Cultural Intelligence

Intelligence

Intelligence: the capability to meet the demands of one's environment effectively

4 factors of CQ

Drive: refers to the amount of energy for crossing culture

Culture - shared "rules" by a group/organisation/society, which can be implicit or explicit, formal or informal

the capability to detect "rules" and make "shared rules"


Cultural Intelligence:
the capability (or potential) of an individual, group or organisation to function effectively in an environment characterised by cultural diversity

Intelligence in

  1. Biology (brain)
  2. Mental functioning:
    a. how a person gather info, think, solve problems - cognition and metacognition
    b. motivation (mental energy): how much energy and attention a person is willing to put in to adapt to the environment
  3. Behaviour: outward actions of a person

Other kinds of intelligence:
Academic
Non-academic: Emotional, Social, Practical
which may not be sufficient in helping one to develop cultural intelligence

Culture is not
Personality
Ecology - natural environment

Why are shared rules important?
Helps a society to function well and prevents confusion and frustration

3 sources of CQ Drive:
Intrinsic
Extrinsic
Self-efficacy

How to improve a person's CQ Drive:

  1. Inter-cultural experiences
  2. Role Model
  3. Curiosity

Curiosity
Awe: sense of 'wow'
Respect: acceptance and approval
Engagement: with awe and respect, engagement will follow

Start by being curious about people behind the objects around me
have curiosity conversations

Confidence or self-efficacy - how to improve?

  1. Engage in direct inter-cultural experiences
  2. Observe how others do it

Knowledge
understanding how cultures are similar or different

Wheel of Culture: (National)
Religion
Ethnicity
Disabilities
Social Economic Status
Organisation
Professional
Nationality
Age
Family
Gender

Knowledge about a new situation/environment lowers anxiety about whether we can adapt well to it.
reduces mis-attributions (wrongly interpreting a person's behaviour)

Objective vs Subjective Culture

Objective: what can be seen immediately:
Systems - economic, political, legal, religious, marriage and family, social, language, education
others: technology, arts and crafts

Subjective:
High vs Low Context
Individualism vs Collectivism
Power Distance
Uncertainty Avoidance
Competitiveness
Emotional Expressiveness
Monochronocity vs Polychronocity
Short-term vs long term orientation
Doing vs Being

Caution against Stereotyping:
Noticing and suspending judgement
Acknowledge that we are all biased
Being aware of thinking traps: Label them
e.g. Confirmation Bias, Availability Bias, Fundamental Attribution Error, False Consensus Effect, etc
Mitigate them

Strategy (Metacognition)

Mindfulness Being mindful of the present:
narrative vs experiential self-reference
narrative - constantly thinking of the past and future to tell a story of who they are
experiential: live in the present and now
Paying attention to the present moment, on purpose and without judgment

3 sub-components of Strategy:
Awareness
Planning
Checking

Action
capability to vary our behaviours in order to be effective for different situations
Why important?
Self-presentation Theory
Embodied Cognition theory (e.g. pencil in mouth)
Emotional Contagion Theory (mirroring - smile)

Non-verbal Behaviors

Speech acts

Mehrabian Rule:
Speech Acts (Words) (7%)
Vocal Behaviors (vocalization, vocal range, tone) 38%
Non-verbal behaviors (55%)

How others see us: Self-presentation theory-
Positive or negative self-presentation

Impression montoring:
Impression oblivion ......subconscious scanning....Impression awareness (optimal)...impression focus

Vocal Behaviors

  1. Making requests/demands
  2. Turning down a request
  3. Receiving compliments
  4. Giving negative feedback

How we feel - embodied cognition theory

Direct vs indirect
In making requests,
the sweet spot
would be to suggest/frame as questions and
not demand
Productive adaptation

In giving feedback, may not be effective to use the sandwich approach
Student feedback: explain what is expected in feedback, and what to do with feedback

  1. Vocalization: pronounce accurately be understood
  2. Vocal Range - Power, Pace, Pause, Pitch
  3. Tone: Activated - Positive (Angry, Contemptuous/Happy, Surprised),
    De-activated - Negative (Sad, Depressed/Calm, Contented)

Kinesics (body movements)
why? faux pax - cultural mis-steps

Proxemics (Place):

Chronemics (time)

Posture:
the way we sit, stand
Expansive vs constrictive

Gestures - co-speech illustrators & emblems (specific meanings)
Speech illustrators - extent of use, gesture space (above shoulder or below), but some gestures can have multiple meanings

Facial Movement: quantity and types - Circumplex Model - activated/deactivated, positive/negative
Eye Contact

Developing kinesics:

  1. Detect
  2. Regulate

Emotions and Place:
Ceiling Height
Lighting
Colour

how close we stand to another
Interpersonal distances - Intimate, Personal Social, Public
within each there is a range of close to far
Asians prefer greater compared to Southern Europeans, Arabs, South Americans, Middle Eastern/Latin cultures prefer smaller distances than Northern Americans/Northern Europeans
Haptics (physical contact): Southern European, Latin Americans, Middle Eastern more contact oriented

Detect and Regulate
Own and others' invisible bubbles
adjust to convey the right message - e.g. if you have a large bubble and someone comes too close - notice and stay with that discomfort, or find a polite way to increase distance e.g. use an object, or walk side by side to create space

Clock time vs event time:
Clock time preference: value efficiency
Event time preference: value relationships more

Past, present, future
Past orientation: spend time thinking about what they should have done differently
Present orientation: do things spontaneously, go with the flow, don't focus too much about past or future
Future orientation: tend to plan ahead and habit of listing things to do

Mono or polychronicity
Mono - preference to start and complete one task at a time. view time as linear, avoid interruptions
Poly - combine several activities at one time, view time holistically, will switch from one to another whenever they have an idea, or feel stuck in one project, will complete work in the end but slower

Pace of Life