Columns that reveal the world
- Getting up close and personal with the researchers -

Family, relatives, friends, colleagues, etc. We live in a variety of human relationships. Even with close people like family and best friends, we think we understand each other well, but sometimes we say or do things that hurt the other person, or we are hurt by the words or actions of others... I'm sure there are many people who have experienced strained relationships.

We connect with other people through communication. If communication gaps can arise even between Japanese people who were born as Japanese and grew up in the same environment, what can we do to "improve communication"? When thinking about "better communication," let's first think about intercultural relationships.

We have been working on an intercultural communication project with universities in Japan and Asia. The aim of the project is to "deepen the understanding of students living in different cultures through the differences between them." We at Aoyama Gakuin University teamed up with Beijing Normal University in China and had students discuss movies and stories.

In the movie "Looking for that Child," a young girl named Minji becomes a substitute teacher and devises various strategies to prevent her salary from being reduced if she does not bring back a child who has gone to work in the city. Meanwhile, in the story, a junior teacher asks her senior how much she is paid.

As a preparation before actually starting to communicate with Chinese students, we had the Japanese students discuss the film among themselves. For Japanese people, money is not something they talk about directly, and they seem to think of it as something rather "dirty," so many of the students are skeptical of the Chinese attitude toward money. However, as the discussions continued, they began to wonder why it is wrong to talk openly about money, and rather why Japanese people do not talk about money. Here, the students have the experience of having their own "taken for granted" shaken by thinking about and discussing different cultures.

After this, Japanese and Chinese students exchanged opinions about a small story in China over several weeks. At first, students feel a strong sense of discomfort with the other person's opinion and express it as their own opinion, but as they are exposed to the other person's reaction, their own "obviousness" begins to waver. As they continue to communicate, they begin to think that the other person's way of thinking may be "correct." But there is something that is "unsatisfying." In class, rather than simply "understanding" different cultures, it was important to value this feeling of "understanding but not agreeing."

When considering intercultural communication, I think that the feelings of "discomfort" and "I understand but I can't accept" that students experienced in this class are very important. When communicating across cultures, it is necessary to look for common ground somewhere and continue the dialogue, even if you feel a gap or discomfort in the other person's way of thinking or behavior. In other words, communicate while thinking of the other person as an "other." Continue to make an effort to understand the other person, while assuming that "they live in a different world, so they will do things that we would never expect." Even so, there will be "gaps" because they are different, but look for points that can create a relationship and try to understand them again. This attitude may be relatively easy for us Japanese to have when communicating with people from geographically distant countries, such as Africa, but what about Chinese and Koreans who are in the same "Asia"? Because they are in a close region, we tend to feel that we share "common sense" and proceed with communication on the assumption that we are the same.

Some researchers point out that the economic and business troubles between Japan and China are caused by a breakdown in communication regarding these differences in values and ways of interacting, and by each side being bound by their own "norms." Both Japan and China communicate on the assumption that their own way of looking at things is the norm, and while they actually see things differently, they don't realize this and tend to think they are on the same page. And while they think they are being considerate to each other, they end up clashing because their systems for being considerate are completely different. The closer the distance between the two countries, the more difficult it becomes to repair the relationship, and this is likely to give rise to various troubles.

I believe the reason I have begun to pay attention to this kind of "communication gap" is not unrelated to the fact that I have spent many years studying "confessions," "eyewitness testimony," and "statements" used in criminal trials.

One of the big projects I have worked on is the "Ashikaga Case." At the request of the defense team, my team and I spent two years examining and analyzing investigative materials, statements, and other materials from various angles. We examined from various angles the possibility that the confession of Mr. S, the suspected perpetrator, was not based on a "crime experience," in other words, that it was a "false confession." However, we struggled to find a decisive analytical perspective. What helped us break through this was a "gap" in the communication between Mr. S and the prosecutor in court.

In Japanese criminal trials, the motive for the crime is given great importance. "Why did you want to kill?", "How did you decide how to kill?", "Did you intend to kill from the beginning?" Defendants are required to provide detailed explanations in the interrogation room and in court in response to such questions.

In the first trial, Mr. S, who admitted to the crime, was also asked questions about his motive. However, his answers did not match the questions and were always off-topic.

For example, when the interrogator asks about mental experiences such as "When did you feel that way?", Mr. S. describes specific actions such as "I walked slowly away." The interrogator, frustrated by this mismatch in communication, ends up asking a pushy question such as "So this is what you felt?" Mr. S. does not deny it and answers "Yes." Thus, even though the questions and answers never mesh and remain out of sync, the interrogation itself does not fall apart, and in the end the interrogator's speculation is adopted as the explanation for Mr. S.'s experience.

When people see these kinds of exchanges, most people think that Mr. S is bad at communicating and clumsy. At first, we felt the same way. However, one day, we had the idea that this could be seen as Mr. S's "personality." This "personality" is a person's unique way of speaking and choice of words that creates a gap in communication because they cannot adapt to the other person. When we looked back at Mr. S's confession with this in mind, we found that the "personality" that was seen when Mr. S was talking about the events that he actually experienced completely disappeared when he talked about the crime in the Ashikaga crimes. Using this as a clue, we conducted a detailed analysis and prepared a report that pointed out the possibility that Mr. S may not have actually experienced the crime, and submitted it to the court of second instance.

We usually think of "communication" as "a way to convey something to each other in order to understand each other." However, in reality, communication is full of gaps. It might even be said that gaps are communication.

In the special communication situations in interrogation rooms and courtrooms, miscommunication can lead to tragedies such as false accusations. In the case of the Ashikaga case, if the interrogators and judges had realized earlier that there was a mismatch in their communication with Mr. S, the tragic situation could have been avoided. In order to prevent such situations from occurring, in recent years, mainly in Europe and the United States, there has been an enthusiastic effort to develop and train techniques for interrogation and questioning that do not create harmful miscommunications.

In everyday life, it is normal to want to understand others without feeling any communication gaps. However, there are many people who feel this way but are unable to communicate well and live with the stress caused by this gap.
But why not try changing your way of thinking a little? We suffer from the mismatch because we think too easily that we should "understand each other." Try thinking of the other person as an "other" and assume that "they are different beings from me," "there is no way we can understand each other in the first place," and "there will always be misalignments in communication."

"Communication gaps" can be dangerous if they have a negative effect during interrogations, but in everyday life they can actually have a positive effect and can even spark creative ideas. It's quite interesting to reexamine communication from the perspective of not being the same as the other person, but being different. Even in everyday conversations, even if you think you're communicating well, there are often unexpected gaps. But we are connected. For example, listen to the conversation of people having fun at an izakaya. Sometimes they seem to be having a great time, even though they're talking about completely different things. Isn't it more fun to think, "People can be connected even though they're so different?"

This is especially true if the people you are communicating with are not the people you usually surround yourself with, but people from a different culture. In order to build better human and social relationships, try to accept the premise that "communication is something that is misaligned." The trick to building better communication and living every day happily is to take a positive approach to the state of being connected despite misalignment.

(Published in 2012)