What is cross-cultural communication?

Example: An American engineer gives direct, critical feedback in a code review: 'This approach is wrong — here's why.' They consider this helpful and efficient. Their Japanese colleague reads the same comment as a public humiliation that damages the relationship. Neither person is being unreasonable. They're operating from cultural defaults about directness, face-saving, and what 'helpfulness' means — defaults that were invisible to both until the collision.

This concept is part of Context Sensitivity in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for context sensitivity.