Human Behavior in Military Contexts (2008) / Chapter Skim
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2 Intercultural Competence
2 Intercultural Competence
Pages 20-28
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From page 20... ...
. In many countries, the gesture that in the United States signifies "OK" is actually an offensive gesture.
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From page 21... ...
Given that most military conflicts occur between countries, intercultural encounters have always been part of the military experience. However, modern conflicts such as the one in Iraq often involve more protracted engagement with local inhabitants and are rife with opportunities for intercultural misunderstandings.
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From page 22... ...
. Even though these dimensions appear to explain most differences among cultures, the field is still evolving towards a commonly accepted framework that adequately explains cultural differences.
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The United States is not well suited, either educationally or culturally, for the production of second-language speakers. In spite of the fact that the country has traditionally received immigrant speakers of many languages, English dominates communication.
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Even within this paradigm, however, not everyone in the military is tested. The Air Force participants, for instance, were recruits who had high scores in English competency on standard instruments, such as the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)
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From page 25... ...
than a comparably talented English monolingual person would be; however, an English-Spanish bilingual person would have no advantage over the English-only speaker in learning Farsi or Indonesian. In contrast, if learning a second language involves the acquisition of skills required for adult language learning in general, then an English-Spanish bilingual person would have an advantage over a monolingual person regardless of the target language.
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From page 26... ...
Faced with this situation, considerable commercial and military efforts have been directed toward development of computer-presented instruction, which often involves trainees' conversing with realistic avatars of native speakers or playing serious training games like Alelo Inc.'s Tactical Iraqi™ Language and Culture Training System. Although these programs are impressive as feats in computer science, their effectiveness in training to a relatively low but appropriate level of proficiency has not been scientifically validated (see Chapter 4)
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From page 27... ...
A related finding is that culture affects how individuals respond to social pressure during the negotiation process. For example, negotiators from individualist cultures assume that their constituents expect them to be competitive; in contrast, negotiators from collectivist cultures assume they should cooperate during a negotiation.
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From page 28... ...
Finally, it is lamentable that little is known about the effectiveness of various strategies for reducing conflict across cultures. For example, Gelfand notes that researchers have documented the effectiveness of apologies for reducing aggression, fostering forgiveness, and repairing trust, but they have failed to examine the role that apologies play in reducing intercultural conflicts (Tavuchis, 1991)
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