Intercultural Communication: Cultural Filters and Conflict

Introduction to Intercultural Communication and Cultural Filters

Intercultural communication is an academic field of study that examines how people from different cultures interact with each other. Various other fields also contribute to its body of knowledge, including anthropology, psychology, communication studies, and cultural studies. Culture can broadly be understood as the basic values, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a particular group of people. The fundamental process of communication involves a sender encoding a message, the message traveling through a medium, and the receiver decoding and interpreting it before providing feedback. Communication is shaped by many filters — including status, age, subject matter, the nature of relationships, and level of interest.

A cultural filter is a penetrable cultural barrier. It is inevitable to encounter some degree of cultural filtering in intercultural exchanges. The major challenge with cultural barriers is that in many cases they are difficult, or even impossible, to remove entirely. At the same time, it is possible to communicate across these filters without eliminating them altogether. The filter is described as "penetrable" because some information does pass through it. It is important for the parties involved to understand the characteristics of these filters in order to work effectively within them. Crucially, when navigating cultural filters, one must recognize that no culture is superior or inferior to another — cultures should be seen as different, not as better or worse.

There are various examples of cultural filters in the corporate environment and beyond. Attitudes toward the labor market form one important filter. Some cultures prefer flatter management structures, in which employees take greater responsibility for their own work and management is seen as a facilitating rather than an imposing presence. In other cultures, taller hierarchical structures are the norm, and employees place less emphasis on personal responsibility. In employee training, for example, it is essential for the trainer to be aware of the cultural leanings of the group in order to achieve the training's objectives. A trainer may provoke unwillingness or disinterest if his or her methods assume a degree of personal responsibility that the employee has not been conditioned to expect. Such friction can be avoided through better cultural understanding.

Language also functions as a cultural filter. Freltoft and Kay (1996) argue that a lack of a common working language — or a limited shared language — can itself act as a cultural barrier. If not handled carefully, this filter can cause minor misunderstandings that escalate into discomfort or even irritation. Examples exist even at the highest levels of diplomacy. During the Cold War, Soviet party secretary Khrushchev's declaration that "our system will survive yours" was translated by an interpreter as "our system will obliterate yours." The consequences of that mistranslation were unmistakable.

It is common for our responses to be shaped by cultural filters. If an individual does not make a deliberate effort to recognize these filters, responses become automatic and move beyond conscious awareness. Cultural filters shape the way we view the world — for example, whether one believes humans control nature, co-exist with it, or are subject to its forces. Beliefs about gender relations are similarly filtered culturally. Richard Nisbett describes a research experiment in which an animated underwater scene was shown simultaneously to American and Japanese students. Both groups perceived the scene differently. The Americans focused on how the large fish interacted with the smaller fish, whereas the Japanese paid more attention to the background environment. Nisbett concluded that the Japanese tend to view the world as a complex place requiring contextual understanding, while Americans tend to treat the world as comparatively simple, focusing on individual elements rather than their broader context.