Meta-knowledge of Culture Promotes Cultural Competence

• Main Authors: LEUNG, Angela K.-Y., LEE, Sau-Lai, CHIU, Chi-Yue
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2013
• Subjects: communication; social cognition; Cognition and Perception; Multicultural Psychology; Personality and Social Contexts
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1419; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/2675/viewcontent/Meta_KnowledgeCulturePromotesCulturalCompetence_2013JCCP.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

A behavioral signature of cross-cultural competence is discriminative use of culturally appropriate behavioral strategies in different cultural contexts. Given the central role communication plays in cross-cultural adjustment and adaptation, the present investigation examines how meta-knowledge of culture—defined as knowledge of what members of a certain culture know—affects culturally competent cross-cultural communication. We reported two studies that examined display of discriminative, culturally sensitive use of cross-cultural communication strategies by bicultural Hong Kong Chinese (Study 1), Chinese students in the United States and European Americans (Study 2). Results showed that individuals formulating a communicative message for a member of a certain culture would discriminatively apply meta-knowledge of the culture. These results suggest that unsuccessful cross-cultural communications may arise not only from the lack of motivation to take the perspective of individuals in a foreign culture, but also from inaccurate meta-knowledge of the foreign culture.