An exploratory study on intercultural communication research contents and methods: A survey based on the international and domestic journal papers published from 2001 to 2005

With the progressive acceleration of globalization in the world, the study of intercultural communication is accordingly flourishing day by day on both domestic and international levels. In order to discern the current trends of intercultural communication research in China and abroad and furthermore provide suggestions for future research, the present study has made an analysis of 368 intercultural communication articles published between 2001 and 2005 in 11 major international and domestic academic journals, among which 203 articles are from 10 major domestic academic journals and 165 ones from the American journal entitled International Journal of Intercultural Relations. Each article is analyzed from two perspectives: the research contents and research methods. The results indicate that intercultural communication research in China is sharply different from research abroad with regards to research contents and methods. The main concern of researchers abroad is intercultural adaptation and intercultural training while the Chinese researchers are mainly concerned with cross-cultural pragmatics. As far as research methods are concerned, most studies abroad are conducted using empirical research methods, the majority of which adopt the quantitative research method. On the contrary, most studies in China are non-empirical research. Of the small number of empirical studies, considerable attention is paid to the mixed use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. At the end of the paper, constructive suggestions are made for future research.     

The role of intercultural competence,in the relationship between intercultural experiences and creativity among students

We studied the interplay of intercultural competence, intercultural experiences, and creativity among Russian students from Moscow (N = 272). We expected the students from culturally diverse groups, attending the courses on cultural issues, to be more creative. We based our expectation on the idea that cultural diversity and cultural learning are associated with a higher level of intercultural competence that might contribute to students’ creativity. We measured the intercultural experiences by cultural diversity of study groups (a number of foreign students in the groups and the intensity of friendly contacts with them) and by cultural learning (a number of culture-related courses that students attended). We measured creativity by the “Many Instances Game” from the Runco Creativity Assessment Battery (rCAB). We measured intercultural competence by the adapted scale of Fantini and Tirmizi. We discovered positive associations of intercultural experiences in the university with students’ creativity. Such components of intercultural competence as attitudes and skills (the adaptability of behavior), played an important role in the students’ creativity. The attitudes were positive and the skills were negative, related to the creativity. We also revealed that these two components of intercultural competence mediated the relationship between the intercultural experiences and creativity of students. Based on the results, we discussed the factors of the educational environment which may enhance or prohibit creativity.     

A model of relationship between collective identity and language in pluricultural and plurilingual settings: Influence on intercultural relations

The introduction of the Spanish Constitution in 1978, together with the development of the Statutes of Autonomy in the autonomous communities, established the co-official status of the regional language alongside Spanish. In one of these communities, Catalonia, located on the north-west boundary of the Lleida province, is the Aran Valley, where three languages coexist: Occitan-Aranese (regional language), Catalan (Catalonia's co-official language) and Spanish. The Valley of Aran is an ideal setting to study the construction of their collective identity and its relation to the language in an intercultural setting. As a result of immigration and the gradual decrease in the population born in the region, intercultural contact takes place among clearly distinct groups.In this work we present an analysis of the development of the Aranese identity and of the role language plays in this process and the way this process influences intergroup relationships. The study is based on a perspective that considers that the influence of language on the creation of collective identity is not a categorical and universal phenomenon [Fernández, M. A. (2000). Cuando los hablantes se niegan a elegir: monolingüismo e identidad múltiple en la modernidad reflexiva. Estudios de Sociolingüística 1 (1), 47–58; Siguán, M. (1996). L’Europa de les Llengües. Barcelona: Edicions 62]. Rather, we view language as a socially constructed means of expressing community membership. In this way, language plays an important part in the formation of Aranese identity, but the meaning given by the population to the language varies according to whether residents identify themselves or not with the Aranese world. At the same time, language also interferes in the relationship between the different groups living in the territory.     

The relationship between intercultural effectiveness and perceived project team performance in the context of international development

Working effectively in the development context—humanitarian aid or capacity building as in any intercultural context requires specific skills and abilities such as special knowledge of human relationships as these projects bring people together from different cultures, mentalities, and backgrounds. The research examines the relationship between intercultural effectiveness and project team performance in the international development field based on the Canadian technical advisors and project team personnel that work overseas within international development projects. The sample consisted of 106 international development practitioners who completed a self-report survey assessing intercultural effectiveness based on the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) and project team performance based on the Group Development Questionnaire. The study examined how the level of intercultural effectiveness is affected by age, gender, education, and experience of each individual respondent based on MANOVA and t-test analysis. Correlation analysis confirmed the relationship between intercultural effectiveness and project team performance.     

Intercultural priorities among immigrant organizations in Galicia (Spain): Beyond the offensive and defensive binary

In this article we analyze the situation of immigrant organizations during the European economic crisis. We set out to examine how, during a period of heightened economic insecurity, priorities among these multiples roles might shift when members find themselves in a particularly vulnerable situation. Data was collected in the form of 16 extended semi-structured interviews with group representatives throughout the Galician autonomous community in north-western Spain. Our data provide an empirically-based study that have led us to adapt Schrover and Vermeulen’s (2005) classification of immigrant association approaches as either defensive (responding to social exclusion) or offensive (emphasizing differences with respect to the destination society), extending this scheme to include a third approach, which our data show to be a priority even under conditions of economic insecurity: claims for intercultural relations with receiving society members with the goal of increased social cohesion and mutual understanding.     

The role of ingroup assortative sociality in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multilevel analysis of google trends data in the United States

This study tested how family ties and religiosity, two extended elements of ingroup assortative sociality, would predict group-level COVID-19 severity in the U.S. and how COVID-19 threat would predict ingroup assortative sociality at a weekly level. Multilevel models which analyzed the state-level archival (e.g., religious participation) and Google trends data (e.g., marriage for family ties; prayer for religiosity) on ingroup assortative sociality showed that religious search volume (from 2004 to 2019) significantly and negatively predicted COVID-19 severity (i.e., shorter time delay of first documented cases, shorter overall doubling times, higher reproductive ratio and higher case fatality ratio) across states (Study 1a) and counties (Study 1b) while search volume for family ties only significantly and negatively predicted county-level COVID-19 severity. Multilevel analyses also found that weekly COVID-19 severity weakly predicted weekly search volume of marriage and religion (Study 2a), but when COVID-19 threat was in the collective consciousness in a given week (i.e., Google search volume for coronavirus within 52 weeks), collective levels of ingroup assortative sociality increased from the previous week (Study 2b). Evidence across studies suggested that religiosity, compared with family ties, could serve a more important role for the U.S. people during the deadly pandemic.     

Addressing the effect of concern with COVID-19 threat on prejudice towards immigrants: The sequential mediating role of need for cognitive closure and desire for cultural tightness

The link between threat and anti-immigrant prejudice is well-established. Relatedly, recent research has also shown that situational threats (such as concern with COVID-19 threat) increase anti-immigrant prejudice through the mediating role of desire for cultural tightness. This study aims to further our understanding of the psychological processes underlying the relation between concern with COVID-19 threat and increased negative attitudes towards immigrants by considering the mediational role of an individual epistemic motivation (i.e., the need for cognitive closure). A study was conducted on a large sample of Italian respondents covering all the Italian regions. Findings revealed that high concern with COVID-19 threat led to increased negative attitudes towards immigrants through the sequential mediating role of higher need for cognitive closure, leading in turn to higher desire for cultural tightness. Implications of these findings for a timely contextualized study of anti-immigrant prejudice will be highlighted.     

Threat and Prejudice against Syrian Refugees in Canada: Assessing the Moderating Effects of Multiculturalism,Interculturalism, and Assimilation

A survey experiment (N = 529) was used to test the moderating effects of intergroup ideologies (assimilation, multiculturalism, and interculturalism) on the relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and expressions of prejudice under conditions of intergroup threat. Moderated multiple regression analyses suggest a multicultural integration frame moderates the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrian refugees in Canada when the target outgroup is portrayed as a source of intergroup threat. This moderating effect was unique to the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrians and did not extend to other correlates of prejudice including beliefs in zero-sum group competition or a multicultural ideology, nor did it extend to more general measures of prejudice (i.e., attitudes toward immigrants or evaluations of intercultural contact). Findings suggest the prejudice-reducing effects of a multicultural integration narrative affect group evaluations and functions by targeting beliefs in social dominance, rather than zero-sum group competition or ideological support for cultural diversity. The results offer insights into the prejudice-reducing potential for two alternative integration narratives that are institutionalized in Canada.     

Text and metatext in Hersey's A Single Pebble from the perspective of intercultural communication

An interdisciplinary study of a literary text from the perspectives of both literary scholarship and communication studies is possible under the conditions of expanding applicability of communication models to other fields and the broadening of literary studies to include approaches formerly excluded. This study was undertaken to show the relevance of issues of intercultural communication and models of communication in general to the analysis of issues of concern to the student of literary texts, and to demonstrate the blending of two methodological standpoints. The novel A Single Pebble by John Hersey presents textual structures which complement its ostensible content of interaction by a member of one culture with the members of another. This complementarity may be examined through a model of the interplay of text and metatext in narrative fiction applied to the analysis of an incident in the plot centering upon the disappearance of the protagonist's watch. Because the watch is referred to in a peculiar metaphor at one point, a series of observations on its relationship to the characters, the narrator, and the author are generated in the process of reading out its significance. This is related to the basic situation of the experience of an individual in penetrating an alien culture. The metaphor in which reference to the watch is couched can be taken as emblematic of an ironic authorial stance in Hersey's account of a largely unsuccessful attempt at communication across cultures.     

Development and validation of a scale of support for violence in the context of intergroup conflict (SVIC): The case of violence perpetrated by Mapuche people and the police in Chile

We develop and validate a scale that measures support for violence in the context of an asymmetrical intergroup conflict between the Chilean state and the largest ethnic minority group in Chile, the Mapuche people: the scale of Support for Violence in an Intergroup Conflict (SVIC). The proposed scale has two dimensions that capture the perceived acceptability of violence carried out in both directions: support for violence carried out by radical Mapuche activists and support for violence carried out by the police in the name of the Chilean state. We validate the scale in a survey conducted using two independent samples: a sample of Mapuche (n₁ = 199) and a sample of non-indigenous Chilean respondents (n₂ = 195). We test measurement invariance of the scale and find evidence that it is a valid instrument across both samples. Furthermore, findings suggest that the scale has discriminant validity, i.e., it correlates weakly with aggressiveness; as well as convergent validity, i.e., support for violence carried out by Mapuche activists correlates positively with Mapuche identification and negatively with Chilean identification, and the reverse is true for support for violence carried out by the police. We finish by highlighting the importance of measuring support for violence in the context of an asymmetrical intergroup conflict considering violence carried out by the different parties involved in the conflict, as well as the importance of validating the scale considering samples of representatives of both parties.     

Two cultures: the use and non-use of hypotheses in cultural policy research1

In the hard sciences research programmes are designed to generate evidence consistent or inconsistent with particular hypotheses. Hypotheses unsupported by evidence are modified or abandoned. The framers and testers of scientific hypotheses are members of the same profession, similarly trained and likely to interpret evidence in similar ways. They have professionally generalized responsibility for the quality and integrity of each other's work. Peer review systems are in place to monitor performance and expose chicanery. This is not the case in the cultural policy research arena. Here, policymakers, arts advocates and academic policy analysts are breeds apart. Their professional affiliations and lines of accountability are radically unlike. We have highly selective “advocacy” evidence on the one hand; highly developed but untestable academic theory on the other, suggesting the hypothetical existence of evidence for which academics are not allowed to look. Policymakers avoid “what if?” questions because they are paid to maintain positions of certainty. Academics ask, but lack the data to answer. Neither approach is satisfactory for shaping the future. This paper explains how the two opposing research traditions came into being and points to some of the problems which poor communication between theoreticians and practitioners can create.