Ingroups and Outgroups

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In-groups and Out-groups

• AED 408

This module was developed primarily from
Understanding Intercultural Communication by
Ting-Toomey Chung
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Learning to Think
Think
Think
Think
Think
Think
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Scenario

• I was born in Korea, but a European-American
  family in Oklahoma adopted me. I never paid much
  attention to the color of my skin or felt I was
  different in any way I always thought of myself
  as a White American. However, when I was in
  junior high school, we had an assignment to bring
  one baby picture to class. As each persons
  picture was taped up on the board, students had
  difficulty guessing the identity of each child.
  Finally, when it was my turn, the whole class
  shouted in unison, Thats Jarod!
• I was shocked. How did they all know? And that
  is when I realized I was different.
• Jarod, Engineer

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Perception and Communication

• Human perception is the process of selecting cues
  from the environment, organizing them into a
  clear pattern, and interpreting that pattern.
  Perception is typically a 3 step process
• Selection
• Organization
• Interpretation
• During selection we pick out cues from our
  cultural landscapes. For example If you are
  walking around a mall, a person with full-body
  tattoos, rainbow dyed hair, or load clothes will
  get a double take.

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• We have learned from our cultural/ethnic
  socialization to organize our perceptions by
  grouping similar objects or things together and
  labeling them with a symbol or name.
• Suppose you are in a grocery store and you see a
  woman pushing a child in a baby stroller. You
  will fill in your inference that the woman is a
  mother and the child is hers. This
  filling-in-the-blank tendency is derived from
  the meanings we form in our everyday
  enculturation process.
• What you choose to focus on depends on how you
  feel what you see, hear, taste, smell, and
  touch and the context.

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• Last comes interpretation. Interpretation allows
  us to attach meaning to the data we receive,
  which is also known as expectations. We predict
  how we expect other people to behave based on our
  ideas of their culture.
• Take breakfast
• On the following page match the breakfast with
  the correct country. The answer are on the
  following slideanything sound good?

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Breakfast where???

• Coffee tea followed by a bowl of foul (fava
  beans) mixed with onions, tomatoes, and feta
  cheese around 10
• Pho (a beef-based broth soup), rice noodles, meat
  with onions, herbs, jalapenos, bean sprouts, and
  hot plum sauce on the side
• Warm or cold soybean milk, sweet or salty, served
  with a variety of condiments, including dried
  pork shrimp, preserved cabbage, scallions, soy
  sauce, and vinegar topped with deep-fried
  breadsticks.
• Miso Soup, a bowl of rice, side dish of tofu,
  grilled fish, or vegetables
• Rice with sambar (lentils, spice, and
  vegetables), fish rice stew, a yogurt salad,
  and tropical fruit
• Chilies with eggs, beans or chorizo sausages,
  sweet bread rolls
• Coffee with crisp bread topped with butter jam
• Tvorog, farmer cheese with jam buttermilk
• Soft-boiled eggs, cereal, cheese, spreadable
  liver sausage, ham or other cold cuts, rolls
  mixed breads
• Eggs toast with bacon sausage or ham.

• Germany
• United States
• France
• Russia
• Mexico
• India
• Japan
• Vietnam
• Northern China/Taiwan
• Sudan

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Breakfast where???

• Coffee tea followed by a bowl of foul (fava
  beans) mixed with onions, tomatoes, and feta
  cheese around 10 --Sudan
• Pho (a beef-based broth soup), rice noodles, meat
  with onions, herbs, jalapenos, bean sprouts, and
  hot plum sauce on the side Vietnam
• Warm or cold soybean milk, sweet or salty, served
  with a variety of condiments, including dried
  pork shrimp, preserved cabbage, scallions, soy
  sauce, and vinegar topped with deep-fried
  breadsticks. Northern China/Taiwan
• Miso Soup, a bowl of rice, side dish of tofu,
  grilled fish, or vegetables Japan
• Rice with sambar (lentils, spice, and
  vegetables), fish rice stew, a yogurt salad,
  and tropical fruit India
• Chilies with eggs, beans or chorizo sausages,
  sweet bread rolls Mexico
• Coffee with crisp bread topped with butter jam
  France
• Tvorog, farmer cheese with jam buttermilk Russia
• Soft-boiled eggs, cereal, cheese, spreadable
  liver sausage, ham or other cold cuts, rolls
  mixed breads Germany
• Eggs toast with bacon sausage or ham with
  biscuit gravy or hash brown potatoes United
  States

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Ethnocentrism and Communication
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Activity

• Before continuing open Know Thyself (found in
  module 1) and complete the short self assessment.

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Ethnocentric Tendencies
Remember to check the D2L Glossary for any terms
you need clarification on!

• So how did you score on the assessment?
• As human beings, we display ethnocentric
  tendencies for three reasons
• We tend to define what goes on in our own
  cultural as natural and correct and what goes on
  in other cultures as unnatural and incorrect.
• We tend to perceive ingroup values, customs,
  norms, and roles as universally applicable.
• We tend to experience distance from the outgroup,
  especially when our group identity is threatened
  or under attack.

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The role of ethnocentrism

• Ethnocentrism means we consider the views and
  standards of our own ingroup as much more
  important than any outgroupsit comes from two
  Greek words
• Ethno ones own ethnic or cultural group
• Centrism ones own group should be looked upon
  as the center of the world

• Proxemics plays a role--meaning whatever is
  closer has more value
• Ethnocentrism comes in three different levels.
  In 1978, Lukens used the communicative distances
  of indifference, avoidance and disparagement to
  discuss the degrees of ethnocentrism.

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Distances

• Distance of indifference (low ethnocentrism)
  reflects a lack of sensitivity in our
  interactions with dissimilar others.
• Distance of avoidance (moderate ethnocentrism)
  reflects attempted linguistic switching in the
  presence of outgroup members, nonverbal
  inattention to accentuate ingroup connection, and
  avoidance of outgroup members.
• Distance of disparagement (high ethnocentrism)
  refers to use of racist jokes or hate-filled
  speech to downgrade outgroup members.

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Stereotypes and Communication
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Look at the images below, then answer the
questions.

• Based on your first impressions which of the
  children to the right will.
• Become a policeperson?
• Discover a cure for the common cold?
• Challenge Einsteins theory of relativity?
• Become a single parent?
• Drive a garbage truck?

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We just cant know the answers to the futures of
these children, but we can automatically put them
in roles based on our perceived concepts
(stereotypes) of their ethnicities.

• Stereotypes are exaggerated pictures we make
  about a group of people on the basis of our
  inflexible beliefs and expectations about the
  characteristics or behaviors of the group.
• A stereotype is an overgeneralization toward a
  group of people without any attempt to perceive
  individual variations.

Watch the 6 minute video Vision Test, found on
this link http//www.mediathatmattersfest.org/3/v
ision_test/
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US Versus Them

• Social identity theory is the study of ingroup
  and outgroup membership, which is part of the
  formation of our personal identity.
• Loyalty is defined as adherence to ingroup
  norms and trustworthiness in dealings with fellow
  ingroup members.
• Intergroup communication happens when individuals
  belonging to the same group interact.
• Ingroup favoritism principle notes positive
  attachments to norms and behaviors related to
  ones group.
• Personal identity refers to the individuals
  attributes that we use to conceptualize our
  unique sense of self.

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Where do I fit in?

• Membership in an ingroup is a matter of degree
  variation
• Ingroup membership provides security inclusion
• Ingroup members can feel like outgroup
  membersfor example

For many ethnic Americans, the conflict between
the need to retain ethnic values and the need to
pursue prevalent American cultural values
results in feeling like outgroup members to both
cultures.
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Why do people behave the way they do

• Attributions are why people behave the way they
  doin other words the package they come wrapped
  in. Sometimes it has to do with ethnicity,
  sometimes it is just about the people we grow up
  with and hang out with.

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Shattered Lenses
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PREJUDICE, Discrimination Racism

• Prejudice describes an individuals feelings and
  predisposition toward outgroup members in a
  pejorative or negative direction, but it can also
  mean the opposite One can be indiscriminately
  for or against members of a particular group.

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Four explanations for prejudice

• Exploitation theory Maintenance of higher
  status and power restraints over lower status
  groups.
• Scapegoating theory Prejudiced individuals
  blame minority groups for their own failures.
• Authoritarian personality approach This type
  rigidly adheres to norms and completely accepts
  those in authority.
• Structural approach Institutions promote a
  pecking order among group members.

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DISCRIMINATION

• Discrimination refers to the verbal and nonverbal
  actions that carry out prejudiced attitudes. Four
  basic practices
• Isolate discrimination harmful verbal
  nonverbal action intentionally targeted toward an
  outgroup member on an individual basis.
• Small-group discrimination group of individuals
  in ingroup engage in hostile and abusive actions
  against outgroup membersbut not supported by
  larger ingroup
• Direction institutional discrimination
  community-prescribed endorsement of
  discrimination
• Indirect institutional discrimination broad
  practice that indirectly affects group members
  without intending to.

or
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RACISM

• Racism involves 3 principles
• Feelings of superiority
• Strong ingroup preferences and the rejection of
  outgroups different in customs or beliefs.
• Doctrine that conveys special advantages to those
  in power

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Activity

• Racial Awareness
• Complete the Racial Awareness survey in Module 1
• Then answer the questions on the next slide.

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Racial Awareness Survey De-Brief

• Was this a difficult survey for you?
• How many of the questions did you answer always
  to? sometimes? And never?
• Do you think this is the same for everyone?
• THINK about it and lets do another activity.

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To Eat Steak or Not?

• Purpose To learn about and reflect on a
  real-life situation involving perceived racism.

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The News Story

• Susannah Park, a Korean American, was eating
  lunch with some friends. They struck up a
  conversation about current events, and her friend
  mentioned a restaurant in Wissinoming,
  Pennsylvania, called Chinks. Opened in 1949
  by the late Samuel Chink Sherman, the steak
  shop has become a neighborhood legend. Chinks
  Steaks was vote Best of Philly for cheesesteaks
  by Philly Magazine in 2002. Joseph Groh is the
  current owner of Chinks Steaks.
• Susannah Park, however, was horrified She called
  the restaurant owner and requested that he
  consider changing the name of the shop because
  having a restaurant with nameis telling the
  world that chink is an appropriate term and
  that its not a racial slur, Park said. Joseph
  Groh refused. The restaurant has been here 55
  years and no one has ever questioned it, said
  Groh. Besides, everybody is welcome here! I
  know there are lots of racist people in the
  world, but Im not one of them.
• Same Shermans widow, Mildred Sherman, says that
  Sam got the nickname Chink when he was 6
  because of his slanty eyes. Many people didnt
  learn of his real name until the attended his
  funeral in 1997. Sherman said the nickname is
  etched on her husbands gravestone. She called
  the controversy ridiculous. We are Jewish
  people. We are far from racists. We have
  Chinese customers! Sherman claimed. My husband
  was well-loved by everybody in this town.
• Park thinks that the restaurant name hasnt
  become a controversy because it is in a
  neighborhood that is largely white and because
  the Asian community is not very outspoken. She
  hopes bringing attention to this will help
  educate people. The restaurant name is just
  another reminder of how much cultural
  insensitivity there still is around us, she
  said.
• What should Susannah Park do?

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The Questions

• After reading the story, go to the Discussion
  link on D2L and respond to the 4 questions under
  the topic Day 1To eat steak or not?

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Homework

• Todays homework is to submit a brown bag
  biography! I give students in my campus based
  classes a brown lunch bag the first day of class.
  Their assignment is to bring it back with 3
  items that represent who they are. YOUR
  ASSIGNMENT will be to send me three pictures
  (G-rating please) that represent you!