Sexual orientation refers to a persons primary physical and emotional sexual attraction and activity. A current interest in online video games may give way to an interest in graphic design. Tajfel, H. 1981. In this section, well explore how the cultural identities of race, gender, sexual orientation, and ability have been constructed in the United States and how communication relates to those identities. So one of the first reasons difference matters is that people and groups are treated unequally, and better understanding how those differences came to be can help us create a more just society. Not all people who are deaf can read lips. People with disabilities are viewed with pity by early Christians and thought to be so conditioned because of an impurity that could possibly be addressed through prayer. It reflects the values, beliefs, and customs of a society. Heterosexual people with gay family members or friends may join the group PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) as a part of the redefinition and/or integration stage of their dominant identity development. The phrase people of color is acceptable for most and is used to be inclusive of other racial minorities. Hogg, M.A., and D. Abrams. For example, if others think we are intelligent and constantly tell us that we are smart, we will likely also think we are smart. Depending on the region or country, some people primarily trace their lineage to the indigenous people who lived in these areas before colonization, or to a Spanish and indigenous lineage, or to other combinations that may include European, African, and/or indigenous heritage. There are multiple models for examining identity development. Today, people tend to view racism as overt acts such as calling someone a derogatory name or discriminating against someone in thought or action. Interpersonal Communications Chapter 1 Flashcards | Quizlet Any of these identity types can be ascribed or avowed. Initially, a person's motivation for communicating with people from other . Also emphasizes a negative reciprocity between ingroup and outgroup attitudesspecifically, ingroup cohesion and loyalty is largely derived from hostility toward outgroups. Most relationships are not either interpersonal or impersonal. c. Talking to just one friend on the telephone. The Linguistic Society of America points out that immigrants are very aware of the social and economic advantages of learning English and do not need to be forced. The US Office of Personnel Management offers many good guidelines for conducting diversity training: create learning objectives related to the mission of the organization, use tested and appropriate training methods and materials, provide information about course content and expectations to employees ahead of training, provide the training in a supportive and noncoercive environment, use only experienced and qualified instructors, and monitor/evaluate training and revise as needed (US Office of Personnel Management, 2011). Effective Interpersonal Communication is strongly linked to good health, social happiness and career success. A Canadian family became aware of the deep emotions people feel about gender and the great discomfort people feel when they cant determine gender when they announced to the world that they were not going to tell anyone the gender of their baby, aside from the babys siblings. Coworkers. Qualitative communication is governed by social rules and roles. The relational aspect of the communication. Is a transactional process involving participants who occupy different but overlapping environments. How Does Communication Affect Our Identity - 554 Words | Bartleby Perhaps you broke your leg and had to use crutches or a wheelchair for a while. Its primary contribution is the idea that ingroups seek to positively distinguish themselves from outgroups, which gives rise to social competition in which ingroups engage in comparisonsemphasizing certain attributes or achievementsthat favor the ingroup over other groups. Greenwich, CT: JAI. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on To extend the previous example, there has been a movement in recent years to reclaim the label nerd and turn it into a positive, and a nerd subculture has been growing in popularity. The relational aspect of the communication. Understand Race relations. Byzantine Emperor Justinian makes adultery and same-sex sexual acts punishable by death. These individuals may begin to disassociate with their own dominant group because they feel like a curtain has been opened and their awareness of the inequality makes it difficult for them to interact with others in their dominant group. Elaborating the communication theory of identity: Identity gaps and This system is based on the ideology of patriarchy, which is a system of social structures and practices that maintains the values, priorities, and interests of men as a group (Wood, 2005). Instead, our identities are formed through processes that started before we were born and will continue after we are gone; therefore our identities arent something we achieve or complete. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) includes which of the following? Difference Matters We know there isnt only one way to speak English, but there have been movements to identify a standard. As was noted earlier, the Latino/a population in the United States is growing fast, which has necessitated inclusion of Spanish in many areas of public life. In 2011, Equal Pay Day was on April 11. While Hispanic is used by the US Census, it refers primarily to people of Spanish origin, which doesnt account for the diversity of background of many Latinos/as. Folkways. In the absence of such scarcity, ingroup favoritism and outgroup hostility are unlikely to manifest. But its important to acknowledge that becoming aware of your white privilege, for instance, doesnt mean that every person of color is going to want to accept you as an ally, so retreating to them may not be the most productive move. We must also remember that people have multiple identities that intersect with each other. These inequalities in schools correspond to larger inequalities in the general workforce. Sumner, for example, contends that competition over scarce resources is integral to intergroup conflict, Sherif argues that cohesion and solidarity among ingroup members is directly related to antipathy toward outgroup members, and Allport suggests that ingroup attachment and outgroup hostility are not negatively reciprocally related. 1987. I. Interpersonal communication is the complex process through which people express, interpret, and coordinate messages in order to create shared meaning, meet social goals, manage personal identity, and carry out their relationships. You may be wondering how some groups came to be dominant and others nondominant. Such group responses often include social change, social conflict, and social creativity. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here. Transgender people may or may not seek medical intervention like surgery or hormone treatments to help match their physiology with their gender identity. For example, think of how ways of being and acting have changed for African Americans since the civil rights movement. As beliefs in the supernatural increase during the Middle Ages, people with disabilities are seen as manifestations of evil and are ridiculed and persecuted. As Western Europeans traveled to parts of the world previously unknown to them and encountered people who were different from them, a hierarchy of races began to develop that placed lighter skinned Europeans above darker skinned people. People may be frustrated by their perception that labels change too often or be afraid of using an improper term and being viewed as racially insensitive. If so, what are your uncertainties? If so, what did you learn or take away from the training? Identity and communication are related in that we 4 & Kotthoff, H., 2009). d. Talking to your friends with a blindfold on. In the 1970s, scholars in social psychology began exploring the process by which individuals attach their own identity to the groups in which they associate. While queer was long considered a derogatory label, and still is by some, the queer activist movement that emerged in the 1980s and early 1990s reclaimed the word and embraced it as a positive. d. All of these. Given the obvious import and relevance of these dynamics to various aspects of society, research on social identity theory has grown exponentially over the past several decades, especially within the social sciences. c. we put our thoughts into words. Listen attentively when youre talking with a person who has difficulty speaking. We can now see that difference matters due to the inequalities that exist among cultural groups and due to changing demographics that affect our personal and social relationships. This means that messages we receive from others (who they think we are) influence who we think we are. As we have already discussed, our identities are relational and communicative; they are also constructed. Currently, the terms African American and black are frequently used, and both are considered acceptable. One is due to uncertainty about language use. Sexual orientation describes the group of people to whom this attraction is directed. b. Leaders in the fast-growing fields of sociology and psychology argued that women were less evolved than men and had more in common with children and savages than an adult (white) males (Allen, 2011). Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley. Then, circle the word To put this into perspective, the National Committee on Pay Equity started an event called Equal Pay Day. Civil law in England indicates the death penalty can be given for same-sex sexual acts between men. a. Physiological noise. While its obvious to most people that colors arent gendered, they take on new meaning when we assign gendered characteristics of masculinity and femininity to them. The commitment of the interlocutors. D. control communication with our identity. Why or why not. In these situations, it is more likely that stereotypes and prejudice will influence our communication. 4. | Learn more about Uchechi Amechi (ITIL, PSM, MSc)'s work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their profile on LinkedIn Western scientists used these differences as proof that native populations were less evolved than the Europeans, which helped justify colonial expansion, enslavement, genocide, and exploitation on massive scales (Allen, 2011). b. This is one of the greatest shortcomings of our culture. a. Ask yourself the question Who am I? Recall from our earlier discussion of self-concept that we develop a sense of who we are based on what is reflected back on us from other people. We can see from this example that our ascribed and avowed identities change over the course of our lives, and sometimes they match up and sometimes not. 9. Look directly at the person and speak clearly, slowly, and expressively to determine if the person can read your lips. This code-switching creates a linguistic dual consciousness in which people are able to maintain their linguistic identities with their in-group peers but can still acquire tools and gain access needed to function in dominant society (Yancy, 2011). First, we internalize notions of gender based on socializing institutions, which helps us form our gender identity. Trace the historical development and construction of the four cultural identities discussed. If someone has long hair, make-up, and a dress on, but you think their biological sex is male due to other cues, it would be polite to address them with female pronouns, since that is the gender identity they are expressing. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles that may impede our valuing of difference (Allen, 2011). This number could continue to increase, as we have thousands of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with physical disabilities or psychological impairments such as posttraumatic stress disorder. Masculinities studies have challenged that notion by examining how masculinities are performed. There are obviously exceptions, with people in groups considered nondominant obtaining more resources and power than a person in a dominant group. Sherif, M. 1966. Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.orgor check out our status page at https://status.libretexts.org. a. One of the earliest attempts to provide a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of the scholarship on social identity theory, focusing on how the theory differs from other social psychological approaches to intergroup relations. Define the social constructionist view of culture and identity. So, as you read, think about how circumstances may be different for an individual with multiple nondominant and/or dominant identities. Gender has been constructed over the past few centuries in political and deliberate ways that have tended to favor men in terms of power. However, research shows that training that is mandatory and undertaken only to educate people about the legal implications of diversity is ineffective and may even hurt diversity efforts. The LibreTexts libraries arePowered by NICE CXone Expertand are supported by the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of the Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot. However, the overall trend is that difference based on cultural groups has been institutionalized, and exceptions do not change this fact. a. gain an idea of who we are from the way others communicate with us. The most obvious way sexuality relates to identity is through sexual orientation. But ascribed and avowed identities can match up. The eugenics movement in the United States begins. The label Latin American generally refers to people who live in Central American countries. Communication is Reversible. Relationship termination Never pretend to understand if you are having difficulty doing so. Many organizations are striving to comply with changing laws by implementing policies aimed at creating equal access and opportunity. Meanings have limited interpretation. The metaphor of the melting pot has been used to describe the immigration history of the United States but doesnt capture the experiences of many immigrant groups (Allen, 2011). (Never patronize people who use wheelchairs by patting them on the head or shoulder.). When I teach courses about gender, I often ask my students to raise their hand if they consider themselves feminists. If you offer assistance, wait until the offer is accepted. Notably, within the field of communication, the value of social identity theory rests with its ability to explain or predict messaging and response behaviors when a particular group identity is made salient. Employee-Organization Identity Fusion: Connecting Leadership and In any case, a competent communicator defers to and respects the preference of the individual. Celebrities. Intercultural communication competence (ICC) is the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in various cultural contexts. Students of color talked to me about being asked by professors to weigh in on an issue when discussions of race came up in the classroom. In verbal communication you might say Latina when referring to a particular female or Latino when referring to a particular male of Latin American heritage. The specic processes described in most of this research are culturally limited. All of these choices are correct. But then, I try to utilize my maleness in positive ways, like when Im talking to other men about male privilege (Jones, Jr., 2009). Culture is an ongoing negotiation of learned patterns of beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. c. Career advancement Age Identity and Communication Conict and Cooperation across the Life-Span). Moises, a Chicano man interviewed in a research project about identities, narrated how he changed his Mexican sounding name to Moses, which was easier for his middle-school classmates and teachers to say (Jones Jr., 2009). Social categorization and the self-concept: A social cognitive theory of group behavior. As you can see, there is a diversity of identities among sexual minorities, just as there is variation within races and genders. People are tracked into various educational programs based on their physical and cognitive abilities, and there are many cases of people being mistakenly labeled disabled who were treated differently despite their protest of the ascribed label. Words that make perfect sense to you can be interpreted in entirely different ways by others. For instance, Zhang & Hummert (2001) describe a process of . Since many people are unsure of how to communicate with a person with disabilities, following are the Ten Commandments of Etiquette for Communicating with People with Disabilities to help you in communicating with persons with disabilities:[1]. These thoughts led to a dark time in US history, as the eugenics movement sought to limit reproduction of people deemed as deficient.
