Charles E. Osgood's continuing contributions to intercultural communication and far beyond!

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Abstract

In memory of Charles E. Osgood's continuing contributions to and pervasive influences in intercultural research and communication – both in contextual theories and application methodologies, this article will summarize his life-long efforts in six ways: First, the development of theoretical foundations in human behavioral and communication processes; Second, the development of semantic technique and its applications; Third, the massive cross-cultural measurements of affective meanings of human conceptions; Fourth, the psycholinguistics research in human verbal behaviors; Fifth, his efforts in inter-ethnic and inter-national conflict resolutions and peace: Sixth, his impact on the theories and methodologies in inter-cultural awareness and trainings. Finally, his continuing contributions far beyond the above six areas are documented in terms of the authors’ own long-time endeavors in scientific research in intra- and inter-cultural communications theories, analytic methodologies, and contemporary substantive social issues, ranging from conflicts, adult intimate relationships, to youth communications and developments. It can be ascertained that Osgood's contributions will continue in both social contexts and academic disciplines as evidenced by his life-long personal contacts in communications with international colleagues and his administrative leadership of the world renowned, interdisciplines-based Institute of Communications Research for over two decades at the University of Illinois.

Introduction

Charles Osgood (Charlie to most everybody who knew him) was an excellent educator, theorist, researcher, administrator, communicator, and perhaps more importantly, a decent human being who worried about and devoted a good part of his intellectual life to the pursuit of world peace and human dignities. Because of his multi-dimensional roles and multi-faceted intellectual endeavors (see the Appendix for a chronology of his positions and awards), he accomplished in many areas what might require many scholars to devote their entire lifetime – even in the contemporary academic environments equipped with advanced technologies for speedy productivities.

To facilitate the understanding of Osgood's contributions and the foreseeable applications for contemporary causes, his achievements and impacts are described in the six areas: First, theoretical foundations in human behavioral and communication processes; Second, semantic technique and applications; Third, cross-cultural measurements of affective meanings; Fourth, the psycholinguistics research in human verbal behaviors; Fifth, inter-ethnic and inter-national conflict resolutions and peace; and Sixth, contributions in intercultural trainings.

Further, to project Osgood's continuing contributions far beyond the above six areas, the authors document their own long-time endeavors by following Osgood's foot-steps in scientific research and editorial analyses of intra- and inter-cultural communication theories, analytic methodologies and contemporary substantive social issues, ranging from conflicts, adult intimate relationships, to youth communications and developments.

Finally, Osgood's contributions are further envisioned from a brief summary of his life-long personal contacts and archival communications with colleagues – in and outside of the United States, regarding the above six areas of contributions.

Section snippets

Osgood's mediation theory as foundations in human behavioral and communication processes

Osgood's intellectual leading authority in psychological theories and principles was firmly established via his publication of Method and Theory in Experimental Psychology (Osgood, 1953) – the famous “Blue Book.” In that book, he reviewed and integrated the most prominent theories and techniques across all areas of experimental psychology, in particular, human learnings and social behaviors. A major contribution was the development of mediation theory in terms of the “hierarchical structure of

Osgood's semantic differential technique and its pervasive applications

Osgood needed one more piece before he could move to a method for measuring these mediational processes. That piece came in the realization that in English and in most other languages, adjective modifiers are used to ascribe deeper meaning to nouns and that those modifiers are often emotional in content. In formal terms, the description of the process became:

a pattern of stimulation which is not the object is a sign of the object if it evokes in an organism a mediating reaction, this (a) being

Osgood's cross-cultural measurements of affective meanings

It is unclear how Osgood considered the cross-cultural implications of the semantic differential: the word “culture” does not appear in the index to the 1957 book. Perhaps because of its instant popularity and the plethora of non-American graduate students at the University of Illinois, it became quite a natural extension to ask about the generality of the EPA structure. Our assumption is that Osgood did not encourage the direct translation of the EPA scales, but was influenced by the

From language-learning theories to comparative psycholinguistics

Osgood (1954) proposed the mediation theory in language acquisition processes that involves the codification and de-codification of psychological structures in language performance. In addition to his extensive discussions (debates) with Chomsky (1959) and others regarding the innate universal grammar in language learning, Osgood's major contributions would be the focus on studying the uses of language as the expressions of the mental processes of the individual within the cultural context. To

Inter-ethnic and inter-national conflict resolutions and peace

Parallel to his work in semantic differential and psycholinguistics, Osgood devoted equal level of energies to the future of mankind – issues on inter-group stereotypes (Stagner & Osgood, 1946), hostilities, and international conflict resolution strategies (Osgood, 1962a).

The term GRIT (Osgood, 1980, “Graduated and Reciprocated Initiative in Tension-reduction”) has earned him the international reputation of formulating a new psychological approach to resolve the Cold War tensions between the

Osgood's continuing contributions in intercultural training

From the perspective of analyzing citations in intercultural training, it seems difficult to find explicit influences of Osgood's work in most relevant publications (Landis et al., 2004, Landis and Bhagat, 1996, Fowler and Mumford, 1999, Ward et al., 2001). However, in reviewing the underlying theories and principles involved in these publications, it is quite obvious that Osgood (1953) had planted scientific DNA to these empirical efforts, germinated from his early Method and Theory “Blue

Osgood's continuing contributions far beyond

Aside from the above research works and impacts, Osgood profoundly influenced his associates who are in turn continuously carrying out the psychosemantic paradigm and GRIT principles in addressing contemporary issues on theoretical foundations, research methodologies, social issues, and international communication. Such influences are highlighted from the historical perspectives below.

Psychosemantic process model of human behaviors

In an effort to address child abuse and neglect issues, Tzeng, Jackson and Karlson (1991) reviewed over 40 theories in the literature about the severities of the problems and psychological causes and sociological correlates of the problems involved. In addition, through the analyses of over 130,000 case records (reported to the Indiana State Welfare Department), the most significant stressor associated with child abuse and neglect was found being family discord. Such a discovery prompted Tzeng

Psychosemantics for two Internet website developments for communications

The integrated applications of the Psychosemantic Progress Model (as the theoretical framework) and Semantic Differential (as the methodological principles and technique) to the assessment of intimate relationships were tested in a comparative research program – simultaneously through the Cross-Cultural Atlas data and the indigenous cultural testing in the United States (Indiana). The results were presented in a six-topic symposium on the development of a comprehensive model and measurement

Systematic developments in quantitative methodologies for international communication research applications

Empirical studies in social and behavioral research (including communication and industrial psychology) are mostly dependent upon qualitative and quantitative methodologies (Tzeng, Duvall, & Moore, 1985). Unfortunately due to various reasons, existing reports in the literature have manifested too many claims and observations, but too little scientific proofs and statistical validations (Tzeng & Jackson, 1990). Thus, for the development of international communications research as a rigorous

Discussions and conclusions

One of the major failings in intercultural communication research and training is the general lack of rigorous evaluation of intercultural training. This is despite two good chapters in the first two editions of the Handbook of Intercultural Training (those by Blake and Heslin, 1983, Blake et al., 1996). Effectiveness is often marked by variations of “smile sheets,” leaving unknown training effects. Often variations of semantic differentials are used as the post-training measure but with polar

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