Тема 5.
Lecture 5. Microcultures of Social Identification and Group Relations
We perceive others in terms of cultural difference. Those differences can be systemic orientations or in-group/out-group factors. We examine groups that comprise not only a part of a larger macroculture, but serve important identity and information functions for their members. Related to the concept of significant others, these microcultures of social identity exercise communication influence. Functions of Microcultures Involving Social Identity
Rodgers explained that these identity groups possess conscious membership in identifiable units, recognize their part in a larger culture, and recognize the importance of social identification as a powerful concept related to interpersonal bonding.
Self-image, Boulding argued, becomes a potent concept. How a group sees itself and how individuals within the group view themselves carry significant communication implications for self-worth. Attitude and opinion development also grow out of group images, to the extent that an individual bonds with the group and to the extent the group provides anchoring points.
Reference Group Communication
Reference groups, sometimes called primary association groups, influence many of our decisions by (1) mediating information, (2) interpreting and refraining messages and issues, (3) symbolizing identification and self-worth, and (4) setting norms. Most reference groups center around family, play, or peer groups, committees, workers, and comembers in organizations.
Role and Function of Reference Groups
Most of us belong to multiple groups. By their nature, groups create drives toward conformity. In conforming to group norms, we receive two rewards: acceptance by the group and title to group beliefs, to which we can cling as a way of interpreting life's events.
There is security when the group acts as a source, reinforcement, and support, bolstering old attitudes and providing a context for future conversion to new positions. This communication web of influence is most meaningful, however, and works to create conformity under certain conditions. A list of those situations follows.
Group size. The smaller the reference group, the greater the pressure to conform.
Frequency of contact. Researchers have observed that the more interaction within a group, the more likely that members will have positive feelings toward other group members.
Cohesiveness. Cohesiveness, defined as the degree of group attraction for group members, is another factor in group influence. Cohesion implies a unity of group-centeredness and loyalty.
Group cohesiveness extends to several general principles that can be summarized as follows (Bettinghaus) . Members of cohesive groups tend to:
Have fewer deviants in their decisions;
Be influenced by persuasive communication;
Communicate frequently and evenly among group members;
Offer mutual support and reject threatening messages;
Experience greater pressure for individual conformity.
Group salience. Salience refers to the importance an individual places toward a group. In a technical sense, salience also depends on personal awareness of the group norms and perceptions of their importance.
Clarity of group norms. Studies concerning group norms have shown that the more ambiguous the group norms and standards of conduct, the less control the group has over its members. However, if the standards are clear and unambiguous, the pressure to conform is greater.
Homogeneity. Homogeneity refers to similarity among many group members. Groups tend toward uniformity in actions and attitudes as homogeneity increases. Group homogeneity also contributes toward cohesiveness.
Issues. The issues confronting reference groups influence group members. The more relevant a particular issue is to a group, the greater the individual conformity to the group position. Also, when uncertainty about an issue exists, even when the issue is overly complex, individuals experience pressure to conform to group views.
Inclusion needs. Reference group influence extends only as far as the boundaries of the personal needs allow. When group members depend significantly upon the group for satisfying high inclusion needs (that is, they fear rejection and have a high need for acceptance), conformity to group expectations is more likely. This conformity may result from a need to resemble highly esteemed persons or to sustain social approval.
High task and goal direction. In addition to reinforcing already held beliefs (for example, a person who already holds a position consistent with the goals of the organization joins a civic club), groups assist people in their personal quest. A group member might use a group to make sales contacts, for instance, and thus view the reference group as a stepping-stone for instrumental, individual purposes.
Regional Cultures and Communication
People filter messages through what DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1976) called the "social categories" of communication. This idea proposes a similarity outlook that influences perception.
Regional differences are not merely geographical but examine social attitudes and communication differences. Regional diversity in attitude, speech patterns, and life-styles illustrate a few of the perceived differences raising uncertainty between potential intercultural communicators.
Rural Cultures and Communication
In addition to regional differences, it is possible to identify characteristic norms of rurality. First, rural cultures emphasize personal know-how, practicality, and simplicity over complexity in approaching decisions.
Second, norms toward interpersonal relationships persist within rural cultures. Indications are that bonds of friendship differ from urban cultures.
Third, rurality is a mindset. One can stay rural in the middle of urban life, or for that matter stay urban living in a rural region.
Fourth, a study by Tichenor showed a higher degree of communication apprehension among persons from rural settings. She also found higher cognitive complexity for rural individuals, which indicates a higher ability to form accurate interpersonal impressions.
Fifth, communication style differences of rural individuals involve cultural norms blended with regional practices.
From a trend analysis among sources on outlying areas of urban regions, or the related areas known as suburbs, several observations meet communication needs. First, identification and joining behavior seem higher than inner city or rural communities. Second, certain forms of neighborhood identification, such as when neighbors stand together on an issue, lead to cohesive neighborhoods. Third, suburban or outlying residents overall tend to be joiners. Upward mobility and an emphasis on success symbols are associated with joining and group activity levels.
Inner-city cultures tend to be composed of isolated members with pockets or enclaves of group cohesion. Social participation outlets are limited, and isolation remains a significant theme. Housing problems and high crime rates affect social participation in urban areas and foster less dependence on interpersonal communication networks.
Anomia, a generalized isolation and loneliness, may result partly from crowded physical surroundings. Such conditions can easily lead to urban fears and suspicions predicated upon an urban dweller's experience with such things as increased crime and decreased personal territoriality.
Class Cultures and Communication
Social systems usually stratify or result in class/status differences because of socioeconomic status variables, typically occupation, income, and education. That is, members of a society rank people into higher or lower social positions, producing a rank order of respect and prestige. Respect is conferred to individuals according to their conformity to a society's ideals. The result is a role-related position determined by the prestige, esteem, and value that other members of the social system place on the individual's social class and, therefore, on the individual.
Overall, classes are inclined to depreciate the social differences between themselves and higher classes and to magnify differences with lower classes.
Research also reveals unique tendencies concerning socioeconomic differences, friendship, prestige, and trust. First, compared with stationary members, those members climbing upward in the class system are not as likely to maintain close personal friendships. Second, prestige and achievement become more valuable to middle-class members than to lower-class members and, especially, to upwardly mobile middle-class persons. Third, lower classes seem to be more distrustful of authority used by more powerful classes.
Poverty Cultures and Communication
Another coculture is poverty culture, which refers to a lack of financial and material resources. The economic condition of the poverty culture, however, is broadly associated with several beliefs and values. From the available research, the categories that follow appear consistent across many cultures. These are not racial, ethnic, or minority issues, but poverty issues and central tendencies characterized from available research. Rogers proposed some of the following categories, offering factors from a five nation study profiling attitudes among the poor. Research from Daniel adds to the list.
Perceived Limited Good. Some individuals in a poverty coculture believe the world's goods to be something like a pie with a limited number of slices. Consequently, if someone prospers, that prosperity is perceived to occur only at others' expense, since it is assumed that prosperity means one has taken an inordinate amount of the pie.
Familism. Some members of poverty cocultures subordinate personal goals to the wishes and perceived good of the family. Called familism, family needs outweigh personal and individual needs or wishes.
Fatalism. Fatalism is a believed degree to which we cannot control the future. In many co-cultures, the future is often viewed as unknown and by nature certainly uncontrollable. Success and failure are seen as matters of luck. Unseen forces control destiny and people are victims of these forces.
Lack of Innovativeness. Members of poverty cocultures typically are not able to purchase innovations. In some cases, resistance to innovation or change rests in values toward traditionalism and using tried and proven ways.
Limited Aspirations and Achievement Motivation. Some individuals caught up in the poverty cycle have a low achievement motivation.
Lack of Deferred Gratification: Spend Now or Later. There are two groups who spend now instead of saving for later. Some people who struggle within the poverty limits find it difficult if not impossible to save money for later purchases. There is also a here-and-now syndrome of reward for a second group within poverty culture, where immediate satisfaction overrides waiting for future rewards.
Low Empathy. Members of poverty cocultures seem unable to project themselves into any situation or role other than their present one. This lack of projection may be why traditional poverty cultures around the world resist attempts at modernization.
Victimization. Some poverty cultures envision institutions or members of other groups as out to get them or as the cause of their poverty. The lines encircling legitimate cases where individuals have been victimized by prejudice or policy are real and frequent.
Countercultural Communication
A counterculture is a group that stands in opposition or performs resistantly toward the larger culture. Features that serve to bind countercultural members include common code, common enemy, and common symbols.
Common Code. Counterculture group members gravitate toward a common set of linguistic usages, such as jargon and slang, that are meaningfully interpreted usually only in light of the group members' assigned meanings to the code system. Street language, while constantly changing, is an example of specialized code usage in antisocial groups such as gangs.
Common Enemy. In a number of countercultures, there is a perceived common enemy, usually the dominant culture itself. When attention is focused on the common enemy, who allegedly is responsible for some ill affecting the countercultural group, the group then has a rallying point.
Common Symbols. Many countercultural members use symbolic objects, such as colors, highly prized objects, or drugs. These symbols emphasize commonality and unification.
Organizational Culture
Microcultures of social identification also include work cultures. In recent years, organizational culture has proven a rich metaphor to describe organizations.
Organizational culture refers to the communication climate rooted in a common set of norms and interpretive schemes (Carbaugh) about phenomena that occur as people work toward a predetermined goal. In other words, we are dealing with organizational thoughts, actions, customs, and rules. Organizational culture for many people acts as a perceptual filter through which to create reality and use symbols.
Organizational Culture as a System
One way to describe organizational culture is to view it as a system. Further, organizations as systems can be described as having dynamic interchange, where there is interdependence among the organisms.
Influence of Organizational Cultures
The influence of filtering. Organizational cultures have physical and psychological boundaries; that is, each organization has a way of defining itself. That process of definition, however, builds a perceptual filter that screens inputs into the organization (Harris and Moran 1991). While there are many advantages in a culture having a clear view of itself, images and symbols of an organizational culture can also insulate the culture from outside influences. Ultimately, this privacy can reinforce negative features of intercultural communication, such as stereotyping and ethnocentrism.
The influence of adaptation to the larger culture. Successful organizational cultures adapt to the local context. The kind of organizational adaptation envisioned here involves orienting typical management functions to cultural formats and methods of operation. Some typical management functions include coordinating, leading, communicating, decision making, planning, goal setting, motivating, controlling, negotiating, training, evaluating, and selection.
The influence of symbolism and message. Organizational cultures have significant communication systems. Through the use of codes, values, heroes, storytelling, and other means of communication, an organizational culture develops a symbolic world. This communication and symbolism actually molds the organizational culture by shaping its norms. Through the stories that are told, workers sense how things are to be done.
The influence of explicit and implicit information. A low-context culture makes meanings and information available and explains expectations. Information in these low-context cultures is explicit. Meanings are not in the context but in the verbal explanations provided. High-context cultures are the opposite. Expectations are inferred from the context. One is expected to know appropriate behaviors. Meanings are not explained but are implicit.
The influence of functional and dysfunctional organizational cultures in clarifying mission. In their analysis of successful and less successful companies, Peters and Waterman concluded that good companies have clear norms and clear communication about those norms.
Dysfunctional organizations may have strong cultures, too, but they tend to focus on procedures. They also are highly concerned with costs and numbers. They tend not to realize that every person in the organization has meaning to the group, and most attention is concentrated on the top producers.