Giving and Receiving Criticism

Cultural Differences in Approaching Criticism

When offering criticism, it is important to consider cultural differences such as eye contact, verbal style, and speaker expectations.

Cultural Groups Approach Criticism with Different Styles

A culture is a system of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that form distinctive ways of life. Different cultural groups have different ways of communicating verbally and non-verbally. While globalization and media have moderated many of the traditional differences for younger audiences, it is wise to consider five important areas where cultural differences could play a role when giving and receiving criticism:

• Verbal style in low and high-context cultures
• Instrumental versus affective message responsibility
• Collectivism and individualism in cultures
• "Face"
• Eye contact
  
  

Cultural Differences Impact Communication: The attendees' attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors shape the communication inside and outside the conference.

Verbal Style in Low and High Context Cultures

In low-context cultures such as the United States and Germany, people are expected to say what is on their minds directly; they will not "beat around the bush." In high-context cultures like Japan and China, people are likelier to use indirect speech, hints, and subtle suggestions to convey meaning.

Responsibility for Effectively Conveying a Message

Is the speaker or the audience responsible for conveying a message? The instrumental speaking style is sender-orientated; the burden is on the speaker to make themself understood. The affective style is receiver-orientated and places more responsibility on the listener. With this style, the listener must pay attention to verbal, nonverbal, and relationship clues to understand the message.

Chinese, Japanese, and Native American cultures are affective, whereas the American culture is more instrumental. Think about sitting in your college classroom listening to a lecturer. If you do not understand the material, where does the responsibility lie? In the United States, students believe it is up to the professor to communicate the material to the students. However, Chinese students may have a different sense of responsibility. Listeners raised in a more affective environment respond, "No, it is not you; it is our job to try harder." These students accept responsibility as listeners who work to understand the speaker.

Collectivism and Individualism

Are the speaker and listeners from collectivist or individualistic cultures? When a person or culture has a collective orientation, they place the needs and interests of the group above individual desires or motivations. In contrast, cultures with individualistic orientations view the self as most important. Each person is viewed as responsible for his or her own success or failure in life. When you provide feedback or criticism, if you are from an individualistic culture, you may speak directly to one individual, who will be responsible. However, if you are speaking with someone from a more collectivist culture, your feedback may be shared by all the members of the same group, who may assume responsibility for each other's actions.

Face

Face is usually thought of as a sense of self-worth, especially in the eyes of others. Research with Chinese university students showed that they view a loss of face as a failure to measure up to one's self-esteem or what others expect. Speakers and listeners are concerned with maintaining their own face in more individualistic cultures. They do not focus on that of others. However, in an intercultural situation involving collectivist cultures, the speaker should be concerned with maintaining their own face and that of the listeners.

Eye Contact

Rules about maintaining eye contact vary from culture to culture and influence how we approach feedback, questioning, and criticism. For example, in many cultures, avoiding looking someone directly in the eye is a sign of respect, the opposite of what most North Americans expect. In many traditional Arab cultures, it is inappropriate for women to maintain eye contact with a man. Additionally, it is considered respectful for a child not to look directly at an adult who is speaking to them in many African American and Latin-American communities. Basically, we should never construe lack of eye contact as a sign of indifference or disrespect.

Source: Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-communications/chapter/giving-and-receiving-criticism/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Giving Effective Criticism: Be Positive, Specific, Objective, and Constructive

Effective criticism should be positively intended, specific, objective, and constructive to achieve results.

The most basic rule of effective criticism is to respect the individual and focus on the behavior that needs changing – what people do or say. Effective criticism should be intended positively, specific, objective, and constructive.

Being a Critic: Anyone can be a critic, but people must know how to criticize effectively.

Knowing how to criticize effectively is a skill you will use throughout your life. Being able to give good criticism allows you to be positively influential both personally and professionally. Effective criticism is useful for two reasons: (1) new ideas and perspectives are discovered, and (2) argument logic is tested and may reveal shortcomings.

Techniques of Constructive Criticism

Constructive criticism aims to improve a person's behavior or behavioral results while consciously avoiding personal attacks and blaming. This kind of criticism is carefully framed in language acceptable to the target person, often acknowledging that the critics could be wrong.

Avoid insulting and hostile language. Acceptable phrases begin, "I feel…", "It is my understanding that…", and so on. Constructive critics try to put themselves in the other person's shoes and consider things from their perspective.

Effective criticism should be:

• Positively intended and appropriately motivated. You send messages about how you receive the other person's message, how you feel about the other person and your relationship with them. This will help you construct effective critiques.
  
  
• Specific, so the individual knows exactly what behavior is being considered.
  
  
• Objective, so the recipient gets the message and is willing to act on it. Objective criticism is harder to resist.
  
  
• Constructive. Avoid personal attacks, blaming, insulting, and hostile language. The receiver is less likely to respond defensively if you avoid evaluative language – such as "You are wrong" or "Your idea was stupid."

As the name suggests, criticism should construct, scaffold, or improve a situation. Hostile language or personal attacks subvert this goal.

Effective criticism can change how people think and act. It is the birthplace of change and can be liberating. It can fight ideas that keep people down and unlock new opportunities while consciously avoiding personal attacks and blaming. 

Techniques for Accepting Criticism

When receiving criticism, try to be accepting, open-minded, and willing to seek clarity.

Accepting criticism can be difficult, even when it is effective and potentially helpful. Ideally, effective criticism is positive, specific, objective, and constructive. There is an art to providing effective criticism. Many critics have good intentions but poor delivery. For example, "I do not know why my girlfriend keeps getting mad when I tell her to stop eating so many french fries; I am just concerned about her weight!" For criticism to be effective, it must aim to improve a situation without using hostile language or involving personal attacks.

Receiving criticism is a valuable listening skill throughout life: at school, home, and the workplace.

Here are three things to help receive effective criticism gracefully:

1. Accept you are not perfect. You fool yourself if you think nothing will ever go wrong. You will make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them.
   
   
2. Be open-minded. Recognize that others often see things you fail to notice. Even if you disagree with the criticism, others may see something you are unaware of. If they say you are negative or overbearing, you may be unable to see it. Allow others to be right, and use it to look within yourself.
   
   
3. Seek clarity about aspects of a critique you are not sure of. You will repeat the same mistakes if you do not understand the criticism. Take notes and ask questions.

Sometimes, it is easier said than done, but receiving effective criticism offers opportunities to see things differently, improve performance, and learn from mistakes.