Face Negotiation Theory - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Facework refers to particular non-verbal as well as verbal messages that help in maintaining or re-building the loss of face. Different aspects of the Face-Negotiation Theories Anxiety and uncertainty can result in conflict that brings discomfort. According to Ting-Toomey’s face-negotiation theory, it is mainly based on individualism and collectivism (Ting -Toomey, 2010). Harry Triandis states that three important distinctions between collectivistic and individualistic cultures include the different ways in which members perceive the concepts of goals, self, and duty. More than 60% of the world’s population is born to collectivist cultures such as those in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America; while the remainder, in nations such as Switzerland and Germany, live in individualist cultures (Ting -Toomey, 2010). For collectivist cultures such as that of Japan, it is presumed that even the decisions made by the citizens on an individual basis end up affecting the community. This means that it is constructive for the accepted norms of the group to determine individual choices. The Japanese ‘We’ identity is comparable to the ‘I’ identity of the individualistic American society. In the use of meditation methods in the two types of cultures, the mediator encourages antagonists to deal directly with their differences and keeps the conversation focused on the possibility of a final agreement. Ting –Toomey states that in a culture, the citizens who make it up differ in terms of how much they identify with group solidarity or individualistic self-sufficiency. Timing-Toomey uses the terms ‘independent’ as well as ‘interdependent self’ to identify the extent to which a culture’s members view themselves as being autonomous or in relation to others around them. The psychologists Shinobu Kitayama and Hazel Markus refer to this concept as self-image or self-construal (Ting -Toomey, 2010). In seemingly individualistic cultures such as the American culture, there may be certain changes that are noted in different ethnic groups. There are ethnic immigrants, for instance, that still practice collectivist habits and bring up their children in a collectivist culture, and to be highly interdependent. These select immigrant populations also encourage their citizens to engage in self-values that are interdependent and that highlight relational connectedness. It is common for the Western world to regard the maintenance of ‘face’ to be a predominantly Asian preoccupation. However, it is more common in other cultures as well, as it can be said to be a different definition of the self-concept. The Max Plank Institute of Psycholinguistics’ Stephen Levinson and Penelope Brown have defined the concept of ‘face’ as being the public image of self that society’s members wish to claim as being their own (Ting -Toomey, 2010). Lin Yutang, a Taiwanese author, on the other hand, defined face as being a psychological image that can be lost, granted to an individual, and even struggled for (Ting -Toomey, 2010). For Ting-Toomey, the concept of face is simply descriptive of the projective image of an individual’s self in a relational setting. While people in individualistic societies struggle to preserve their own best ‘images’, those in collectivist cultures tend to focus on preserving the good ‘images’ of their fellow man.    ...Download file to see next pagesRead More