Dimensions of Culture

(Copyright © 2008. All Rights Reserved.)

In almost every cross-cultural training I deliver, the question comes up about avoiding stereotypes. It’s an ever-present issue because people are afraid of saying something unacceptable and being viewed by others as insensitive, critical, backwards, or worse. The truth is, that we all do plenty of generalizing and stereotyping, and it’s useful, for starters, to acknowledge that. Only then can we begin to explore the predisposition all humans have for classifying other humans and themselves. It isn’t hard to learn to distinguish between stereotyping, which inhibits cross-cultural communication, and generalizing which can be used to interpret and attribute meaning to what we experience when interacting with other cultures.
   
To survive in this complicated world, we use our senses every moment to acquire information about the surrounding environment and our immediate situation. This cognitive process is truly miraculous. Without the capabilities of our brains to make sense of the input that bombards us, we wouldn’t be able to function. Through the perception process, we make sense of what we have observed. We select the information we take in, simplify it, and categorize it using general labels. We even fill in gaps for information we don’t have to piece together an understanding of ourselves and other people based on appearance, roles, interactions, and categories of belonging. A person is male or female, young or old, etc. He or she plays certain roles in life – doctor, student, attorney, wife, and so on. We consider social behavior and personality. Is a particular person friendly, helpful, aloof, nervous? We also decide about a person’s belonging. Is he or she a republican, an immigrant, a Christian, etc. 
  
The final stage of our cognitive processing is attributing meaning to what we have observed and categorized. We rely on socialization and our own recurring experiences to interpret what we’ve put into mental categories.
  
When someone says in a corrective tone, “you’re generalizing,” it suggests that we are guilty of sloppy thinking. However, considering the complexity of processing all the stimuli in our experience, it is arguably more accurate to think of generalizing as a natural and necessary function of the human brain. In cross-cultural situations, there’s a lot of information to take in, and generalizations help with the sorting. Generalizations are useful in summarizing the shared values, beliefs, and practices of cultural groups. If we use generalizations carefully as a starting point for learning about people from other cultures, we can gain useful understanding. However, if we apply a generalization to every person in a group, if we fail to consider whether or not a statement we make is appropriate to an individual, we have stereotyped. We must always test our generalizations and be aware of those individuals who do not fit the mold, so to speak.
  
I find that healthcare providers who worry about stereotypes and generalizations are the ones least likely to offend. Their awareness of the negative impact cultural insensitivity can have on provider-patient relationships and health outcomes means they are likely to use generalizations about cultures appropriately, modifying their own behaviors to improve interactions with patients. There’s certainly nothing sloppy in that. Quite the opposite. It’s what being culturally aware is all about.