993.– Religion is very important for the outlook on

world in a specific culture. It has a set of comprehensive rules of formation of the world. Every religion states that things are created by God.

• According to the World Culture Report 2000 of the UNESCO, among 158 countries and regions, only China, Mongolia, North Korea, Czech, Cuba, Haiti, Turkmenistan have a majority of unreligious population.

• The main religion in Japan is Shindo and Buddhism. Shindo is the most populous religion in Japan; almost every Japanese is a believer of it. There are more than 100 million believers and 94.19 million believers of Buddhism, 1.74 million Christians and 10.21 million believers of other religions, mounting up to 211 million persons, twice many as the total population of 118 million.

• Nowadays in China, atheist and non-religious person are the majority. In the 1.3 billion people of China, the believers of all kinds of religions are 100 million or so, 7.7% of the total population.

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Percentage of parents who hold the opinion that “religion is so important that it should be

taught to the kids”Canada 31 U.S. 54 Spain 25 Austria 23

France 13 U.K. 19 Portugal 26 Slovenia 21

Denmark 9 Belgium 16 Bulgaria 11 Estonia 3

Sweden 6 Finland 13 Latvia 9 S. Korea 19

Hungary 24 Lithuania 21 Brazil 46 Holland 14

Romania 43 Chile 54 Japan 7 Norway 14

Mexico 40 India 38 Italy 36 Switzerland 24

China 2 Nigeria 77 Ireland 57 Byelorussia 6

South Africa 50

East Germany 16

West Germany 20

Argentina 28

Russia 8 Turkey 44 Mean 20

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• A research carried on the pieties of religion in 17 industrial countries reflected that U.S. is the first without doubts.

• U.S. is a religious country while Europe is often described as a kind of secular nations. Now U.S. is becoming more and more religious than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Most Americans have a strong emotional connection with God and the nation while the Europeans tend to stay away from them. Americans prefer to discuss questions in certain standards of good and evil which exerts to its extreme in the government.

• -----Samuel Huntington

Different relationship between religions and government

• Christian nations: religion and empire, church and the nation are dichotomous.

• Orthodox nations: god is pal of the empire

• Islamic nations: Allah has a superior power over the empire

• China: the empire was the god in the history; now political power overrides theological power.

The difference of Islamic culture and Chinese culture

A. Islam believes that Allah is the core of the whole system and human beings are the creation of Allah. They have to believe, oblige to Allah’s teachings and fulfill their promises. Chinese culture believes that individuals have responsibility to family and society so one needs to obey the rules of hierarchical institutions.

B. Islam has the credos of the afterworld life and revival, emphasizing the continuity and transcendence.

Chinese culture focuses on this life, does not discuss about ghosts or god even if their existence is admitted. The afterworld life and the transcendence of religion are downplayed. The concepts of universe and human beings, life and death, people and ghosts, grandparents and grandchildren are all included in the system of human beings.

C. Islamic lifestyle diverges with Chinese traditions, too. Muslims don’t eat pork, lard, or marry the pagans. They also have habits of simple inhumation after death.

Chinese people generally lay offerings for their ancestors and are quite concerned with the burials. They like Fengshui ( 风水 ) and practicing divination. Chinese is agricultural so pork is the main source of meat in their diet.

Both Chinese and Islamic cultures share the spirit of “respecting the universe” and

humanistic concerns.A. Respecting the universe: the Chinese sages

strives for humanities and the universe is also included in the interpersonal getting-along ways. The universe here refers to the protean righteousness. Islamic sages strives for the rules of the universe, concerning the way to get along with Allah, which includes the way to get along with people.

B. Islam requires justice, righteousness, kindness which share the same core with Chinese culture

• Religion serves as the most fundamental and hidden part for culture, influencing attitudes, belief, cognitions, values and outlooks on life of the specific culture.

• China has a tolerant religious culture that bears Buddhism, Taoism, etc. There was not serious religion war in Chinese history. It is totally different from the monotheism such as Christian and Islam.

3. Difference in significant issues of Weltanschauung

• American anthropologist F. Kluckhohn identified 5 orientations, live categories of beliefs and behaviors that are universal. This means that all cultures have to work out solutions to these issues. Beside her list, I add two orientation “The relationship between mental and substance (material)” and “Outlooks on life”

• The following is the scheme of basic orientation of weltanschauung

scheme of orientations

orientation Varieties

The relationship between mental and substance

Materialism dialectic materialism mentalism

Relationship to nature

Nature control Harmony with Humans control

Humans Nature Nature

The nature of human beings

Basically good Mixture of good Basically Evil

and evil

Outlooks on life This life this and that otherworld

Sense of Time Past present future

Activity Being –who you Growing- Doing—what you

are becoming are doing

Social relation Family group individual

• I would like discuss 4 of 7 orientations in detail in following part.

1) The relationship between mental and substance

• Philosophy point of view

• Materialism: Which one comes first? Substance or mental (or spirit)? Materialist believes that substance comes first originally. Where do we come from? Is man evolved from ape, or is man created by God?

• dialectic materialism • Mentalism (spiritualism)• dialectic mentalism

2) Relationship of humans with nature

Relationship to nature

Nature over humans Harmony with nature humans over nature

Accept your fate live according to the make life comfortable

rhythms of nature and convenient

Life is outside the Everything has its problem can be

individual’s control own character solved once we know

the fact

Be humble Be balanced Be objective

• Traditional Chinese attitude to nature is “Harmony with nature”. (“天人合一” ) Human integrates with nature). It can be seen in traditional painting of China.

• In present time China adopt the western attitude toward the natural world to modernize itself.

• Traditional Western attitude to nature is “humans over nature”• Western attitude are changing because people now realize that

the Western mastery over nature philosophy causes problem as well as providing benefits.

Development of outlook on nature

Ancient times Renaissance Modern

Types of nature

Organic nature Mechanic nature

Cybernatic nature

Philosophy Natural Technical, mechanic

Scientific, social world

Foci of control External control

Internal control proportional external and

internal control

Positive effect Art, performance

Technique, change

Applied science,

development

Different cultures adopt different attitudes toward nature

• Conquer, succumb to, or be in harmony with?• The attitudes toward nature affect the attribution

of problems.• The attitude that people hold to nature usually

extend to other areas of life. If your culture teaches integration with nature, harmony and balance, you are likely to seek harmony and balance in social relationships as well.

• If you think you are separate from nature and can control it, then you probably think you are separate from others and can use scientific methods to control people and events.

• This is true in the West where technology extends to the human world in the form of human engineering. The scientific study of human motivation and the invention of technologies to control it are the basis of professional practice in fields such as advertising, psychology, education, sociology, public relations and management.

Summer Palace, Beijing

Haterfield Garden, Britan

Cognitive difference

man-control culture

nature-control culture

Antagonize the environment

a flexible attitude, willing to reconcile to keep peace

Conflicts and boycott show faith

harmonious, sensitive

Individuals, own group and organization

others are the focus of concern

Uneasy when the environment changes or is

out of control

feel fine with the change of nature

Human nature

Basically evil Mixture of good Basically good

and evil

Expect to find evil Separate good from Protect people’s

And fight against it. evil virtue

Punish bad behavior Identify strengths and Reward good

weaknesses behavior

Save people from Reward the good in Find the most

their evil nature people and punish virtuous people

the bad

3) Human nature

•

• Confucius believed that human nature is basically good.

• Three Character Primer ( 《三字经》 ) is the basic kindergarten reading in China. It is said in its first sentence,” human nature is good when persons come into the world”. “ 人之初 , 性本善”

• The traditional Western belief about human nature is that humans are basically evil. We see this in the Bible story of Adam and Eve. God throw them out of garden of Eden because they ate the fruit from the Tree of knowledge.

• From that time on, according to Christian teaching, all humans have been born with original sin. That means they

• do evil as part of their nature• and can onlybe saved from evil • by God.• “人之初 , 性本恶”

• As the result of influence from western culture, Chinese traditionally basic belief is changing to a mixture of good and evil, while the original belief continues to flourish alongside the present belief.

• As a result of the rise of humanism in the west, this basic belief has changed to one of seeing humans as a mixture of good and evil.

• Traditional Western view of human nature shows up in modern theories that seem to have nothing to do with religious beliefs. The psychological theories of Sigmund Freud include the idea that infants are controlled by primitive desires (evil) and learn to control them (become good) as the personality develops. This contrasts sharply with the Chinese view that children are pure and good and learn to do bad things as a result of contact with bad influence in the society. Typically westerners stress the ability of people to change for better. Now they are more likely to think that education and other good influence, rather than god, will save them.

• The direction of moral change in China is more likely to be from good to bad, rather than from bad to good as it in the West.

• Because this danger, it is the responsibility of those in authority , such as parents, teachers and political leaders, to protect the morality of those under their care and to be models of virtue themselves.

• In Chinese mass media, when the reporters write about the heroes or honored figures, they usually tend to idealize them. They invariably posses all virtues and have no defects, presenting these people as models of virtue.

• In west even the noblest figures usually have flaws. Ex-Present Bill Clinton of US was forgiven by American people for his mistakes that he had a bad relations with the girl student, as soon as he apologized.

• The traditional view has also been incorporated into Western institutions in various ways. The distrust of human nature can be seen in American political institutions with their checks and balances. The legislative branch of government anf media journalists should keep an eye on the president, state governors and other government officials to make sure they do not do anything evil.

Shame culture and guilt culture• China: shame culture • In Chinese culture, people are encouraged to be good by others around

them. If someone fails to live up to others’ expectations that they should be virtuous, he or she will have a feeling of shame. Some experts call Chinese culture as shame culture.

• Members of culture of shame care a lot about how they look like in others’ eyes. They put emphasis on interpersonal relationship, faces, which are totally different from the members of guilt culture.

• Western: guilt culture• People are expected to know the difference between good and evil. If he or

she does something wrong, he or she will feel guilty whether others know it or not.

• Members of guilt culture do not concern about others’ view so much because they think each individual should be responsible to God or the belief.

4) Outlooks on life

A. Definition and content– The target of life: why do we live? What

should we achieve in the social activities? This is the core of outlook on life

– The attitude of life: how to plan the life?– The remark of life: how to look upon the

value of life? The meaning of life.

B. The cultural influence on the outlook on life– Chinese culture is not so religious so we don’t

focus so much on the afterlife world as on the present life. The outlooks of hermits, secular and carpe diem all emphasize the present life.

• Many people in western countries focus on the afterlife world. In the final judgment they want to enter the paradise rather than the hell.

• Hinduism disciples believe that the target of life is to purify oneself for the paradise and to achieve the eternal soul of universe.

• In Islamic society people try to understand the will of Allah and obliged to it.

• A pious Buddhist holds a pessimistic attitude towards the present life, taking it as a sea of unfortunate things. Living, aging, illness and death are all suffering things. So what people should do is to control their desire to get rid of the samsara ( 轮回 )of lives.

• Taoism is the native religion of China.• The aim of the Taoism is to live in this world as

long as possible through two way of refining the elixir and exercising the Chinese yoga.

“Bai Yun Guan”

temple of Tao

in Beijing

• For example ： The monkey ate the elixir in Tao’s temple when he made trouble in the heaven in the famous traditional Chinese novel Journey to the West 《西游记》 .

II. Values

• 1. The definition and elements of values– The definition of values

• Values are the standards for subject to make judgments and choices toward objects according to their meaning to themselves and the society.

• Rokeach thought that values are a set of beliefs about what people think are the best behaviors, or a faith system that puts behaviors in sequence of importance. generally speaking, it is a set of beliefs about what is important and what is not, what is worth doing and what is not.

2. The characteristics of values and the types

• Characteristics of values– It is not as stable as the outlooks on world

and life– As we can tell from the opening up period in

China, the values of commercial and competition are respected instead of the foci on group rather than individuals, friendship rather than profit, cooperation rather than competition, heritage rather than creation.

• Very important, important, unimportant values– For a warrior of independence

• Life• Love• Freedom

– For a coward• Freedom• Love• Life

– For a martyr of love• Freedom• Life• Love

Val ues Very

i mportant I mportant Uni mportant I gnorabl e

I ndi vi dual i sm W B E M

Soci al cl ass WEMA B — — Harmony E B WA M

Money WAB M E — Modesty E BAM — W

Punctual i ty W B ME A

Sal vat i on W M — EBA

f atal i sm E — — MWBA

Col l ecti ve

responsi bi l i t

y

EAM B — W

Respect f or

the ol d EAM B — W

Respect f or

the youth W MABE — —

Equal i ty W EB A M

Val ues Very

i mportant I mportant Uni mportant I gnorabl e

I ndi vi dual i sm W B E M

Soci al cl ass WEMA B — — Harmony E B WA M

Money WAB M E — Modesty E BAM — W

Punctual i ty W B ME A

Sal vat i on W M — EBA

f atal i sm E — — MWBA

Col l ecti ve

responsi bi l i t

y

EAM B — W

Respect f or

the ol d EAM B — W

Respect f or

the youth W MABE — —

Equal i ty W EB A M

Understanding intercultural communication issues with values

• Mainstream and exceptions: not all Chinese are collectivists, not all Americans are individualists

• Synthesis and analysis: the reason that we analyze the dimensions one by one is for better understanding. In reality, all the dimensions work together

• Incomprehensiveness: not all values in reality are included here.

• Practicality: values are presented only in practical communication

• 3. Elements of values– Rokeach’s way of division– E. Hall’s High context and Low text– Hofstede’s way of division

• Critiques: Rokeach’s way of division is Americanized way about values

• Concepts of “filial piety” ( 孝） and “chastity” （贞节） are not included.

• Here are Professor Guoshu Yang’s （杨国枢） scale for traditional values in Chinese culture

• Bearing hardships self-restriction saving faces• Help family members work hard be harmonious with others• Adventurous be faithful to family cooperate with members of

a team• Willing to learn obey the higher authority do not conflict with

others• Be consistent pursuing wealth learning• Proficiency in a particular area have a careful expenditure knowing

the interpersonal relationship• Filial piety loving the nation be faithful• Be responsible obey the authority be tolerant• Righteous be resigned to one’s fate following the norms• Be thrifty be careful be firm and stable• Work hard be polite with each other 中庸• Obey the disciplines purge one’s mind of desires be sacrificial • Do not do things to others that you don’t want to happen on you

• Hofstede’s division (4+1)

• originally there are 4:– Individualism—collectivism– Power distance– Uncertainty avoidance– Masculinity-femininity

• Collectivism and Individualism: which is more important? Individual or group?

• Col. Ind.• Even in collectivist cultures there are

different emphasis

1) Emphasis on nation (South Korea)

2) Emphasis on family (China)

3) Emphasis on group (Japan)

• POWER DISTANCE: to what extent a cultural adapts to inequalities of power distribution in organization.

• The cultures with long power distance will take it as granted that the uneven power distribution is long-term and a must form of organization for the society. Authorities are worshiped and distanced.

• The cultures with short power distance will take it as a temporary fact that the uneven power distribution and is changeable through individual effort. The authorities are temporary, too.

• Example: Denmark is a country with short power distance in that the political leaders are often scoffed or caricatured. The “ten commandment” is very popular in Denmark, It shows the egalitarian spirit:

• You shall not think you are somebody.• You shall not put yourself on a par with us.• You shall not think you are cleverer than us• You shall not think you are better than us.• You shall not think you know more than us.• You shall not think you are more than us.• You shall not think you are worth anything.• You shall not laugh at us.• You shall not think that anybody cares about you.• You shall not think that you can teach us anything.

• Dimension of uncertainty avoidance measures the extent to which a culture can accept ambiguous situations and tolerate uncertainty about future.

• Dimension of masculinity and femininity refers to the extent to which stereotypically masculine and feminine traits prevail in the culture.

• Mas. Ambition, assertiveness, achievement, strength, competitiveness and material acquisition.

• Fem. Quality of affection, compassion, emotion, nurturing and sensitivity.

Adding 1 dimension later:Long-term – short-term orientation One major criticism of Hofstede’s work is his

Western bias to collect his data. To overcome this problem he offer a new dimension called long-versus short orientation (it is also called as Confucian dynamism). It oppose long-term to short-term aspects of Confucian thinking: persistence and thrift to personal stability and respect for tradition. Be concerned with either long term result or short term result.

4. Different values Among Sweden, Chinese and American Cultures

• 1) Four aspects of comparison and result– Power distance– Individualism and collectivism– Uncertainty avoidance– Masculinity and femininity– Long-term – short-term orientation

The results ( in 40 country and region)Country

or region

Power distance

Uncertainty avoidance

Individualism Masculinity

score rank score rank score rank score rank

Sweden 31 35 29 38 71 10 5 40

Taiwan China

58 19 69 20 17 36 45 27

Hong Kong

68 8 29 37 25 32 57 17

U.S. 40 26 46 32 91 1 62 13

Australia

36 29 51 27 90 2 61 14

U.K. 35 31 35 35 89 3 66 8

Canada 39 27 48 31 80 4 52 21

New Zealand

22 37 49 30 79 6 58 15

Average 52 / 64 / 50 / 50 /

Long-term values for 23 countries or regions

Country or region Long-term orientationscore rank

Mainland China 118 1

Hong Kong 96 2

China Taiwan 87 3

Japan 80 4

South Korea 75 5

Singapore 48 9

Sweden 12

Germany （ west） 31 14/15

UK 29 17

US 25 18/19

Pakistan 23

Power distance

Individualism

and

collectivism

• I would like to make analysis on the individualism and collectivism dimension in detail only, as time is limited.

• 2) The research of Chinese scholars supported the Hofstede’s result

• A. Guoshu Yang compared the values, attitudes and beliefs of traditional Chinese and western cultures to discuss the different social behaviors. He named the traditional Chinese mode “society-orientation” while American mode “individual-orientation”

Society orientation individual orientation

Relationship orientation self orientation

Authority orientation independence orientation

Family orientation egalitarian orientation

Others orientation competition orientation

The features of interaction in the Chinese society orientationSub-orientations Contents

Family orientation continuity, harmony, unity, richness, honor of the family

Relationship orientation

characterization, reciprocality, harmony, destiny, determinism of the relationship

Authority orientation sensitivity, worship, reliability of authorities

Others orientation concern, obeisance of others, rules and reputation

Sub-orientations Contents

Family orientation continuity, harmony, unity, richness, honor of the family

Relationship orientation

characterization, reciprocality, harmony, destiny, determinism of the relationship

Authority orientation sensitivity, worship, reliability of authorities

Others orientation concern, obeisance of others, rules and reputation

• B. psychologist Ying Zhu’s study• He discovered (employed FMRI ） that the

Brodman Area in Chinese brain symbolizes both self and mother while westerners’ symbolizes themselves rather but not mother. This research shows that not only the manipulation of self-performance depends on the complex social cognitive process, but also the latter is influenced by the culture, which provides evidence for the rising of cultural neuroscience.

• He said, “What I want to emphasize is that western philosophy, psychology as well as neuroscience are consistent in the concept of self in that they all stress the individual and exclude the relationship with others. That is to say, the initiative in philosophy and independence in psychology all reflected the symbolization of self rather than mother in Brodman Area. Chinese philosophy, psychology and neuroscience are also consistent in this concept. The self in psychology includes father, mother and best friends. Brodman area therefore symbolizes self and mother in result. In general, the western self is independent and unconnected while Chinese interdependent and connected. The features are shown in various levels of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience.”

• The structures of the concept of self are different in eastern and western cultures. Western self stresses name, job, characteristics while eastern self is almost nothing without parents, best friends and colleagues.

• European countries have absolutely independent self which excludes best friends, parents and colleagues. He or she decides by him/herself. Chinese are more dependent on others opinions. Visiting someone and being asked “what do you want to eat?”, Chinese will say:” 随便“ (anything will do),” while westerners: “steaks (or others.)”

• 3) representation of difference between Sino-American valueA. Open Ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games

B. A content analysis of Chinese and American textbook for primary students

Cover of American textbook

Lesson 1

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Cover of Chinese textbook

Leeson 1

• C. Chinese communication is listener-oriented while American speaker-oriented

• Are you not going to lib?– Chinese: yes, I am not.– American: no, I am not.

• When answering a “yes” or “no” question, the English native speakers focus on their own opinions while Chinese focus on other’s.

D. Self-group and ex/internal group relations

Chinese

American

E. Other ExhibitionChina U.S.

Chinese: 鄙人（ BIREN ） I is always capitalized

Help and interdependence self independence

Collective works individual works

Save face for both of us no face for other

Close relations Privacy

Similarity personality

Interpersonal harmony personal competition

Collective comes first individual comes first

Duty right

Authority against authority

Approval of national authority against especially national control

III. values and intercultural communication

1. In communication within cultures, both of the participants share the same values, therefore the values are further strengthened by communication.

2. In intercultural communication, different values will not be strengthened but they can learn from each other.

• 3. Universal ethics

• We explore the universal sameness as well as difference.

A. The importance of universal ethics

• It insures a new global order.• Only by laws, norms and customs we

cannot create a better global order.• The realization of peace and justice as

well as the protection of the world are all dependent of people’s willingness to adopt righteous actions.

• Without a universal ethic there will be no better global order.

• International laws and universal ethics are resorted to in response of the forming of “global village”

• Charter of the United Nations,

• The Human Rights Charter, The Universal Declaration on Human Rights, …

• The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity

B. The definition of universal ethics

• Universal ethics refer to: the common understanding of some regulative values, standards and attitudes; A set of common values, standards and attitudes of the lowest level which are confirmed by all religion and supported by all believers.

C. The content of universal ethics

• Respect lives

• Be righteous and fair

• Be honest

• Love each other.

• Four promises (a modern expression of the 4 covenants in the ten covenants)

• Universal ethics and intercultural communication • Everybody should talk and behave honestly. Nobody is

supposed to lie, no matter how powerful he or she is. Privacy should be highly respected and protected.

• The freedom to criticize social organizations and governmental actions of media is necessary to hold a fair society; but this freedom should be carefully applied. For media, it is of special importance to report truthfully and accurately. Any reports with claptraps should be avoided.

• Two basic requirements– Everyone should be treated humanely.– Don’t do anything to others if you don’t

want the same thing happen on you.– “己所不欲，勿施于人”

• Confucian ethics on intercultural universal ethics

• Don’t do anything to others if you don’t want the same thing happen on you

• It has been cited for many times and is regarded one of the pillars of the universal ethics

D. Needing the cooperation among all global villagers

• It is needed that cultures of all over the world should contribute their wisdoms to promote the birth of an universal ethics.

• Finishing this great task is still on the way.

THE ENDThank you very much!