Intercultural Communication
and Interactions
Emotional Experiences Resulting from Encounters with Cultural
Differences
Anxiety - as people encounter unfamiliar demands they are
likely to become anxious about whether or not their behaviors are appropriate.
Unconfirmed Expectations - people may become upset or
uncomfortable when a situation differs from what they expected.
Belonging - people have a need to feel apart and to fell
at home. A person my feel out of place and not at home in a culturally different
environment.
Ambiguities - while working and living across cultures
messages being given and received are often unclear.
Confrontation with ones own biases - people may
discover that previously held beliefs about certain groups might not be accurate or useful
when interacting with someone from another culture.
Areas that incorporate cross - cultural differences that
people sometime find difficult to understand and negotiate.
Work - difficulties can arise related to the proper
relationships between on-task behavior and social interaction, the onus of control,
decision-making strategies, and attitudes towards creative efforts.
Time and Space - various attitudes exist regarding the
importance of being on-time to appointments, as well as the proper distance
between each other while interacting.
Language - language difference are probably the most
obvious problem which must be addressed when crossing some cultural boundaries.
Roles - there is a generally accepted set of behaviors
people perform in relation to the roles they adopt.
Importance of the group vs. the importance of the individual
- the relative emphasis on group vs. individual varies from culture to culture.
Values - people experiences in broad areas such as
religion, economics, politics, and interpersonal relationships become internalized.
Understand these internalized views are important to cross-cultural understanding.