Immediate Behaviors in Communication

We employed a theory of differences in communication based on three intercultural dimensions, drawn from theories of Hofstede, Hall, Andersen, Gudykunst and others: immediacy, individualism-collectivism, and high and low context. Despite these three cultural dimensions being incomprehensive for a qualitative cultures’ comparison, they could provide a conceptual framework by which thousands of intercultural differences in communication may be understood.

Immediate behaviours, according to Andersen, include smiling, touching, eye contact, open body positions, closer distances, and more vocal animation. Other scholars have called these behaviours nonverbal involvement, intimacy, or expressiveness. The immediacy dimension describes actions that communicate warmth, closeness, approach, and accessibility and behaviours expressing avoidance and distance (Andersen 2001:90). As Hall states, the East Europeans like close contact and are much more involved on a sensual level with each other, than the relatively contact-shy people from northern Europe (Hill 1998:22). The difference can be observed also in other elements of immediate behaviors between Russians and British such as personal space and touching. In northern European cultures, personal space is larger. The English, for example, are not accustomed to touching each other in public. The way Russians move closer during a conversation makes the British feel uncomfortable. On meeting and parting there is far more embracing, kissing and holding hands among Russians than among the British.