William Gudykunsts Anxiety / Uncertainty Management...

Critique of William Gudykunsts Anxiety / Uncertainty Management Theory Everyone has experienced cross cultural differences one-way or the other. Even if you have not been to another country, you probably have experienced the frustration, nervousness, or difficulty in communicating with someone from a different culture. Dealing with the difference in slang, dialects, and overall cultural diversity, can be a very difficult situation to manage. Seeing these problems, William Gudykunst developed his Anxiety/ Uncertainty Management Theory. In this he includes 47 axioms to help people of different cultures communicate more efficiently. Using a humanistic approach I agree with Gudykunst in his belief that anxiety and uncertainty†¦show more content†¦Another humanistic aspect of this theory is the fact that Gudykunst allows for differing levels of anxiety and uncertainty. The levels of each of these will vary given unique and individual circumstances. As an example of an individualized application of one of Gudykunst axioms, I have chosen to apply axiom 7 to an intercultural experience of my own. Axiom 7 states: An increase in our need for a sense of group inclusion when we interact with strangers will produce an increase in our anxiety.(Gudykunst, 413) I applied axiom 7 as such: Last summer a group of friends and I vactioned in France. Being an outsider, I felt a great need to be included in the French culture. Therefore, I spoke the fragments of French that I had retained from high school, thinking this might help me feel a little less like a stranger. In some ways this did help, because I was able to communicate in the same language that everyone else was speaking. But, as for our group as a whole, we were still treated like strangers by the people of the French culture. Therefore, this inadvertent exclusion increased our anxiety about this different culture greatly, as stated above in Axiom 7. This axiom may hold true to most, but of course, leaves room for ones own individualShow MoreRelated The Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory Essay686 Words   |  3 PagesThe Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory According to William B. Gudykunst in his article A Model of Uncertainty Reduction in Intercultural Encounters, the uncertainty reduction theory explains initial interactions between two strangers from the same culture. Studies, however, suggest this theory can also be extended to interpersonal communication between two people from different cultures. Uncertainty refers to how well you can accurately predict how strangers will behave during theirRead MoreEssay on A Critique of Bergers Uncertainty Reduction Theory901 Words   |  4 PagesA Critique of Bergers Uncertainty Reduction Theory How do people get to know each other? Bugs Bunny likes to open up every conversation with the question, Whats up Doc? Why does he do this? Is Bugs Bunny uncertain? Lets explore this idea of uncertainty. Shifting focus now to college students. As many other college students at Ohio University, I am put into situations that make me uncertain of my surroundings almost every time I go to a class for the first time, a group meeting, or socialRead MoreIntercultural Communication21031 Words   |  85 Pagesanthropologist who coined the term â€Å"culture shock,† which is defined as the traumatic experience that someone may encounter when entering a different cultural environment. Benjamin Lee Whorf, a student and colleague of Sapir’s at Yale University, advanced the theory that language influences perceptions and thus human behavior. The major points in the development of ICC are: †¢ Culture and communication were studied separately until recent years, and it was not until the early seventies that scholars