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Initiating and maintaining relationships with others is one of the most necessary and challenging functions of human survival. Our self-concept and self-esteem are sustained largely by the substance of our relationships with others. From our relational partners we receive feedback that we use to assess ourselves. In essence, the only way we know ourselves is through our relationships with others. Our existence is relative to other people. Regardless of one’s cultural origins, relationships provide the substance of life. Several variables affect the initiation and maintenance of personal relationships. Much of our communication behavior during the first stage of a relationship is designed to reduce uncertainty about our relational partner. One factor that affects our ability to do that is the degree to which we experience intercultural communication apprehension. Another variable that affects the uncertainty process is our sociocommunicative style—that is, the extent to which we are assertive and responsive with our relational partners.

Two other variables that affect our relations with others are the degree to which we can empathize with others and how similar we perceive ourselves to be to the other. Uncertainty reduction, intercultural communication apprehension, sociocommunicative style, empathy, and similarity are experienced differently by each interactant in a relationship and vary considerably across cultures.

1. Audio Link: Intercultural Relationships: Can They Work?

Description: When two people from different cultures come together and fall in love, the challenges may seem overpowering, even irreconcilable. As we saw in Chapter Nine, the number of interracial relationships and marriages is growing. The National Public Radio broadcast addresses some of the issues facing persons in intimate intercultural relationships.

2. Web Link: Challenges and Benefits to Interracial Dating

Description: The Women’s Center and Human Services Department of California State University, Fullerton has created lists of the positive and negative dimensions of intercultural dating and marriage.

3. Video Link: Intercultural Marriage (Part 1)|Intercultural Marriage (Part 2)

Description: In Part 1, follow the challenges of the intercultural marriage of Curtis and Grace. Part 2 focuses on the high rate of divorce in intercultural marriages. One couple talks about how they manage their intercultural marriage by respecting their cultural differences. Recall the idea of Third Culture building in Chapter Nine.

4. Video Link: Global Relationships: Intercultural Couples Talk About Dating

Description: Several intercultural couples talk about the challenges and rewards they experience dating someone from a different ethnicity.