There are situations where most anyone will be “off,” at least at first. For instance, we are prone to inadvertent gaffes when we travel to a new culture, where we arrive blind to the fresh set of ground rules.
Those who do business with diverse sets of people in a global economy require particular sensitivities to such unspoken norms. In Japan, I learned the hard way that the moment of exchanging business cards signals an important ritual. We Americans are prone to casually pocketing the card without looking, which there indicates disrespect. I was told you should take the card carefully, hold it in both hands, and study it for a while before putting it away in a special case.
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A talent for cross-cultural social sensitivity appears related to cognitive empathy. Executives with sharp perception, for example, do better at overseas assignments, presumably because they can pick up implicit norms quickly, as well as learn the unique mental models of a given culture.
Ground rules for what’s appropriate can create invisible barriers when people from different cultures work together. An engineer from Austria who works for a Dutch company lamented, “Debate is highly valued in Dutch culture; you grow up with it from the time you’re in primary school. They see it as necessary. But I don’t like that kind of debate; I find it upsetting—it’s too confrontational. For me the inner challenge is not to take it personally, and to stay connected and feel respect during the confrontation.”
Attention to context lets us pick up subtle social cues that can guide how we behave. Those who are tuned in this way act with skill, regardless of the situation. They know not only what to say and do, but also, just as vital, what not to say or do. They also instinctively follow the universal algorithm for etiquette, to behave in ways that put others at ease. Sensitivity to how people feel in reaction to what we do or say lets us navigate hidden social minefields
While we may have some conscious ideas of such norms (how to dress for casual Friday at work; eat only with your right hand in India), attention to implicit norms is largely intuitive, a bottom-up capacity. Our felt sense of what’s socially appropriate comes to us as a feeling in our body — when we’re “off” it’s the physical manifestation of this doesn’t feel right. We may be picking up subtle signals of embarrassment or distress from the people around us.
If we’re oblivious to these sensations of being socially off-key (or never have them in the first place) we just keep going, clueless as to how far off course we are. One brain test for context focus assesses the function of the hippocampus, which is a nexus for circuits that gauge social circumstances. The anterior zone of the hippocampus backs up against the amygdala and plays a key role in keeping what we do appropriate to the context. The anterior hippocampus, in conversation with the prefrontal area, squelches that impulse to do something inappropriate.
Those most alert to social situations, Richard Davidson hypothesizes, have stronger activity and connectivity in these brain circuits than do those who just can’t seem to get it right. The hippocampus is at work, he says, to make you act differently when with your family and when at work, and differently again in the office versus with your workmates in a bar.
Context awareness also helps at another level: mapping the social networks in a group or at a new school or on the job—a skill that lets us navigate those relationships well. People who excel at organizational influence, it turns out, not only sense the flow of personal connections but can also name the people whose opinions hold most sway — and so, when they need to, will focus on convincing those who can in turn persuade others.
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