prowess. Witness the selling success of Olympic champions and football
stars in promoting breakfast food or panty hose.
Inferential beliefs are those which go beyond direct observation and
information. These concern rules of logic, argumentation, rhetoric, and
even establishment of facts (the scientific method). Although internal
logic systems differ from one individual to another within a culture, they
differ more from one culture to another. The most dramatic difference in
cultural variance in thinking lies between Western and Eastern cultures.
The Western world has a logic system built upon Aristotelian principles,
and it has evolved ways of thinking that embody these principles. . . .
Eastern cultures, however, developed before and without the benefit of
Athens or Aristotle. As a consequence, their logic systems are sometimes
called non-Aristotelian, and they can often lead to quite different sets of
beliefs.
VALUES
Values bring affective force to beliefs. Some of these values are
shared with others of our kind some are not. Thus, we all adhere to some of
the beliefs and values generally accepted within our cultures; we reject
others. Values are related to what is seen to be good, proper, and
positive, or the opposite. Values are learned and may be normative in
nature. They change through time and are seldom shared in specifics by
members of different generations, although certain themes will prevail. For
example, the positive attributions placed upon competitiveness,
individualism, action, and other general principles that pervade the belief
and value orientation of members of the North American culture of the
United States remain. They include the constitutionally guaranteed and
socially valued "unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness" in individualistic, action-oriented, and competitive ways. These
values have endured their expression varies from generation to generation.
A cultural value system "represents what is expected or hoped for,
required or forbidden." It is not a report of actual conduct but is the
inductively based logically ordered set of criteria of evaluations by which
conduct is judged and sanctions applied.
THE VALUE / BELIEF PUZZLE
Value and belief systems, with their supporting cultural postulates
and world views, are complex and difficult to assess. They form an
interlocking system, reflecting and reflective of cultural history and
forces of change. They provide the bases for the assignment of cultural
meaning and evaluation. Values are desired outcomes as well as norms for
behavior; they are dreams as well as reality, They are embraced by some and
not others in a community; they may be the foundations for accepted modes
of behavior, but are as frequently overridden as observed. They are also
often the hidden force that sparks reactions and fuels denials. Unexamined
assignment of these characteristics to all members of a group is an
exercise in stereotyping.
ATTRIBUTIONS AND EVALUATIONS
Often values attributions and evaluations of the behaviors of
"strangers" are based on the value and belief systems of the observers.
Have you heard or made any of the following statements? Guilty or not?
Americans are cold.
Americans don't like their parents. Just look, they put their mothers
and fathers in nursing homes.
The Chinese are nosy. They're always asking such personal questions.
Spaniards must hate animals. Look what they do to bulls!
Marriages don't last in the United States.
Americans are very friendly. 1 met a nice couple on a tour and they
asked me to visit them.
Americans ask silly questions, they think we all live in tents and
drink nothing but camel's milk! They ought to see our airport!
Americans just pretend to be friendly; they really aren't. They say,
"Drop by sometime" but when I did, they didn't seem very happy to see me.
Of course, it was ten o'clock at night!
How should such statements be received? With anger? With explanation?
With understanding and anger? Should one just ignore such patent half-
truths stereotypic judgments, and oversimplifications? Before indulging in
any of the above actions, consider what can be learned from such
statements. First, what do these statements reveal? The speakers appear to
be concerned about families, disturbed by statistics, apt to form opinions
on limited data (friendliness), given to forming hasty and unwarranted
generalizations (Spanish bullfighting), and angered by the ignorance of
others. No one cultural group has a corner on such behavior. Second, we
might be able to guess how certain speakers might feel about divorce,
hospitality, or even animals. Third, the observations, while clearly not
applicable to all members of the groups about which the comments were made,
represent the speakers' perceptions. To many, Americans are seen as cold
and uncaring. Because perceptions and native value and belief systems play
such important roles in communication, it is important to recognize and
deal with these perceptions-correct or incorrect, fair or unfair.
In the following part of this chapter the concept of value
orientations will be explored. This will be followed by a review of the
major value orientations associated with people from the United States.
These orientations will be contrasted with those of other culture groups.
Such an approach to cross-cultural variations in values and beliefs is far
more productive than flat denial or even anger, as we form evaluative
frames of reference for ourselves and hold them up to the frames of others
we shall, at the very least, learn a great deal about ourselves.
VALUE ORIENTATIONS
Compiling a list of cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, and
assumptions would be an almost endless and quite unrewarding endeavor.
Writers in the field of intercultural communication have generally adopted
the concept of value orientations suggested by Florence Kluckhohn and Fred
Strodtbeck (1961).
In setting forth a value orientation approach to cross-cultural
variation, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961:10) pointed out that such a
theory was based upon three assumptions:
1. There are a limited number of human problems to which all cultures
must find solutions.
2. The limited number of solutions may be charted along a range or
Continuum of variations.
3. Certain solutions are favored by members in any given culture group
but all potential solutions are present in every culture.
In their schema, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck suggested that values
around five universal human problems involving man's relationship to the
environment, human nature, time, activity, and human interaction. The
authors further proposed that the orientations of any society could be
charted along these dimensions. Although variability could be found within
a group, there were always dominant or preferred positions. Culture-
specific profiles could be constructed. Such profiles should not be
regarded as statements about individual behavior, but rather as tendencies
around which social behavioral norms rules values, beliefs, and assumptions
are clustered. As such, they might influence individual behavior as other
cultural givens do; like other rules, they may be broken, changed, or
ignored.
In the Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck classification, three focal points in
the range of variations are posited for each type of orientation. In the
man-to-nature continuum variations range from a position of human mastery
over nature, to harmony with nature, to subjugation to nature. Most
industrialized societies represent the mastery orientation; the back-to-
nature counterculture of young adults during the 1960s and 1970s, the
harmonious stance; and many peasant populations, the subjugation
orientation.
The time dimension offers stops at the past, present, and future.
Human nature orientation is charted along a continuum stretching from good
to evil with some of both in the middle. The activity orientation moves
from doing to being-becoming to being. Finally, the relational orientation
ranges from the individual to the group with concern with the continuation
of the group, as an intermediate focal point.
Value orientations only represent" good guesses" about why people act
the way they do. Statements made or scales constructed are only part of an
"as if" game. That is to say, people act as if they believed in a given set
of value. Because the individuals in any cultural group exhibit great
variation, any of the orientations suggested might well be found in nearly
every culture. It is the general pattern that is sought. Value orientations
are important to us as intercultural communicators because often whatever
one believes, values, and assumes are the crucial factors in communication.
CONTRASTIVE ORIENTATlONS
Let us take some American cultural patterns that have been identified
as crucial in cross-cultural communication and consider what assumptions,
values, and attitudes support them. Edward C. Stewart was a pioneer in
examining such American behavior in a cross-cultural perspective. His book
- American Cultural Patterns. This book describes dominant characteristics
of middle class Americans. Stewart distinguishes between cultural
assumptions and values and what he called cultural norms. Cultural norms
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