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Cultural Identity and Cultural Biases
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One’s identity or self-concept is built on an
individual’s cultural, social, and personal identities.
Cultural identity refers to one’s sense of belonging to
a particular culture or ethnic group.
◦ It is formed in a process that results from
membership in a particular culture.
◦ It involves learning about and accepting the traditions,
heritage, language, religions, ancestry, aesthetics,
thinking patterns, and social structures of society.
◦ People internalize the beliefs, values, norms, and
social practices of their culture and identify with that
culture as part of their self-concept.
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Social identity develops as a consequence of
membership in particular groups within one’s culture.
◦ The characteristics and concerns common to most
members of such social groups shape the way
individuals view their characteristics.
◦ The types of groups with which people identify can
vary widely and might include perceived similarities
due to age, gender, work, religion, ideology, social
class, place (neighborhood, region, and nation), and
common interests. (ex. Baseball players, ballet dancers,
scientists, etc.)
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Personal identity refers to people’s unique
characteristics, which may differ from those of others in
their cultural or social groups.
◦ (ex. You may like cooking, singing, sewing, tennis, etc. but not
identify with those as social groups.)
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The unexamined cultural identity stage involves a lack
of interest in cultural issues as a result of taking
one’s own cultural characteristics for granted.
◦ Young children lack awareness of cultural differences.
◦ Cultural identity of many European Americans have remained
largely unexamined, b/c of their perceived “normalcy.”
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Cultural identity search involves a process of
exploration and questioning about one’s culture in
order to learn more about it. (“Who am I? Where do I belong
here? What is my culture like?”)
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Cultural identity achievement involves the acceptance
of oneself and an internalization of one’s cultural
identity. (“My culture is important, I am proud of being _____.”)
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Cultural identities provide a framework for
organizing and interpreting one’s
experiences of others.
Cultural identities are central to one’s sense
of self (similar to your gender and race).
Cultural identities are dynamic and change
with one’s ongoing life experiences.
◦ My understanding of being Chinese/American changed when I
first came to HK, and still change.
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Cultural identities are multifaceted.
◦ Can be simultaneously a student, employee, friend, woman,
Southerner, daughter, Christian, Millennial, and more.
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Social categorizing
Ethnocentrism
Stereotyping
Prejudice
Discrimination
Racism
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Social categorizing
◦ People impose a pattern on their world by
organizing the stimuli into conceptual categories.
◦ Most people think that other people perceive,
evaluate, and reason about the world in the same
way that they do.
◦ Humans simplify the processing and organizing of
information from the environment by identifying
certain characteristics as belonging to certain
categories of persons and events.
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Ethnocentrism
◦ Ethnocentrism occurs when the beliefs, values, and
practices of one culture are viewed as superior to
those of others.
◦ All cultures have a tendency to be ethnocentric.
◦ To be a competent intercultural communicator, you
need to recognize how your own culture influences
your judgments of others, be aware of your
emotional reactions to such judgments, and
acknowledge the existence of your judgments to
minimize their effect on your communication.
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Stereotyping
◦ Stereotypes are a form of generalization about a group of
people.
◦ Groups can be stereotyped based on their religion, age,
occupation, social class, geographical location, and many
other characteristics.
◦ Stereotypes can be inaccurate in two ways.
 When stereotypes are assumed to apply to all members of
a group or category, resulting in a tendency to ignore
differences among the individual members of the group.
 When the group average, as suggested by a stereotype, is
simply wrong or inappropriately exaggerated.
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Prejudice
◦ Prejudice refers to attitudes toward other people that are based on
faulty and inflexible stereotypes.
◦ Prejudice is a universal psychological process; all people have a
propensity for prejudice toward others who are unlike themselves.
◦ Functions of prejudice
 It helps people organize and simplify the world.
 It satisfies a utilitarian or adjustment function.
 Expressing prejudicial statements about certain people may cause
others, who agree with the statements, to like you more.
It is easier to simply dislike and be prejudiced toward members of
other groups because they can then be dismissed without going
through the effort necessary to adjust to them.
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Prejudice
 It serves an ego-defensive function by protecting a person’s
self-esteem.
 We maintain our self-esteem by scorning people who differ from us.
 It serves a knowledge function.
 The rigid application of categories and the prejudicial attitudes
assigned to certain behaviors and beliefs provide security and
increase predictability.
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Discrimination
◦ The term discrimination refers to behavioral
manifestations of prejudice; it is prejudice in
action.
◦ Discrimination occurs in many forms from
extremes of segregation and apartheid to biases
in housing, employment, education, economic
resources, personal safety and legal protections.
◦ It is the unequal treatment of certain individuals
because of their membership to a particular
group.
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Racism
◦ At the individual level, racism is conceptually very
similar to prejudice.
◦ At the institutional level, racism is the exclusion of
certain people from equal participation in the
society’s institutions solely because of their race.
◦ At the cultural level, racism denies the existence of
the culture of a particular group and involves the
rejection of the culture’s beliefs and values.
◦ Although racism is often used synonymously with
prejudice and discrimination, the social attributes
that distinguish it from these two terms are
oppression and power.
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Forms of racism vary in intensity and degree of expression.
◦ Old-fashioned racism is the most extreme form of racism.
◦ Symbolic racism (also called modern racism) occurs when
members of a group with political and economic power
believe that members of some other group threaten their
traditional values. (ex. “Chinese are taking all our jobs!”)
◦ Aversive racism occurs when individuals who highly value
fairness and equality among all racial and cultural groups
nevertheless have negative beliefs and feelings about
members of a particular race. (“I’m not racist, but I don’t
date Indian men.”)
◦ Genuine likes and dislikes occur when the cultural practices
a group displays are not liked by members of another
group.
◦ The degree of unfamiliarity can lead to negative attitudes
because of lack of experience with the characteristics of
their group.
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Improving your cultural competence
◦ Describe your own cultural identity; be sure to
include both the positive and negative aspects.
◦ Take an honest inventory of the various ways in
which you categorize other people and they
categorize you.
◦ Be willing to explore various cultural experiences
with culturally different others, without invoking
prejudice.
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We all face intercultural challenges.
◦ One intercultural challenge is the willingness to grapple
with the consequences of prejudice, discrimination, and
racism at the individual, social, and institutional levels.
◦ Another challenge is contending with the pressing but
potentially inflammatory issues of prejudice and
discrimination in a manner that is both appropriate and
effective.
◦ We are also challenged to function competently in a world
that, increasingly, is characterized by multiple cultures
inhabiting adjacent and often-overlapping terrain.
The ability to adapt to intercultural settings –
to maintain positive, healthy relationships with
people of cultures other than your own – is the
hallmark of the interculturally competent
individual.
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If people are born into one culture but raised in
another, to which culture(s) do they belong?
Why have so many nations and cultures assumed they
were the most civilized, virtuous, or noble people on
earth? Are there benefits to being ethnocentric?
What are some of the stereotypes that people hold of
your culture?
How can we escape the ethnocentric tendency to use
our own cultural categories to interpret other cultures?
Is it possible for European Americans to be the
recipients of any form of racism in the United States?