Background Music
An overview of the evolution of the MUSIC Intercultural Model
Summary
This little paper highlights development of cultural research and the key studies which have formed the MUSIC Intercultural Model. It names and details the sources which are mentioned during your intercultural training.
No one model can adequately explain the human condition. The MUSIC Intercultural Model seeks only to explain the key value differences in communication which can hinder the establishment and maintenance of successful business relationships between people of different cultures. The model does not value motivation, personal drivers or intelligence, but it does give valuable insight into what can be considered âEUR~normalâEUR(TM) and therefore acceptable communication and behavioural styles for different individuals.
No one area of the model should be viewed in isolation, and overlaps can and should be apparent. But just as height and gender in humans have a correlation, it would be false to assume that they are part of the same construct.
An appreciation of oneâEUR(TM)s own cultural profile can only help to the individual to comprehend how (s)he views the world and is viewed by others, this is known as cultural awareness.
Cultural effectiveness gives the individual the power to be in control of how they are perceived by people of different cultures. Culturally effective people are curious as to how their own culture is seen, happy to self-criticise and also interested in learning more of other cultures. Having a model as a framework for this understanding is perhaps a useful start in this life-long process.
What is culture?
Anthropologists Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) analysed 164 types of cultural definitions before producing this comprehensive and now generally accepted definition:
âEUR?Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; cultures systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, be considered as products of action, on the other, as conditioning elements of future action.âEURoe
Culture is therefore: (Adler 1991)
a Something that is shared by all or almost all members of some social group.
b. Something that the older members of the group try to pass on to the younger members
c. Something that shapes behaviour or structures oneâEUR(TM)s perception of the world
The nineteenth Century - Revolution
The nineteenth century saw the publication of radical theorem such as DarwinâEUR(TM)s Origin of the Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871), LubbockâEUR(TM)s Origin of Civilisation (1870) and BachofenâEUR(TM)s Mutterrecht (MotherâEUR(TM)s Rights) (1861). The new intellectual thinking was soon attributed to new sciences (Kroeber, 1918) of Psychology and Social Psychology, the separation being Psychology concentrates on biographic (mental organic phenomena) whereas Social Psychology concentrates on Culture history (superorganic phenomena).
The barriers between Social Psychology and Psychology became clearer after the addition of theory by George Mead (The creative I), Austrian Alfred Adler (Individual Psychology and inferiority complex) and Gordon Allport (intention; tolerance).
The Twentieth Century - The first fifty years of development
By 1936 Anthropology was an accepted science, the first chairs in the USA were established at the turn of the century (Harvard, Columbia, California). The separation between Social Psychology and Psychology became clearer and the term Anthropology became aligned to the study of culture.
As Kroeber observed in his address to the 1950 meeting of the American Anthropological Society that science had been useful for âEUR~healing the sick and building bridgesâEUR(TM) but not for understanding what makes us tick.
From the mid 1920s a âEUR~preoccupation with patterns as the structuring property of cultureâEUR(TM) (Kroeber, 1950 p148) emerged, supported largely by Boas, who arrived at Anthropology through mathematics and physics
FreudâEUR(TM)s Totem and Taboo helped to compartmentalise the role of psyche/personality and society/culture. The emerging role of the anthropologist was to facilitate understanding of culture and cultural history in an area where the role of the personality could âEUR~clog understandingâEUR(TM) of cultural context. So what had previously been perceived as âEUR~the investigation of oddments by the eccentricâEUR(TM) slowly became an accepted science of equitable study of intersocietal and intercultural understanding and acculturation, a term first used by McGee in the 1890s.
The fifties and sixties - The study of management behaviour
In 1954 Abraham Maslow published Motivation and Personality and unleashed his vision of âEUR~self actualised manâEUR(TM) to the management world. His now famous âEUR~hierarchy of needsâEUR(TM) leading to self-actualisation transcends cultural differences and separates human personality from culture by stating (p.351)
âEURoeResearch has established an important point in discovering that individuals can be healthier, even much healthier, than the culture in which they grow and live. This is possible primarily because of the ability of the healthy man to be detached from his surroundings, which is the same as saying that he lives by his inner laws rather than by outer pressures.âEUR
Summary
This little paper highlights development of cultural research and the key studies which have formed the MUSIC Intercultural Model. It names and details the sources which are mentioned during your intercultural training.
No one model can adequately explain the human condition. The MUSIC Intercultural Model seeks only to explain the key value differences in communication which can hinder the establishment and maintenance of successful business relationships between people of different cultures. The model does not value motivation, personal drivers or intelligence, but it does give valuable insight into what can be considered âEUR~normalâEUR(TM) and therefore acceptable communication and behavioural styles for different individuals.
No one area of the model should be viewed in isolation, and overlaps can and should be apparent. But just as height and gender in humans have a correlation, it would be false to assume that they are part of the same construct.
An appreciation of oneâEUR(TM)s own cultural profile can only help to the individual to comprehend how (s)he views the world and is viewed by others, this is known as cultural awareness.
Cultural effectiveness gives the individual the power to be in control of how they are perceived by people of different cultures. Culturally effective people are curious as to how their own culture is seen, happy to self-criticise and also interested in learning more of other cultures. Having a model as a framework for this understanding is perhaps a useful start in this life-long process.
What is culture?
Anthropologists Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) analysed 164 types of cultural definitions before producing this comprehensive and now generally accepted definition:
âEUR?Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; cultures systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, be considered as products of action, on the other, as conditioning elements of future action.âEURoe
Culture is therefore: (Adler 1991)
a Something that is shared by all or almost all members of some social group.
b. Something that the older members of the group try to pass on to the younger members
c. Something that shapes behaviour or structures oneâEUR(TM)s perception of the world
The nineteenth Century - Revolution
The nineteenth century saw the publication of radical theorem such as DarwinâEUR(TM)s Origin of the Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871), LubbockâEUR(TM)s Origin of Civilisation (1870) and BachofenâEUR(TM)s Mutterrecht (MotherâEUR(TM)s Rights) (1861). The new intellectual thinking was soon attributed to new sciences (Kroeber, 1918) of Psychology and Social Psychology, the separation being Psychology concentrates on biographic (mental organic phenomena) whereas Social Psychology concentrates on Culture history (superorganic phenomena).
The barriers between Social Psychology and Psychology became clearer after the addition of theory by George Mead (The creative I), Austrian Alfred Adler (Individual Psychology and inferiority complex) and Gordon Allport (intention; tolerance).
The Twentieth Century - The first fifty years of development
By 1936 Anthropology was an accepted science, the first chairs in the USA were established at the turn of the century (Harvard, Columbia, California). The separation between Social Psychology and Psychology became clearer and the term Anthropology became aligned to the study of culture.
As Kroeber observed in his address to the 1950 meeting of the American Anthropological Society that science had been useful for âEUR~healing the sick and building bridgesâEUR(TM) but not for understanding what makes us tick.
From the mid 1920s a âEUR~preoccupation with patterns as the structuring property of cultureâEUR(TM) (Kroeber, 1950 p148) emerged, supported largely by Boas, who arrived at Anthropology through mathematics and physics
FreudâEUR(TM)s Totem and Taboo helped to compartmentalise the role of psyche/personality and society/culture. The emerging role of the anthropologist was to facilitate understanding of culture and cultural history in an area where the role of the personality could âEUR~clog understandingâEUR(TM) of cultural context. So what had previously been perceived as âEUR~the investigation of oddments by the eccentricâEUR(TM) slowly became an accepted science of equitable study of intersocietal and intercultural understanding and acculturation, a term first used by McGee in the 1890s.
The fifties and sixties - The study of management behaviour
In 1954 Abraham Maslow published Motivation and Personality and unleashed his vision of âEUR~self actualised manâEUR(TM) to the management world. His now famous âEUR~hierarchy of needsâEUR(TM) leading to self-actualisation transcends cultural differences and separates human personality from culture by stating (p.351)
âEURoeResearch has established an important point in discovering that individuals can be healthier, even much healthier, than the culture in which they grow and live. This is possible primarily because of the ability of the healthy man to be detached from his surroundings, which is the same as saying that he lives by his inner laws rather than by outer pressures.âEUR
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