DOI: 10.7763/IPEDR. 2012. V46. 17 Status Related Social Categorization: High Context and Low Context Cultural Perspective Elena Pruvli 1 and Ruth Alas 1 1 Estonian Business School Abstract. That social categorization affects culturally diverse environments is well investigated, but most of examinations were done from a low-context communication perspective. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of Estonian and Italian actors’ communication patterns (low and high context respectively) on status-related categorization towards a third culture English. To find out the relationship between the context level of communication and social categorization peculiarities a correlation investigation was chosen as a method. It was conducted in three stages in a contrived experimental setting with the focus on non-task- related information. The results revealed that the Italian actors were mainly concentrated on the lifestyle- related details of the video-example environment, referring them to high status. On the contrary the Estonian group paid more attention to the verbal message of the English video-personalities, and referred them to lower social class. Main results suggest that when status-relevant “underlying attributes” are not willingly revealed, the members of high-context culture are basing their social categorization on environmental context even if this context is culturally different from their own, so less considering willingly shared personal information. Other important finding is that in the same situation for social categorization low-context culture representatives are following mainly the issues that are verbally deliberately disclosed. Keywords: Intercultural Communication, High Context, Low Context, Social Categorization 1. Introduction In a business environment status indicates if the person expects more honourable approach and is giving individual more credibility in interactions. The counterparts with equal status level experience fewer obstacles in communication (Clair, Beatty, and MacLean 2005). Its influences on actors’ business potential, on creation and maintaining the stable connections with co-workers and partners in culturally heterogeneous environments are the central point of diversity research. Diversity is based on social categorization (Mannix and Neale 2005, p. 33). The social structure of Estonian and Italian societies is very different, thus understanding the status differences is very important in the development of one’s potential and relational capabilities in business. The class society of Italy by the Italian Institute of Statistics definition (Sassoon 1997) since mid-80s was considered to comprise 6 categories. The upper class of bourgeoisie makes up 10% of working Italians. It consists of business owners, independent professionals and top managers. Apart of imbalances in wealth distribution the social status differences in Italy are expressed in alcohol consumption traits (Cooper 1993) and table manners (French 1994). According to Karjahärm (2009) Estonian society stems from native peasantry. The social structure of the local population was quite homogeneous. The last two decades of re-independence created the social stratification mainly determined by personal income and relationship to the means of production. The majority of entrepreneurs and intellectuals of Estonian origin have roots in the rural cultural environment. This paper is an attempt to assess the influence of Estonian and Italian communicative patterns on social categorization process related to the third culture. The correlation comparative research is focused on social categorization process, its reasoning and outcomes in high context and low context cultures. It is experimentally examining Italian and Estonian groups of students, who are close by age, educational and professional experiences. 2. Theoretical background 2.1. Social Categorization and Status A number of diversity and related social categorizing studies were performed in the US in multicultural (Watson, Kumar and Michaelsen 1993), multiethnic (Watson, Johnson and Zgourides 2002), or multi-racial teams (Bacharach, Bamberger and Vashdi 2005), when visible differences were at the focus of attention. 91