Intercultural Study Of Self-presentation Based On Nonverbal Communication

Empowered by Goffman’s self-presentation theory and knowledge of nonverbal communication, this thesis intends to conduct an empirical study on Chinese and American self-presentation, aimed at exploring the difference of self-presentation between Chinese and Americans in nonverbal communication, and further probing into the possible changes in their respective self-presentation. Self-presentation, as a multidisciplinary subject related to sociology, psychology, and socio-psychology, refers to people’s intention to influence the perception of other people about their images. Recently, with the deepening application of the self-presentation theory to different fields ranging from social psychology to cultural studies, the discipline of intercultural communication has also gained its enlightenment. However, few researches have studied self-presentation with nonverbal communication, and even fewer have discussed the evolvements in people’s self-presentation and the possible causes behind.The survey is carried out among some Chinese and Americans working in Shanghai. Respondents are categorized in four groups:Chinese staff working in(?) Chinese companies, American staff in Chinese companies, Chinese staff in American companies, and American staff in American companies. To conduct the research,160valid copies of the questionnaire are selected at random from40Chinese staff in Chinese companies,40American staff in Chinese companies,40Chinese staff in American companies, and40American staff in American companies.The thesis first has conducted a qualitative analysis to identify the specific self-presentation tactics adopted by the respondents with nonverbal communication. Following the qualitative study, quantitative analyses are carried out with the help of SPSS19.0through Mean Comparison, Mann-Whitney U Test and Kruskal-Wallis H Test. Intercultural analyses show that generally speaking, Chinese staff with nonverbal communication mainly present themselves in a passive way, whereas American staff mainly adopt active, especially assertive strategy in self-presentation. Moreover, in Chinese companies, the Chinese and American staff show significant discrepancies in the usage of assertive and offensive self-presentation, while in American companies, except for dissociation, the Chinese and American staff make closer choices of self-presentation tactics. Further intracultural comparisons demonstrate that comparing with Chinese staff from Chinese companies, those from American companies much more frequently employ an active way to present themselves and they show remarkable difference in using offensive self-presentation in particular. Nevertheless, American staff from Chinese companies and those from American companies make similar choices in using each self-presentation strategy.