Development of Anxiety/uncertainty Management As A Theory
Gudykunst's first model of Anxiety/Uncertainty Management theory was a fusion of the aforementioned URT and Tajfel's Social Identity Theory (1978), with a focus on intergroup communication. In 1988, Gudykunst paralleled his research slightly to attempt to explain intercultural adaptation as a result of uncertainty reduction. This version contained 24 axioms and incorporated the works of Stephan and Stephan on anxiety. The key conceptual difference between these two concepts explored by Gudykunst and the existing theory of URT was the intended outcome of the research. The outcome of URT is simply to reduce anxiety and uncertainty. Gudykunst’s intended outcome was for effective communication and cultural adaptation and not solely the reduction of anxiety. The inherent difference is that managing anxiety is to maintain it between minimum and maximum thresholds along a spectrum while reducing anxiety is unidirectional. This realization, along with the introduction of mindfulness as a factor of effective communication, led Gudykunst to finally designate an appropriate name for his research: Anxiety/Uncertainty Management theory (AUM).
Gudykunst assumed that at least one person in an intercultural encounter is a stranger. He argues that strangers undergo both anxiety and uncertainty; they don’t feel secure and they aren’t sure how to behave. Gudykunst noted that strangers and in-group members experience some degree of anxiety and uncertainty in any new interpersonal situation, but when the encounter takes place between people of different cultures, strangers are hyperaware of cultural differences. They then tend to overestimate the effect of cultural identity on the behavior of people in an alien society, while blurring individuals’ distinctions.
The purpose of the first iteration of AUM was to be a practical application with a high degree of utility. The format of AUM includes numerous axioms, which in turn converge on one another moving in the direction of effective communication. (See Figure X). The specific number of axioms has varied over the last fifteen years according to updated research in the field of cross-cultural communication.
Read more about this topic: Anxiety/uncertainty Management
Famous quotes containing the words development, anxiety, uncertainty, management and/or theory:
“Dissonance between family and school, therefore, is not only inevitable in a changing society; it also helps to make children more malleable and responsive to a changing world. By the same token, one could say that absolute homogeneity between family and school would reflect a static, authoritarian society and discourage creative, adaptive development in children.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I think the worst thing this nation could do for humanity would be to leave any uncertainty as to our will, our purpose and our capacity to carry out our purpose.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management of external things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)