Low-context and High-context Communication Styles

Our interpersonal communication involves both The context in which we say something can be more important than the content that we want to deliver. People can be receptive to our message in one context but not in another. Sometimes, context … Continue reading

Cultural Proxemics and the Immediacy of Interpersonal Communication

Humans are territorial species, even though their notions of territorial space and proxemics are different from many other animals and vary between hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies. Humans, as social animals, tend to form a sense of in-groups and out-groups, as … Continue reading

Proxemics and Immediacy in Interpersonal Communication

In this article, I define what proxemics and immediacy in interpersonal communication are. I also explain what the proxemic zones and immediacy of communication tell us about relationships. Cultural variations in the use of proxemics and immediacy still exist. What … Continue reading

Individualism and Collectivism in Societies

Individualism and collectivism have been among the central concepts of cross-cultural research. The division between individualistic Western societies and collectivistic Eastern societies is probably the best-known cultural parameter distinguishing the West and East. At least, that is the most common … Continue reading

Personal Identity in Independent and Interdependent Cultures

The concept of interdependent and independent cultures tells us something about the internal structure of society and relationships between people, as well as how they are deemed in the mind and self of a person. These are personhood conceptions and … Continue reading

Modern and Traditional Models of Relationships in Spain

Interest in love studies has been on the rise among Spanish researchers in recent decades. Scholars explored the general processes of love relationships and culturally specific aspects of Spanish cultural models of love (Karandashev, 2019, 2022). Let us look at … Continue reading

Cultural Features of Mangaian Romantic Love

Early anthropological studies portrayed the sexual culture of Polynesian love. Those studies downplayed the love and emotions of indigenous people in the South Seas. For example, the cultural anthropology of Mangaian love presented the freedom of sexual intimacy and love … Continue reading

Three Other Things That Make Mangaian Love “Romantic”

As noted elsewhere, Polynesian sex and love are more complex emotional phenomena than people in Western culture previously thought. Mangaian love presents an example of this. Early anthropological research distorted the nature of Polynesian heterosexual relationships. They portrayed men and … Continue reading

Three Things Make Mangaian Love “Romantic”

How romantic is Mangaian love? Mangaians are the Polynesian people living in the Cook Islands in the South Seas. The early studies of Polynesian love misrepresented Polynesian heterosexual relationship culture as sexually energetic and sensually obsessive, along with free sexual attitudes … Continue reading