7.5. CULTURAL DISTANCE

The greater the cultural distance between the cultures of two people, the more likely it is that they will deal with each other in intergroup rather than interpersonal terms. When the elements of two cultures are very similar, there is a small cultural distance. Large cultural distances occur when people speak languages that belong to different language families (e.g., Chinese is a tonal language, whereas Indo-European languages are not), have different religions or different social structures (e.g., monogamous versus polygamous families), have different standards of living, have different political systems, and the like. Cultural distance also refers to the extent of satisfaction, economically and socially, within a society (Gales, 2008). The greater the cultural distance, the more difficult it is for people from the two cultures to communicate and form effective teams. Thus, there is a limitation to the degree of heterogeneity that is ideal. While a certain amount is desirable, extreme heterogeneity is not.