A Humanistic Critique of Anxiety/ Uncertainty Management Theory

Everyone has experienced cross cultural differences one-way or the other. Even if you have not been to another country, you probably have experienced the frustration, nervousness, or difficulty in communicating with someone from a different culture. Dealing with the difference in slang, dialects, and overall cultural diversity, can be a very difficult situation to manage.

Seeing these problems, William Gudykunst developed his Anxiety/ Uncertainty Management Theory. In this he includes 47 axioms to help people of different cultures communicate more efficiently.

Using a humanistic approach I agree with Gudykunst in his belief that "anxiety and uncertainty are the basic causes of all communication failure in intercultural situations."(Griffin, 410). Also, humanistically, his developement of the 47 axioms is appropriate because he leaves room for interpretation by the individual applying these axioms to their own personal experiences in intercultural situations. He does so by bringing the aspect of mindfulness into his theory. Mindfulness is defined in the text as thinking about our communication and continually working to change what we do in order to become more effective.(Griffin, 410) This mindfulness, of course, varies depending on the individual, which is a characteristic of the humanistic perspective.

Another humanistic aspect of this theory is the fact that Gudykunst allows for differing levels of anxiety and uncertainty. The levels of each of these will vary given unique and individual circumstances.

As an example of an individualized application of one of Gudykunst axioms, I have chosen to apply axiom 7 to an intercultural experience of my own.

Axiom 7 states: An increase in our need for a sense of group inclusion when we interact with strangers will produce an increase in our anxiety.(Gudykunst, 413)

I applied axiom 7 as such: Last summer a group of friends and I vactioned in France. Being an outsider, I felt a great need to be included in the French culture. Therefore, I spoke the fragments of French that I had retained from high school, thinking this might help me feel a little less like a stranger. In some ways this did help, because I was able to communicate in the same language that everyone else was speaking. But, as for our group as a whole, we were still treated like strangers by the people of the French culture. Therefore, this inadvertent exclusion increased our anxiety about this different culture greatly, as stated above in Axiom 7.

This axiom may hold true to most, but of course, leaves room for ones own individual interpretaion. After applying the previous axiom to my own personal experience, I feel that I have demonstrated an example of the elasticity of one of Gudykunst's axioms. Their meaning is highly subjective, and depends on an individual interpretaion, which is consistent with the humanistic perspective.

In retrospect, I find that Gudykunst's Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory can be beneficial to many people. It is the individual application of these axioms to one's specific cultural encounters that seems to be the key element for successfully communication in intercultural situations.

Works Cited

Griffin, Em. A First Look at Communication Theory. 3rd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.

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Click here to go to a page dedicated to Uncertainty Reduction Theory. This theory also deals with increasing predictability about others in an interpersonal relationship.