By: Janis Glazer

I experienced some of what Gudykunst explains in his Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Thoery when I was visiting England and Ireland on a trip in high school. I went with thirty-two other students from around Ohio on a three week trip to the British Isles. We spent our time traveling from England to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. While in Ireland, each one of us was given the opportunity to stay in a native person's home. We were paired off from the group and we spent three nights in our homestay.

My homestay family was extremely nice and much like my own family, but still, I was a stranger. Not only was I a stranger in their home, but also in their land. I didn't know what I was doing there or what their customs were. All the classes we had had when we were in the United States did help, but they did not prepare me for the little differences in the cultures. Needless to say, I was nervous when I first went into their home.

We started the first evening off just as any other people who were introducing themselves and orienting themselves to the new situation. I told my 'parents' where I was from and what kind of family background I'd had. The first thing they picked up on was that I was a child from a divorced family. Immediately, I was on the 'hotseat.' I was asked all kinds of questions about what it was like to grow up in two households that were so different from each other. They found it unusual that my two families were so completely separate. My home with my mother is very close with her, but there is almost no relation with my stepfather. My father's home is much the same way except I didn't see him more than once every other week for most of my life and now, it's even less than that. Because of their reactions, I automatically assumed that divorce was not nearly as common for the people in Ireland, or maybe for that particular community.

I am perfectly comfortable talking about my childhood and what it was like for me, but all of a sudden, in a new situation, it was different. There were things I was afraid to say or bring up because I didn't know what kind of reaction they would get. Things like the fact that I don't get along with either of my step-parents seemed like something I should leave out. This family was very close knit and they already had a hard enough time thinking my parents had been divorced since I was not even two years old. However, there were the three factors that Gudykunst came up with which urged me to be able to be comfortable with the others.

The Motivation Factors were things that made me want to fit in to their surrounding a little more. I wanted to suppress certain things that I didn't think they would approve of. What I was able to pick up on, I tried to work around.

The Knowledge Factors were the things I was able to pick up on. I could tell they were uncomfortable when I said something about how old I was when my mother remarried after my parents' divorce. It was as if they didn't approve of how quickly it appeared to be. So because I was able to see their discomfort, I changed the subject to something else or else I feared they would end the conversation and generally not approve of me.

The Skill Factors were the way I was able to see how they were like or unlike me. I was hoping they saw themselves the same way I thought they did. I saw a middle-class family that was much like the typical American family. Because of that, I related much of my conversation to that.

Because of Gudykunst's theories, I was able to adjust pretty well to my new surroundings in the Irish family's home. Now, knowing the theory, I am able to classify and break down what I did into the steps that it happened.

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Different cultures have different ways of relating to meanings of words. The theory of the Cultural Approach to Organizations addresses this issue. To check out a page of research and applications, Click Here.