1. The Environmental Context
CHAPTER 4
The Environmental Context

2. A Contextual Model of Intercultural Communication
Neuliep, Intercultural Communication, 6e. © SAGE Publications, 2015.

3. How we see the physical world around us is influenced by our individual psychological perceptions, which, in turn, are shaped by culture.

4. Information Load
Information rate: the amount of information contained or perceived in the environment per some unit of time.
High load
Uncertain, complex, dense, random, improbable
Low load
Certain, simple, sparse, patterned, probable

5. Information load affects feelings in three ways:
Arousal-nonarousal
Pleasure-displeasure
Dominance-submissiveness

6. Culture and the Natural Environment
The natural, or terrestrial, environment
Some aspects of the terrestrial environment exist in every culture while others do not
The natural environment of any culture influences life in that culture.

7. Worldviews of the Natural Environment
Omnipotent nature
Harmony with nature
Controlling nature

8. Natural Disasters as Cultural and Social Events
How people manage disaster is shaped by the culture and its view of nature.
One model of human responses to natural disasters segregates cultures into three types
folk or preindustrial
Transitional
industrial

9. Build Environment Adaptations to the terrestrial environment
Architecture, housing, landscaping, etc.
Changes natural patterns of behavior, including communication.
Build Environment

10. The Built Environment: Layout Patterns
Fixed-feature space
Semi-fixed feature space
Informal space

11. Japanese Housing Shoji or fusuma Yuka Tatami mats Tokonoma
Important rooms: kitchen and bathroom.

12. American Navajo Housing
Hogan
Space used differently based on sex
Ramada
Space and division of labor not divided based on sex

14. Marakwet Housing Kor Use of the home differs depending on sex.
Disposal of refuse:
Ash
Animal dung
chaff

15. Privacy Solitude Isolation Intimacy With family With friends Anonymity
Reserve

16. Cross-Cultural Variations on Privacy
China
Turkey
Java
Morocco

17. Online Privacy Individualism—collectivism
High power distance—low power distance

18. Time Orientation Monochronic orientation Polychronic orientation
Scheduling
Monochronic orientation
Polychronic orientation
Housing space
Business practices