MuthuRajan, PragashPragashMuthuRajan0000-0002-7034-5915A M Sultana0000-0003-0319-2303Kheng Kia Khor0000-0002-5377-9172Dr. Charles Ramendran a/l SPR Subramaniam2025-01-082025-01-082021-03-3010.36923/jicc.v21i1.6https://dspace-cris.utar.edu.my/handle/123456789/10769The mission to promote national unity has become more strenuous with the decline of intercultural engagement among multicultural students in Malaysian public universities. Underpinned by Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) theory, this article examines barriers to intercultural communication by integrating ethnocentrism as an additional barrier. Based on a quantitative approach, 449 valid responses were collected from undergraduates from five public universities in Malaysia. Partial-least-squares software (SmartPLS3) was used to test the proposed relationships. The findings reveal that anxiety, uncertainty, and ethnocentrism have a significant negative relationship with intercultural communication.journal-article