The Development of Cultural Empathy inIntercultural Communication外国语言学及应用语言学姜作超ContentsIntroduction--------------------------------------------------------------2 Ⅰ. Empathy--------------------------------------------------------------2 1.1Definition of Empathy-------------------------------------------------------------------2 1.2Features of Empathy---------------------------------------------------------------------3Ⅱ. Hindrances to Empathy-------------------------------------------4 2.1 Constant Self-focus----------------------------------------------------------------------4 2.2 Ethnocentrism----------------------------------------------------------------------------5 2.3 Dogmatism--------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 2.4 Lack of Motivation-----------------------------------------------------------------------5 Ⅲ. Development of Cultural Empathy------------------------------6 3.1Four Advices for Improving Cultural Empathy---------------------------------------6 3.2 A Proposed Model for the Development of Cultural Empathy----------------------7 Conclusion------------------------------------------------------------------9 References------------------------------------------------------------------11IntroductionIntercultural communication has long been an important prerequisite of human coexistence on the earth. While encountering people with different cultural backgrounds, we will inevitably meet the differences in language, food, dress, social behavior, and so on.It is different cultural systems that underlie these superficial differences. Culture influences the way people perceive the world and process information. Differences in the way by which people interpret the world around them contribute greatly to misunderstandings in intercultural communication (Borisoff, Victor 1989). It is because of these various cultural factors that most misunderstandings arise to cause frustration or breakdown in intercultural communication. A famous Native American proverb tells us “We should not judge another personal until we have walked two moons in his moccasins.”That is, we need to develop empathy, the ability to see things from the point of view of others.Empathy has long been regarded as an important element of intercultural competence, and it offered a primary means of facilitating interpersonal understanding across cultural differences.This paper is composed of three parts except an introduction and a conclusion. The first part is a brief introduction to empathy, including definition and features. The second part introduces several hindrances to empathy. The last part is the development of cultural empathy, including four advices and a proposed model for the development of cultural empathy in intercultural communication.Ⅰ. EmpathyDeveloping and employing cultural empathy requires understanding of the concept of empathy as it occurs in intercultural communication.1.1Definition of Empathy“Empathy”came from a German word “Einfühlung”,which was used as an aesthetic doctrine during the late nineteenth century. In its original usage, it meant “feeling into” (Goldstein and Michaels, 1985). It was used to refer to the tendency ofobservers to proj ect themselves “into” that wh ich they observe, say some physical objects of beauty (Davis, 1996). Theodore Lipps appropriated the term for use in more psychological contexts and extended it to the domain of interpersonal understanding.E.G. Tichener borrowed Lipps’s notion of “Einfühlung” and coined the English translation “empathy” i n 1910, shifting the emphasis from internal acts to content.He later changed the notion of empathy from an amalgamation of visual and muscular imagery to a feeling, or projecting of one’s self into an object, and therefore, it became a way to humanize our surroundings (Wispé, 2000).Empathy is an inner imitation, “witnessing another’s emotional state prompts the observer to covertly, internally, imitate the other’s em otional cues” (Davis, 1996). It is said that this sharing of emotions between target and observer help to foster a better understanding in social context. According to Macarow, empathy has three contemporaneous meanings. And it is optimally defined by all three of these meanings combined:1. Taking the role of the other, viewing the world as he or she sees it, and experiencing his or her feelings.2. Being adept at reading nonverbal communication and interpreting the feelings underlying it.3. Giving off a feeling of caring, or sincerely trying to understand in a nonjudgmental or helping way. (Goldstein and Michaels, 1985)1.2Features of EmpathyIn essence, empathy is a way of understanding and comprehending another’s experiences, thoughts and perceptions. It is a unique human endowment. It is a kind of social behavior, which builds positive social relationship and fosters good communication.Empathy is a form of understanding, which is the most fundamental feature of empathy. Empathy is the mental state of having a certain kind of understanding of another’s experience. Empathy enables us not only to experience the feelings of others but also to reflect on these feelings and compare them to our own. Through empathy we can visit the minds of others and get information. Only when one truly understands what the other is thinking has one put himself or herself into the other’s thought, as if one were thinking the same as himself or herself. Then it leads to theideal of communication.Empathy is a kind of endowment. Empathy provides people with the innate capacity to know about the psychological states of other human beings. It is due to this unique human capacity that people can go beyond personal boundaries and try to learn about the experiences of people who are different from us, so as to know others more accurately and completely. However, the ability of showing empathy might be affected by many factors, for example, education background, social status, ages and etc. It is impossible to totally put oneself in someone else’s shoes because each individual has unique past experiences. Nevertheless, one can still achieve some degree of empathy and develop effective communicative skills through careful listening and observing.Empathy is a kind of social behavior. Human beings are in nature part of an interconnected network of social relationships, and knowledge of other people is built into this social network. In human interaction a person makes responses appropriate to his part in the relationship and incorporates in his reaction responses of others in the situation. Empathy is a powerful bound between people, and it can facilitate prosocial behaviors and affect social roles. It has significant influences on social interaction, such as avoiding conflicts and producing better communication between social participants.Ⅱ. Hindrances to EmpathyA number of behaviors can keep us from understanding the feelings, thoughts, and motives of other people. Thus it is helpful to examine some factors that impede empathy.2.1 Constant Self-focusConstant self-focus is the most common of all barriers to empathy. When we are consumed with thoughts of ourselves, it is difficult to gather information about other people and to make response on that information. Paying to much attention to our own thoughts uses much of the energy that we should direct toward our communication partner. It is improper and guilty to behave according to the proverb “Everyone thinks that all the bells echo his own thoughts.”2.2 EthnocentrismEthnocentrism is an attitude of superiority, which keeps us from developing empathy. We may engage in defensive behavior produced by such kind of superiority that keeps other people from wanting to reveal information about themselves, information we need if we are going to engage in empathetic behavior. If other people feel rebuffed by our actions, they are not likely to disclose very much to us. When we appear to be evaluating other people, whether by what we say or what we do, we are likely to make them feel defensive towards us. If we believe others are judging and evaluating us, we will hesitate to offer information that will foster empathy. After sharing some personal information, we could feel awkward when the other person lectures us on the foolhardiness of our act. After a few minutes of criticism and ridicule, we probably would decide not to disclose any other information to that person.2.3 DogmatismDogmatism is another attitude that keeps us from developing empathy. If someone behaved as if he or she doubted everything we said and had all the answers, even to questions we had not asked, we probably become defensive. When faced with a dogmatic person, our defensiveness may take the form of dogmatism of our own or we may fall into silence. In either case, this defensive behavior will not be deductive to empathy. We must all seek to avoid becoming the character in Shakespeare’s“The Merchant of Venice” who commanded, “I am Sir Oracel. And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!”2.4 Lack of MotivationLack of motivation may be the source of many of hindrances to empathy. We are most motivated to people who are close to us both physically and emotionally. It is common that we are primarily concerned with our families and as our personal circle widens, it includes relatives and friends. Interests in other people expand to neighbors and other members of the community. As we get further away from people in ourimmediate circle, we are prone to find it hard to empathize. In most cases, we would be more motivated to learn about our friends than about the people in Africa. Although this is a normal reaction, it often keeps us from trying to understand the experiences of people far from our personal sphere. To be successful in intercultural communication, we must all learn to go beyond personal boundaries and try to learn about the experiences of people who are not part of our daily lives.Ⅲ. Development of Cultural EmpathyBy cultural empathy we mean that, in intercultural communication, the communicator consciously and willingly shifts from his or her own cultural pattern and actively projects himself or herself into another cultural pattern, feeling, understanding and appreciating another culture, and at the same time maintaining his or her own perspective on the situation. It is a state of affective transformation in which we switch ourselves to the fiel d of the other’s cultural context.Cultural empathy is not only the prerequisite and assurance for effective cultural communication, but also an important capacity which helps people to build a good relationship and achieve a successful communication result in intercultural communication.The employment of cultural empathy has become an essential aspect in intercultural communication. In order to become communicatively competent, we need to be capable of functioning effectively within diverse cultures and groups. Therefore it is necessary for us to develop our empathic ability so as to achieve desirable communication result in intercultural context.3.1Four Advices for Improving Cultural EmpathyThe first advice is paying attention. While communicating with others, the single most important thing we should do is remind ourselves to pay attention to the spontaneous emotional expressions of others. As we know from our personal experience, it is difficult to keep focused and concentrate on one idea or one person. This high level of attention is more strenuous when applied to empathy, because empathy is dynamic. According to Barnlund empathy tends to be a fleeting phenomenon, fluctuating from moment to moment and from situation to situation.(Barnlund, 1989) Therefore, problems about concentration can be overcome if we manage to stay focused on both the other person and the situation.The second advice is being expressive. Communication partners must be expressive for empathy is a reciprocal act. We cannot expect individuals from other cultures to offer us detailed verbal and nonverbal messages about their internal states in the satiation of communication. We could be more accurate in reading others’emotional state if our own expressive behavior promotes others to be more expressive and we pay attention to the wider range of nonverbal cues they play.The third advice is strengthening awareness. Empathy can be enhanced through awareness of specific behaviors of members of a particular culture. Empathy can be cultivated only if we become more sensitive to the values and customs of the culture with which we are interacting.The last advice is that empathy can be increased if we resist the tendency to interpret other’s verbal and nonverbal actions from our own culture’s orientation. Try to be suspicious of or keep in check the cultural perspective that is unique to our experiences. Knowing how the frame of other cultures differs from our own will help us in accurately reading what meaning lies behind words and actions of other people.3.2A Proposed Model for the Development of Cultural EmpathyTo develop empathic ability, the above four advices are not enough. Different scholars proposed different advices for developing cultural empathy. Take Bennett as an example, he proposed a six-step model for the sequential development of empathy: assuming difference, knowing self, suspending self, allowing guided imagination, allowing empathic experience and reestablishing self. This model presents us an effective way to develop empathic ability. However, it limits itself to the abstract, philosophical presentation and it isolates these steps from the real communication event. Based on this model, this paper presents another model for the developing and employing of cultural empathy in intercultural communication.Step One: Constructing self-perceptionTo develop interpersonal relationships we need to approach a person and get inside his or her personal sphere. To correctly interpret the behavior of a person, one must know something abo ut that person’s self-perception. Maintaining our self-perception or facilitating the self-perception of someone else is the basis of mostof our communication strategies. The roles we choose and play through communication determine the sense of self. Thus our self-identity is the self in relation to others. However, because the self-perception depends on culture in most cases, we must know its implications in both our own culture and the culture of the person with whom we are interacting.Step Two: Recognizing Cultural DifferencesIt is impossible to develop and employ cultural empathy without knowing the target culture. It is also not an easy task to fully understand the target culture. Hence, to achieve satisfactory results in developing cultural empathy, we need to acquire knowledge of the various differences between one’s native culture and target culture.In intercultural communications, people perceive his or her partner as a unique individual with his or her own personal experiences. Each person’s experience is greatly influenced by his or her culture. Culturally empathic understanding is the process by which the communicator perceives the meaning of the other’s self-experience from another culture. Therefore they must make sure how cultural values and assumptions influence each other’s personal experience.It is easy for people to misunderstand one from another culture if they do not have cultural knowledge or understanding of other’s background and experience. Thus people must first examine themselves and explore how their culture influences them. Therefore, recognizing cultural differences is a prerequisite for effective culturally empathic understanding. Only with the understanding and appreciating of cultural differences, people will be effective interacting with those from different cultural backgrounds.Step Three: Making PredictionsEmpathy can be defined as the set of predictions we make as to the probable responses of our communication partner. It is based on our expectations and hypotheses as to how our communication partner will respond. When our predictions are accurate, effective communication is facilitated.To behave appropriately in the situation of intercultural communication, we need to be able to predict the meanings which others have for various words, gestures or symbols, we need to be able to predict the responses which they will make to message we sent. To get the information we need to observe and catalogue everything we can learn about the individual. This information is easy to obtain if we are sensitive to it. Everything a person says and does, tells us something about him or her. A good empathizer is sensitive to all these kinds of data, which form a general base forpredicting response.Even if we do not have any interpersonal interaction with the person, we can still predict meanings and response on the basis of our personal knowledge of the individual concerned. We can do this by using the knowledge we personally have of him, trying to put ourselves in his place, simulating his beliefs and temperament, taking his role, or looking at the world as he looks at it.Step Four: AdaptationMost people who can reach this stage generally possess intercultural sensitivity, and they can apply skills of empathy and adaptation of behavior to any cultural context.By adaptation we mean the process whereby a person’s worldview is expanded to include behaviors and values appropriate to not only his or her own culture but also the host culture, without changing of his or her own original socialization. At this stage, people use knowledge about their own and other’s culture to intentionally and willingly shift into a different cultural frame of reference. That is to say, they can empathize or take another person’s perspective in order to understand and be understood across cultural boundaries. Based on the ability to use alternative cultural interpretations, people can modify their behavior in ways that make it more appropriate to cultures that are different from their own.ConclusionEmpathy is very important to intercultural communication because there is often not enough cultural information available from which to draw conclusions about other people’s meaning. Besides, people are often confined to their own cultures and thoughts, and unwilling to appreciate or accept different cultures. Empathy is a means by which we can visit the minds of others, and change the outlook on the world, so as to derive information about others, so that we may use in the choice of words, style, and strategies. Based on this, communicators can modify their behaviors to become more appropriated. Empathy leads us not only to experience the feelings of others but also to reflect on these feelings and compare them to our own. Whether we discover similarity or difference, empathy leads us to recognize that we are all separate individuals sharing a common humanity.In summary, to be communicatively competent with people from differentcultures, it is critical to demonstrate cultural empathy. By giving a brief explanation of cultural empathy, this paper offers some advices and a model for people to overcome cultural barriers and achieve effectiveness in communication across cultures. It is hoped that, by developing and employing cultural empathy, people will feel at ease and achieve success whenever they are engaged in intercultural communication.References1.Davis, Mark. Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach. [M]. Colorado:Westview Press. 1996.2.Goldstein, Arnold P. & Gerald, Y. Michaels. Empathy: Development, Training,and Consequences. [M]. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbraum Associates. 1985.3.Hall, Edward. The Silent Language [M]. New Y ork: Anchor Books, 1973.4.Hogan, R. T. Development of an empathy scale. 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