Bella figura—beautiful figure—is an idiomatic expression used to reflect every part of Italian life. The phrase appears in travel books and in transnational business guides to describe Italian customs, in sociological research to describe the national characteristics of Italians, and in popular culture to depict thematic constructs and stereotypes, such as the Mafia, romance, and la dolce vita. Scholarly research on bella figura indicates its significance in Italian civilization, yet it remains one of the most elusive concepts to translate. Among the various interpretations and references from foreigners and Italians there is not a single definition that captures the complexity of bella figura as a cultural phenomenon. There is also little explanation of the term, its usage, or its effects on Italians who have migrated to other countries. Gadamerian hermeneutics offers an explanation for how bella figura functions as a frame of reference for understanding Italian culture and identity, which does not disappear or fuse when Italians interact with people from different countries but instead takes on an interpretive dimension that is continually integrating new information into the subconscious structures of the mind.
In sum, bella figura is a sense-making process, and requires a pragmatic know-how of Italian communication (verbal and nonverbal). From this perspective, bella figura is prestructure by which Italians and some Italian migrants understand and interpret their linguistically mediated and historical world. This distinction changes the concept bella figura from a simple facade to a dynamic interplay among ever-changing interpretations and symbolic interactions. The exploration of bella figura is relevant to understanding Italian communication on both local and transnational levels.
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Bella Figura: Understanding Italian Communication in Local and Transatlantic Contexts
Denise Scannell Guida
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Communication and Recruitment to Clinical Research Studies
Janice L. Krieger and Jordan M. Neil
Strategic communication is an essential component in the science and practice of recruiting participants to clinical research studies. Unfortunately, many clinical research studies do not consider the role of communication in the recruitment process until efforts to enroll patients in a timely manner have failed. The field of communication is rich with theory and research that can inform the development of an effective recruitment plan from the inception of a clinical research study through informed consent. The recruitment context is distinct from many other health contexts in that there is often not a behavioral response that can be universally promoted to patients. The appropriateness of a clinical research study for an individual is based on a number of medical, psychological, and contextual factors, making it impossible to recommend that everyone who is eligible for a clinical research study enroll. Instead, clinical research study recruitment efforts must utilize strategic communication principles to ensure that messages promote awareness of clinical research, maximize personal relevance, minimize information overload, and facilitate informed choice. This can be accomplished through careful consideration of various aspects of the communication context described in this chapter, including audience segmentation, message content, message channels, and formative, process, and outcome evaluation, as well as the enrollment encounter.
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Communities of Practice in Health and Risk Messaging
Nicola Andrew
A community of practice (CoP) situated in a health and risk context is an approach to collaboration among members that promotes learning and development. In a CoP, individuals come together virtually or physically and coalesce around a common purpose. CoPs are defined by knowledge, rather than task, and encourage novices and experienced practitioners to work together to co-create and embed sustainable outputs that impact on theory and practice development. As a result, CoPs provide an innovative approach to incorporating evidence-based research associated with health and risk into systems and organizations aligned with public well-being.
CoPs provide a framework for constructing authentic and collaborative learning. Jeanne Lave and Etienne Wenger are credited with the original description of a CoP as an approach to learning that encompasses elements of identity, situation, and active participation. CoPs blend a constructivist view of learning, where meaningful experience is set in the context of “self” and the relationship of “self” with the wider professional community. The result is an integrated approach to learning and development achieved through a combination of social engagement and collaborative working in an authentic practice environment. CoPs therefore provide a strategic approach to acknowledging cultural differences related to translating health and risk theory into practice.
In health and risk settings, CoPs situate and blend theory and practice to create a portal for practitioners to generate, shape, test, and evaluate new ideas and innovations. Membership of a CoP supports the development of professional identity within a wider professional sphere and may support community members to attain long range goals.
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Creating Authentic and Lasting Community Relationships to Enhance Awareness and Understanding of Cancer Research
Linda Fleisher, Evelyn González, and Armenta Washington
Building and sustaining relationships fundamentally requires mutual trust based on authentic and reciprocal communication. Successful academic and community partnerships require a deep understanding of the needs of all stakeholders facilitated through dialogue and ongoing communication strategies. This dialogue is especially crucial to address health disparities and bridge the divide between academics and other professionals and the communities they serve. Innovative and sound health communications and community engagement approaches can help to address this divide. For those working with communities to improve health, Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) principles can serve as a compass to guide those efforts of building on the strengths and resources within the community and ensuring co-learning to address social inequities. Moreover, using innovative and interactive health communication strategies, such as community forums, photovoice projects, and the development of culturally sensitive and relevant messaging, can empower and engage the community, facilitating long-lasting relationships between the academic institutions and communities that ultimately address the unique concerns and values of those most in need.
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Culture, Prejudice, Racism, and Discrimination
John Baldwin
Prejudice is a broad social phenomenon and area of research, complicated by the fact that intolerance exists in internal cognitions but is manifest in symbol usage (verbal, nonverbal, mediated), law and policy, and social and organizational practice. It is based on group identification (i.e., perceiving and treating a person or people in terms of outgroup membership); but that outgroup can range from the more commonly known outgroups based on race, sex/gender, nationality, or sexual orientation to more specific intolerances of others based on political party, fan status, or membership in some perceived group such as “blonde” or “athlete.” This article begins with the link of culture to prejudice, noting specific culture-based prejudices of ethnocentrism and xenophobia. It then explores the levels at which prejudice might be manifest, finally arriving at a specific focus of prejudice—racism; however, what applies to racism may also apply to other intolerances such as sexism, heterosexism, classism, or ageism.
The discussion and analysis of prejudice becomes complicated when we approach a specific topic like racism, though the tensions surrounding this phenomenon extend to other intolerances such as sexism or heterosexism. Complications include determining the influences that might lead to individual racism or an atmosphere of racism, but also include the very definition of what racism is: Is it an individual phenomenon, or does it refer to an intolerance that is supported by a dominant social structure? Because overt intolerance has become unpopular in many societies, researchers have explored how racism and sexism might be expressed in subtle terms; others investigate how racism intersects with other forms of oppression, including those based on sex/gender, sexual orientation, or colonialism; and still others consider how one might express intolerance “benevolently,” with good intentions though still based on problematic racist or sexist ideologies.
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Half Sibling Relationships and Family Communication
Bailey M. Oliver-Blackburn
Half siblings are brothers and sisters who share only one biological parent and are thus, half biologically related. Although half siblings may be the result of extramarital/partnership affairs or post-bereavement, most are the result of a divorce and remarriage. Half sibling research is rare, and existing research and even national and international statistical reporting agencies often incorrectly conflate half siblings with stepsiblings. Research that can be found on half siblings often illustrates a “deficit-comparison” approach where half and stepsiblings are compared to full biological siblings and studied for how they fall short of biological sibling outcomes. Early research speculates that children who reside with half siblings experience poorer educational outcomes, report significantly more depressive symptoms, exhibit poorer coping skills, are more likely to engage in risky behavior such as early sexual activity and drug and alcohol use, and have more strained sibling and parental relationships compared to those with no half siblings or those with only full biological siblings. The challenges that exist for half sibling relationships are often hypothesized as associated with either family structure (half siblings located within a complex stepfamily) or explained through evolutionary perspectives of Darwinian fitness. However, research on half siblings overall is mixed, with studies also positing these outcomes are not due to the presence of half siblings and that there are instead positive implications from having a half sibling on individual outcomes, sibling relationship quality, and overall family functioning. Overall, half siblings can form quality relationships and half brothers and sisters who share a residence, are closer in age, of the same gender, spend more quality time with one another, have parents who prosaically intervene on their behalf, and who emphasize their positive relationship and connection through addressing terms and sharing backstories of their family’s origins are more likely to report a positive relationship.
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Intercultural Competence
Lily A. Arasaratnam
The phrase “intercultural competence” typically describes one’s effective and appropriate engagement with cultural differences. Intercultural competence has been studied as residing within a person (i.e., encompassing cognitive, affective, and behavioral capabilities of a person) and as a product of a context (i.e., co-created by the people and contextual factors involved in a particular situation). Definitions of intercultural competence are as varied. There is, however, sufficient consensus amongst these variations to conclude that there is at least some collective understanding of what intercultural competence is. In “Conceptualizing Intercultural Competence,” Spitzberg and Chagnon define intercultural competence as, “the appropriate and effective management of interaction between people who, to some degree or another, represent different or divergent affective, cognitive, and behavioral orientations to the world” (p. 7). In the discipline of communication, intercultural communication competence (ICC) has been a subject of study for more than five decades. Over this time, many have identified a number of variables that contribute to ICC, theoretical models of ICC, and quantitative instruments to measure ICC. While research in the discipline of communication has made a significant contribution to our understanding of ICC, a well-rounded discussion of intercultural competence cannot ignore the contribution of other disciplines to this subject. Our present understanding of intercultural competence comes from a number of disciplines, such as communication, cross-cultural psychology, social psychology, linguistics, anthropology, and education, to name a few.
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Intercultural Friendships
Elisabeth Gareis
Following the devastation of World War II, policymakers and scholars worked to advance international partnerships and mutual understanding. In the 1940s and 1950s, international student exchange programs were launched to foster international good will; training programs for diplomats were created that focused on intercultural communication competence; and researchers turned their attention on how to optimize intergroup relations. Most prominently, Gordon Allport outlined principles of effective intergroup contact in the contact hypothesis. Scholarship based on the contact hypothesis later determined that the potential for friendship is not only a facilitating but also an essential factor for prejudice reduction and optimal intergroup contact. Focusing largely on the friendship experiences of international students studying abroad, research also identified numerous other benefits of intercultural-friendship formation, including stronger language skills, greater life satisfaction, lower levels of stress, and enhanced perceptions of the host country. Despite these benefits, the lack of friendship between sojourners and host nationals is a common finding in intercultural-friendship research and a concern for the many educational institutions worldwide that are attempting to internationalize, in part by attracting international students. Current research, therefore, often focuses on factors that influence intercultural-friendship formation and, increasingly, on measures for promoting intercultural friendship.
First among the factors affecting the development of intercultural friendships is cultural difference. Cultural similarity provides attributional confidence and reduces uncertainty; that is, interactants can more easily predict and explain behaviors in people who are similar to them. Highly dissimilar cultures often exhibit differences in communication patterns, value dimensions, and friendship styles that can impede relationship development, especially in the orientation and exploratory stages of social penetration, during which cultural complexities are most critical. Another prominent factor is the interactants’ motivation to form relationships across cultural lines. In one of the prime arenas for intercultural contact, international student exchange, for example, sojourners seeking cultural knowledge and personal growth generally have more interest in interaction and friendships with host nationals than students who are task oriented and focus on education for better career prospects after returning home. Similarly, host environment factors, such as host receptivity (ranging from welcoming attitudes to discrimination) influence the likelihood with which intercultural friendships are formed. Other factors affecting intercultural-friendship formation include communicative competence, intercultural sensitivity, and aspects of identity and personality (e.g., cultural versus personal identification, empathy, and open-mindedness). Among measures for promoting intercultural-friendship formation are infrastructures that facilitate proximity and frequency of contact, provide foreign language training, support experience abroad, and offer intercultural education and training to further intercultural competence and the appreciation of difference.
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Listening
Graham D. Bodie
Listening is recognized as a multidimensional construct that consists of complex (a) affective processes, such as being motivated to attend to others; (b) behavioral processes, such as responding with verbal and nonverbal feedback; and (c) cognitive processes, such as attending to, understanding, receiving, and interpreting content and relational messages. Research in the communication studies discipline has focused most heavily on the cognitive processes of listening with the least attention afforded to behavioral components. Although several models of listening have been put forward, scholars still struggle with basic notions of how best to define listening for research purposes and how to incorporate listening into mainstream theoretical frameworks. Contemporary scholarship explores intersections between listening and cultural studies research as communication scholars come to participate in larger discussions of the auditory environment. At the start of the 21st century, listening research is just one of the many sites where communication studies is making a contribution to interdisciplinary research across the humanities and social sciences.
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Maternal Emotions and Childrearing in China
Meng Li
Psychological research on maternal emotions often examines how mothers’ emotional expression or regulation may affect children’s development. This perpetual interest in the benefit and harm of mothers’ emotions reflects popular beliefs that women are inherently emotional and, as the primary caregiver of children, mothers must restrain and regulate their emotions in order to raise well-balanced children. Rather than treating maternal emotions as private, intrapersonal feelings, scholars from various disciplines (e.g., sociology, anthropology, communication, women’s and gender studies, etc.) have recognized that many sociocultural forces contribute to the formation and interpretation of emotions. Emotions are not just a primary means through which humans experience the world but are also an avenue for understanding both the individual and the society. The interaction between the psychological and the social is especially salient in societies undergoing radical social transformations, such as China.
In the postsocialist era (1978–present), a mother-responsible, child-centered, and education-oriented childrearing culture has emerged in China, presenting unforeseen challenges to parents. Unlike their parents’ generation who mostly adopted traditional authoritarian styles of childrearing, parents who raise children in the new cultural environment are expected to meet the multifaceted needs of their children while also cultivating intimate bonds with them. Mothers in particular carry the greatest emotional burden of childrearing. To be good mothers, they are told that they must learn how to express their emotions appropriately. Proper expressions of love and intimacy keep the channels of communication open and foster trust between generations. Expressions of negative emotions, conversely, are described by childcare experts as a potential threat to children’s psychological development. But when mothers are confronting a highly competitive education system and an increasingly narrower path for social mobility, negative emotions, such as anger and ambivalence, are inevitable and justified. Mothers from different socioeconomic backgrounds also have different emotional experiences when raising children. While urban middle-class mothers are anxious about food safety, environmental pollution, and their children’s educational achievements, rural–urban migrant mothers feel guilty for leaving their children behind in the countryside to pursue a dependable income. Overall, the Chinese case illustrates how maternal emotions can provide a unique window through which a society’s childrearing culture, intergenerational dynamics, and structural inequalities can be observed.
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Negotiating Relational Breakups
René M. Dailey
Romantic relationships often develop with excitement and positive anticipation. Yet many dissolve. Research has examined several facets to unpack the dissolution process, from what leads to termination to redefining relationships with former partners. For example, relationship dynamics (e.g., commitment, love) typically play the largest roles in dissolution, but individual and demographic factors also contribute to whether relationships stay intact or terminate. Research has also delineated specific strategies people use to disengage, which vary in directness and whether they are one-sided or mutual. Models of dissolution also describe typical paths or precipitating communication patterns that reflect dissolution.
Following a breakup, most people experience post-dissolution distress, which can entail emotional, cognitive, and physiological effects. People vary in the intensity of distress experienced; those who fare badly tend to have more relational anxiety or use coping strategies to distract themselves from or deny the effects of the breakup. The fact that many ex-partners maintain contact or relationships following dissolution complicates the recovery process. Former partners maintain contact because they have the same social network, because they want to renew the relationship or consider the ex-partner as a back-up plan, or because they have children or shared resources. Hence, many former partners redefine their relationship rather than completely terminating all contact. Some are able to successfully transform their relationship into a friendship, and some eventually also reconcile the romantic nature of their relationship.
The dissolution of a romantic relationship can be one of the most significant stressors that individuals experience. Most people, even those who initiate the breakup, endure distress and negative effects. Yet dissolution can provide relief from a detrimental relationship for some. And many people experience positive effects or post-dissolution growth, such as gaining a new appreciation for other relationships, rediscovering the self, or pursuing new opportunities. The extant research provides an understanding of the various factors and steps in the dissolution process. Future research can synthesize these areas of research into more comprehensive frameworks to derive more tailored recommendations on navigating breakups, thereby minimizing the distress and maximizing the benefits.
