Chapter 30: Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory

Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory deals with intercultural communication, and how different cultural factors can influence how two people from different cultures interact when they encounter each other. The interaction between two people of different cultures depends on how different their respective cultures are in terms of four "dimensions" of culture. The first of these is power distance. Cultures with a low power distance see each person in society as being more equal, without much difference between the average person and a person in power. Cultures with a high power distance view those in power as being very seperate from those not in power. The second dimension of culture is a culture's level of "masculinity" or "femininity". More "masculine" cultures favor strong sex roles, and their values focus on money, success, and dominance. In more "feminine" cultures, sex roles are not strictly defined, and men and women are equally encouraged to participate in society. The third dimension of culture is the culture's level of uncertainty avoidance. This refers to the culture's tolerance or intolerance for uncertainty and how threatened its people feel by ambiguity. Finally, the fourth dimension of culture is individualism. This refers to whether the culture focuses more on the individual or the collective.

A real-world example of Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory would be a person traveling to a foreign country such as France or Germany, where the language contains more than one form of the word you - one for more formal interactions, and another for more informal interactions. The French "vous" and German "Sie" are the more formal forms of address, with "tu" and "du" as their informal counterparts. A person who is new to one of these two cultures may have difficulty knowing when to use each one, and this could create a significant amount of uncertainty in his or her interactions with people in those cultures.