Credibility

Ross Woods, With thanks to S. Corsi. Rev. 2019

The aim of this paper is to develop a hypothetical scale of credibility for intercultural workers. Although many intercultural advisers have credibility, there does not yet seem to be a clear theory of it. Credibility is the ability to be believed, although significant descriptors vary according to the level of credibility.

Credibility is not the same as acceptance; a person of the target culture can become friends with an intercultural worker without being willing to accept advice from him/her.

This study is still predescriptive. The goal of a descriptive study would be to develop a theory that would imply prescriptive guidelines for intercultural advisement.

Although this essay does not include a literature review, the ethnographic literature has in the past been mostly busy with issues of acceptance, such as forming personal relationships and developing an emic viewpoint. Credibility seems to be limited to the ethnographer's ability to elicit suitable information, and his/her willingness not to leak information that could be harmful to members of the target population.

Present conceptions of acceptance lend little assistance when credibility becomes a separate issue, as is the case in "resistant" cultures. It might be easy to get accepted but difficult to gain credibility, and a consistent pattern of polite refusal follows.

Seven Levels

The main questions asked to differentiate levels were:

1. Did persons from the target culture give a hostile refusal, a polite refusal, a guarded or limited acceptance, or respectful acceptance of advice?
2. How wide is the field upon which people accept advice?
3. How extensive is the group of people who accept advice?
4. Does the intercultural worker offer advice or did people in the target culture actively seek it?
5. How sensitive are the matters in which advice is sought? That is, to what extent do target cultures people need to give personal exposure in seeking

1. Hostile refusal. The lowest level is hostile refusal. This level could be bypassed by learning the rules of acceptance and avoiding behaviors considered offensive in the target culture. At this level, the advisor has neither acceptance nor credibility.

2. Polite refusal. In the next level, the worker offers advice, and target culture people listen attentively but politely refuse. In some cultures polite refusal is deceptive; it may involve discussing the advice and agreeing with it without any intent to take it. People can also politely refuse by considering local cultural norms or suggesting alternatives.

This is the normal entry level, and is very deceptive. Intercultural workers can feel that because they are accepted and can get a polite hearing then they are doing well, and then feel justified in blaming the target culture for being "closed". Some intercultural workers never advance beyond this level, having acceptance but not credibility.

3. Demarcated friendship. One level higher is an ongoing friendship with demarcations. Although visits might be frequent and cordial, some topics of conversation are avoided. The target people do not seek advice, and if the worker offers it, he/she is met with polite refusal. This level denotes acceptance with limited, but growing, credibility, and is much like subsequent higher levels.

4. Qualified acceptance of advice. The target people group accept advice or even request it, but are non-committal or reserved about accepting it. They may seek validation from other sources. In some cases, they might need permission from local authority figures even to ask advice. The target people tend to keep the range of issues rather superficial; there is no exposure of emotionally or socially sensitive needs.

5. Trusted advice. At this stage, some people in the target culture start to trust the intercultural worker because they perceive his/her motive to be genuinely for their benefit and not self-serving. The adviser-advisee relationship has stabilized. If the target people request validation from other sources, it might be because they see advisement as a corporate process requiring the views of multiple advisers.

6. Ongoing acceptance of advice. The target people give ongoing acceptance of advice. An identifiable group of people in the target culture recognize the intercultural worker as an authority in particular fields. The worker may more freely speak to deeply-felt personal needs.

7. Wider constituency and/or wider area of reference. The target people give greater credibility to the adviser. The greater credibility may be defined in terms of:

• A wider group in the target culture
• Acceptance as an authority in a wider variety of fields
• Openness to discuss more deeply-felt personal needs.

It is rare for people even from within a culture to attain this level of credibility.

About the Levels

The higher one goes, the longer it takes to advance from one level to another. It takes time to build a network of relationships and to be seen as a cultural insider. This involves developing the ability to present one's expertise within an emic worldview, including its epistemology and value systems.

Credibility might in some cases depend on practices that the intercultural worker sees as unethical. He might be unwilling to undergo some kinds of initiation rites or become identified as a member of some organizations within the target culture.

The higher the credibility, the lower the risk of rejection. In cases of significant errors, it seems more likely that the members of the target population would divide into pro and contra camps than to simply remove all credibility.

Risk and dependence, if they differ at all, are at least closely related. A person from the target culture who accepts advice is taking a risk that the advice is good; the greater the credibility of the adviser, then the greater the risk in accepting the advice in that the advisor is believed apart from other verification. A high-risk high-credibility situation implies then that the member of the target culture is dependent of the advisor for accurate information.

It would be quite simple to develop a theory using grounded theory methodology, and relatively simple to quantify patterns using survey techniques. However, a main difficulty would be the difference between actual behavior and professed opinion, and in defining criteria clearly enough to form cut-off demarcations that work in a target culture for the following variables:

Desire to listen, close friendship, advice politely refused, recognized desire to help target culture people, openness/exposure to emotional needs, outside validation of advice required, independent validation sufficient, advice accepted on a large range of issues, advice sought after by target culture people.

It would be worth checking whether the resultant scores correlate with the normal (bell) curve.

Questions

As a topic of study, the currency in use is generalizations. The shear atomism of reality means that the topic can only be inaccurate at best. Drawing generalizations between cultures is just one step more difficult.

Although acceptance is a prerequisite to credibility, the relationship between the two is not adequately clear. What aspects of acceptance contribute to credibility? What aspects of credibility are not part of acceptance?

What are the characteristics of a person with high credibility? It would be easy to posit personal characteristics as the simple answer, but respect in some cultures depends on ascribed prestige through hereditary status groups. In that case, how does an intercultural worker, who is not a member of one of those groups, gain credibility? What relationship is there between prestige, acceptance, and credibility? Does the target culture value knowledge which is kept secret, and are there gatekeepers How does class structure affect openness to advisement?

As foreigners can be socially equidistant, they can relate with similar facility to a wide variety of socio-economic levels in the target culture. (For example, they might mix as freely with the immigrant Chinese traders in Southeast Asia as with the indigenous people.) This can be quite unlike local people who tend to relate within their own level, and recognize people of other levels as superior or inferior. What effect does this have on the credibility of the intercultural advisor?

Not everybody in the target culture has credibility; there are intracultural workers at each level. Even within a culture, people develop credibility over time. At some stage in his career, a successful professional with a good reputation might expect people to seek him/her out for advice. Is the pattern of levels of credibility the same as that of intracultural workers, or are the two patterns analogous in some way? Are there different kinds of role expectations, and if so are they a function of acceptance or credibility?

One would hypothesize that workers would plateau at particular levels. People from similar cultures that frequently intermarry with members of the target culture would likely plateau higher than members of very different cultures. Normally only intracultural persons reach the highest levels of credibility.

To what extent are credibility structures intracultural, and to what extent can they transfer between cultures?

Do intercultural advisors have trouble accepting credibility? For example, a person thrust into a high-credibility role might doubt his ability to meet expectations. Similarly, a person given a unfamiliar low-credibility role might be frustrated.

What about the psychological and social characteristics of different segments of the target population? Does this correlate with different levels of credibility lent to the intercultural worker? For example, would a university constituency lend the same credibility to a foreign advisor as a professional organization? If not, what would be the characteristics of each? Would male and female populations differ in the ways they lend credibility? How would one's membership of a class stratum affect one's ability to lend credibility?