When you talk about culture, you often make generalizations about a group of people. The major types of generalizations most people make fall into three categories: stereotypes, prototypes, and prejudices. To become culturally proficient, you need to recognize when you’re making assumptions about people and what type of assumptions you’re making. Choose the type of generalization being discussed.

are generalizations applied uncritically to large groups of people.

In order to avoid making rigid or ill-founded generalizations about a culture, you should practice tolerance and empathy. These attitudes are critical in a multicultural workforce.

Which of the following characteristics are examples of tolerance or empathy? Check all that apply.

Compromise

Trust

Understanding

Distrust

Rigidity

Impatience

Part of being a tolerant and empathetic person is respecting how cultural differences motivate people to behave in different ways. Economic factors, for example, tend to be the main driving force behind North American businesspeople, but the desire to preserve image and social harmony often motivates businesspeople in high-context cultures. When people act or speak in a manner to maintain image or social harmony, they are saving face.

Consider the concept of saving face when you read the following scenario, and then answer the question.

You work for an American toy retailer, and you are negotiating a contract with a Chinese toy manufacturer to import train sets. You have set up a tight schedule to make sure the trains make it onto store shelves by the holiday season. When you ask Mr. Lee, the toy company representative, whether his company can meet the production schedule, he seems uncomfortable and mentions that many of his employees have been working overtime lately and that they have other projects that are behind deadline.

In this situation, which approach would you take to allow Mr. Lee to save face?

Ask him why he isn’t able to give you a direct answer.

Recognize that he’s trying to tell you they can’t make the proposed schedule.

Press the issue and force him to give you a yes or no answer.