Intercultural Communication and How to Develop It

Communication with the other cultures may result to positive outcomes. Intercultural communication can help in getting rid of the stereotype of different cultures and understand as well as accept the other culture (MacAloon, 2013). We cannot communicate objectively if we have negative perceptions towards other cultures (Matsumoto and Juang, 2013). Without the interference of stereotypes in our communication, many benefits people will get whether the success in business sector, the defence system of a country will become stronger and the exchanging of knowledge within students become greater. In a workplace, for instance we cannot work happily with each other if we are stereotyping others. Stereotype also will bring towards the discrimination. How can we work in a cooperative way if we are discriminating others? The consequences are huge in terms of unity, achieving a goal in a program we involved and students will become racial if they are not communicate intercultural.
Communicating intercultural help us to understand and accept the other cultures. This will breaks down the anxiety and uncertainty that we have for other cultures. Uncertainty helps us to reduce the “misunderstanding, miscommunication, and misattribution” which will disturb the social uniformity and increase the conflict (Matsumoto and Juang, 2013). While our uncertainty is reducing, our knowledge about others’ culture will become greater and we will get more information about the other culture. Harmony will takes place because we know about the other cultures. What they can do, what they cannot, what are the beliefs, their festive seasons and their languages. All of this might bring us towards more positive way of life because we look at other culture in a positive ways. If we see that the culture is successful, this will motivate us to be success just like them. Once we understand them, we will accept the way they behave and act.
Ethnocentrism is defined as “a way of thinking that partitions the world into in-groups and out-groups” (Kinder and Kam, 2010, p. 219). Ethnocentric person referred to the way of thinking and behaving in the way that their culture is superior to other culture. Apart from advantages, ethnocentrism gives a lot of disadvantages. Ethnocentrism will lead to disunity of different cultures and avoid the solutions to a problem that other culture had given (Shepard, 2010). They think about the righteousness of their culture and without any examination, they will reject the problem solutions given by other culture (Shepard, 2010).