Anxiety/Uncertainty Reduction Theory

I wish I had read about Anxiety/Uncertainty Reduction Theory before I went to Jamaica a few years back. Things that Gudykunst talks about in this chapter, I have encountered. Myself and three of my friends went on a cruise to Jamaica and as soon as we got off the boat, we felt like strangers. We tried to use Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory while talking to the natives. They had very strong accents and broken English but we tried using hand gestures to explain what we were trying to say. But no matter whom we talked to, we couldn’t find any effective communication. Finally we just gave up and started walking, like we knew our way around Jamaica. We then we saw four underprivileged Jamaican boys asking for money on the path that we were walking on. They approached a white lady and I think she said something rude to them because they became very upset. They then took her purse and run into the woods (unconscious incompetence). After the boys took her purse, the lady ran up to us and asked her if we could help her catch them. I looked at her and asked her what she said to them. She told me that she told they boys to get away from her (conscious incompetence). I then knew why they took her purse, and I even though I wouldn’t have stolen her purse, I wasn’t going to run after children who she was rude to and obviously needed her help.