Communicating With People Who Are Different From Us
by Ken Bower, Ed.D.
Interacting with people who are different is a novel experience for most of us. We are used to interacting with people who are like us and sometimes we find it difficult to communicate with others who we perceive as different. The more unlike us, the harder it is for us to communicate with them in a meaningful way.
Confucius said, "Human beings are drawn close to one another by their common nature, but their habits and customs keep them apart." Our attitudes, prejudices and stereotypes create certain expectations that cause us to misinterpret messages we receive from people who are different from us and vice versa. We must remember that mutual understanding is the goal of communication, not necessarily agreement. We base our communication understanding with strangers using our own symbolic system that may be misinterpreted by them.
Misunderstanding occurs when we misinterpret the symbolic clues of another culture. For example the use of certain hand signals with Vietnamese, eye contact with Hispanics and certain body language posturing that is important with African-Americans.
Five principles that are useful in understanding how misinterpretation can occur are as follows:
1. We can never know the state of mind-the attitudes, thoughts, and feelings-of other people.
2. We depend on signals, which are frequently ambiguous, to inform us about the attitudes and wishes of other people.
3. We use our own coding system, which may be defective, to decipher these signals.
4. Depending on our own state of mind at a particular time, we may be biased in our method of interpreting other people's behavior, that is, how we decode.
5. The degree to which we believe that we are correct in divining another person's motives and attitudes is not related to the actual accuracy of our belief.
All of us remember more favorable information about our in-groups and more unfavorable information about out-groups. We have to be aware of our body language when we are communicating with those who are different from us. We have developed attitudes concerning stereotypes about groups that are different from our own by creating expectations regarding how members of other groups will behave based upon what we have heard from others, from what the media portrays, and what we have observed about those from a certain group. These beliefs reinforce the idea that everyone in a given group must be like the ones that we have come into contact. Since our exposure is sometimes limited we must guard against forming opinions from only the few contacts that we have had.
We must all be open for a change of attitude that we have developed toward a certain group or groups of people. Some characteristics of situations necessary for developing positive attitude changes toward a social group as a result of individual contact are as follows:
1. Cooperation within groups should be maximized and competition between groups should be minimized.
2. Members of the in-group and the out-group should be of equal status both within and outside the contact situation.
3. Similarity of group members on non status dimensions (beliefs, values, etc.) appears to be desirable.
4. Differences in competence should be avoided.
5. The outcomes should be positive.
6. Strong normative and institutional support for the contact should be provided.
7. The intergroup contact should have the potential to extend beyond the immediate situation.
8. Individualization of group members should be promoted.
9. Non superficial contact (e.g., mutual disclosure of information) should be encouraged.
10. The contact should be voluntary.
11. Positive effects are likely to correlate with the duration of the contact.
12. The contact should occur in a variety of contexts with a variety of in-group and out-group members.
13. Equal numbers of in-group and out-group members should be used.
When dealing with young adolescents, we must understand not only about their their stage of growth and development, but about their particular culture as well. Adolescence is a time of great change. Hormonal changes within each individual causes a myriad of body and emotional differences. These changes are not of a gradual, sequential nature, but instead occur in spurts. Not only are adolescents experiencing tremendous body changes, but their emotional or mood swings make it difficult for them to cope with situations that would otherwise make no difference to them.
The adolescents’ peer group means more to them than ever before or after in their lives. Not only is each individual seeking to become a separate individual in their identity, each person being fearful about being the slightest bit different from others in their group. This is a cause for much stress on them as well as every one else around them. Many times they are unconscious that their behavior is not what others expect and at other times they are acting out, consciously knowing that what they are doing is unacceptable to supervising adults. In the case of the latter, they are testing the adult to find the boundaries that have been set up for them. Once they know the boundaries, it becomes a conscious effort to either stay within them or not. If the adults are respected, the boundaries are adhered to, otherwise the adolescent will remain incorrigible until the consequences become so great that they are not willing to accept them.
With minority students an additional factor of group prejudice becomes an emotional issue. When it is perceived that someone’s actions are of a prejudicial nature, not only do the factors of adolescence come into play, but the idea that they are different and that those differences are not appreciated makes them even more angry causing additional acting out behavior.
Research has demonstrated that we are not always aware of the way that we treat others, so we must make a special effort to treat those who are different from us with impartiality. Although we think that we are treating those who are different from ourselves as equals, we are not always perceived to be doing so by those in an out-group from ourselves.
It is important that we treat all students fairly, being careful to explain the rules very carefully, checking for understanding, enforcing the rules without deviation, and most important of all, acting in a friendly manner. Adolescents must understand that it is not them as individuals that you do not like, but their inappropriate actions and behaviors that you do not condone.