Топик: Cultural Values

A CULTURAL MODEL OF INTERACTION

When a person from a national society with hierarchical tendencies encounters a person from a society with egalitarian tendencies, and more­over when the country of the latter is generally "high" in the estimation of the former, the idealized paradigm as shown in Figure 1 would be approximated. In this diagram, X, the person from a country with egalitarian views, behaves toward Y, the person from a hierarchically oriented country, as if he occupied the same "level"; that is, in equalitarian terms.

Figure 1.

But Y perceives X in a high-status position X₁ , "above" X's image of his own status in the relationship. Since from Y's point of view X does not behave as he "ought" to—he behaves as an equal rather than as a superior—Y may be expected to feel confusion and disorientation. The confusion can be resolved readily only by Y's assuming an equal status with X, or by X's assuming the position X₁ assigned to him by Y; i.e., either by closing or by validating the "arc of status-cue confusion" shown by the arrow.

The reader will note that in effect we have already substituted "average American" for X, and "average Japanese" for Y. We have found that the diagram has been meaningful as an ideal model for the analysis of inter­action patterns between Japanese and Americans. In many cases the conditions denoted by the diagram were actually found: Americans do behave toward Japanese as equals, while the Japanese perceive the Americans as, and in some cases expect them to behave like, superiors. In this ideal situation since the Japanese is generally not able to respond as an equal, and since withdrawal and distant respect are proper behavior both for interaction with superiors and for interaction in situations where status is ambiguous, he simply retires into enryo and communication is impaired. This model does much to explain what many educators and foreign student counsellors have come to feel as "typical" behavior of the shy, embarrassed Japanese student on the American campus.

A revealing interchange on the matter of status imagery by some twelve Japanese sojourner students was recorded during a two-hour group discussion planned by the project but not attended by Americans. A translation of part of this interchange follows.

M: As I see it, Japanese think of Americans as nobility. So, it is hard to ac­cept invitations because of the status difference.

K: I don't agree fully. Americans are not nobility to us, but they do have a higher social status, so that it is hard to accept invitations. But there is a "category" of persons who are known and placed as "foreign students," and we can take advantage of this general foreign student status and go to American homes and places.

N: During foreign student orientation we came and went as we desired as "foreign students." But here, as an individual person, I have felt it necessary to return invitations which are extended to me, and this I find very difficult since I have no income and must return the invitation in a manner suited to the status of the person.

M: Only if the invitation is from Americans who we can accept as status equals to us should it be returned. . . . American table manners are difficult to learn, and it is a problem similar to that encountered by anyone who attempts to enter a higher social class in Japan. . . . Japanese just can't stand on an equal footing with Americans. ... I wouldn't want an American janitor to see my house in Japan. It is so miserable.

N: Why? That seems extreme.

M: Because I have social aspirations. I am a "climber." A Japanese house in Tokyo is too dirty to invite an American to—for example, could I invite him to use my poor bathroom? (General laughter)

At a later point in the discussion, the following emerged:

Mrs. N: I have watched American movies in Japan and in the United States I have seen American men—and they all look like Robert Taylor. No Japanese men look like Robert Taylor.

M: Again I say it is not a matter of beauty, but one of status.

Mrs. N: No, it is not status—not calculation of economic worth or anything —but of beauty. Americans are more beautiful—they look nicer than Japanese.

U: It is the same in other things. Americans look nice, for example, during an oral examination in college. They look more attractive. Japanese look down, crushed, ugly.

At a still later point, one of the discussants embarked on a long mono­logue on the ramifications of the status problem. Part of this monologue runs as follows:

A high-status Japanese man going out with American girls knows some­thing of what he must do—for example, he must be polite—but he does not know the language so he can be no competition to American men, who will be superior. In an emergency, for example, the Japanese male regresses to Japanese behavior. Great Japanese professors are embarrassed for the first few months in the United States because they can't even beat American college juniors in sociable behavior or expression of ideas. They don't know the language, they feel inferior. These people, forgetting that they were unable "to defeat America, become highly antagonistic to the United States. . . .They reason that Japan must be superior, not inferior to the United States, because they are unable to master it. While in America, of course, they may write home about their wonderful times and experiences — to hide their real feelings. Actually while they are in the U.S. they feel as though they were nothing.

Some quotations from two different interviews with another subject:

Before I came to the States, I expected that whatever I would do in the U.S. would be observed by Americans and would become their source of knowledge of Japan and the Japanese. So I thought I had to be careful. In the dormitory, there is a Nisei boy from whom I ask advice about my manners and clothing! I asked him to tell me any time when my body smells or my clothing is dirty. I, as a Japanese, want to look nice to Americans.

In general, I think I do less talking than the others in my courses. I'm always afraid that if I raise questions along the lines of Japanese thinking about the subject—or simply from my own way of looking at something—it might raise some question on the part of .the others. When talking to a professor I can talk quite freely, but not in class. I am self-conscious.

These specimen quotations help to show that quite frequently the perspective of many Japanese students toward America has some of the qualities of the triangular model of interaction. Regardless of how our Japanese subjects may have behaved, or learned to behave, they harbored, as a picture in the back of their minds, an image of the Americans as people a notch or two "above" Japan and the Japanese. Thus even while a Japanese may "look down" on what he calls "American materialism," he may "in the back of his mind" continue to "look up" to the United States and its people as a whole, as a "generalized other." Our cultural model of interaction is thus felt to be a very fundamental and highly generalized component of imagery, as well as a very generalized way of describing the behavior of Japanese and Americans in certain typical interactive situations.

Quite obviously the model, taken by itself, would be a very poor instrument of prediction of the actual behavior of a particular Japanese with Americans. It is apparent that there would have to be a considerable knowledge of situational variability, amount of social learning, and many other factors before all the major variants of Japanese social behavior in America with respect to status could be understood. While there is no need to seek complete predictability of individual behavior, some attempt may be made to show how the social behavior of the Japanese subjects of research did vary in actual social situations in America, and to see if these variants followed a consistent pattern.

Here is a list of values that some visitors from other cultures have noticed are common to many Americans:

Informality (being casual and down-to-earth) Self-reliance (not looking to others to solve your problems) Efficiency (getting things done quickly and on time) Social equality (treating everyone the same) Assertiveness (saying what's on your mind) Optimism (believing that the best will always happen)

SEVEN STATEMENTS ABOUT AMERICANS

Here is a list of comments a non-American might make about an Americans:

1. Americans are always in such a hurry to get things done!