Intercultural competence and the effectiveness of intercultural interaction

On October 22 Oleg Khukhlaev (PhD, Professor, Head of the Department of Ethnopsychology and Problems of Multicultural Education, Moscow State Psychological and Pedagogical University (MGPPU)) took part in the "Culture matters" research seminar with the report "Intercultural competence and the effectiveness of intercultural interaction".

The report presented the results of a study of intercultural competence as a predictor of effective intercultural interaction (N = 3500). Intercultural competence is traditionally understood as the ability of an individual to function effectively when communicating with representatives of different cultures and in different cultural environments. However, the mechanism by which this effect is achieved is currently not well understood. One of the reasons is that the theories of intercultural communication, explaining its effectiveness, have little contact with the procedural models of the development of intercultural competence. In a study on various samples (Russian students, foreign students, university and school teachers), an attempt was made to consider the relationship of intercultural competence with such indicators of the effectiveness of intercultural communication as socio-cultural and psychological adaptation of foreign students, emotional burnout and self-efficacy when working with foreign students, desire interact and self-efficacy in dealing with international students. To measure intercultural competence, a questionnaire was developed, the process of which was also reflected in the report. The results obtained make it possible to clarify the role of intercultural competence and its individual components in the process of intercultural communication in various social situations.