My perception about the two most relevant topics exposed in the class
were: the Barriers to communication and the Non-verbal communication; but why
are they so important in means of intercultural relations, negotiations or
communication?
Understanding the way a person behave based on the cultural traditions,
beliefs, customs, or ideas, will help improving the relation with others in a
positive way and therefore avoiding uncomfortable or awkward moments. It’s important
to know and have very clear that there are some barriers that can complicate the
interaction or the communication in means of dialogues, businesses, agreements,
and so on. These barriers are the assumption
of similarities, the language differences, the nonverbal misinterpretations,
the preconceptions and stereotypes, the tendency to evaluate and finally High
anxiety. But this is not the only
important criteria when interacting with other cultures; the non-verbal communication
plays a big role due to the possibility of misunderstanding and misinterpreting
the corporal or facial expressions that are intentionally sent while
communicating or expressing ideas or thinking’s; an example of these facial and
corporal expressions can be Surprise (big eyes), happiness (smiling), sadness
(upset looking, sigh), anger (frown),
biting lip (fear, nervous, anxiety), clothing (casual, formal), shaking the
legs or feet (anxiety, nervous, fear), raising the shoulders (no understanding,
no interest), etc. The way a person express itself through these expressions
may be seen as positive or negative, and can create a pre judgment or pre visualization
(criteria, assumptions) about how the person is and the way he/she behave.
My research question for this class is “Does culture
determine all of our non-trivial behavior
and characteristics?”
In my point of view, since we are a child we adopt some
values, beliefs, traditions and customs, that comes from culture and that do
affect indirectly or directly the way we behave, starting for our family circle.
While we are growing and becoming older (maturing), we start to adapt our
behavior to the others (the culture) in means of being part of the “group” or looking
for acceptance. However I don’t agree about talking in a general way, or inferring
a total change or influence in the behavior or characteristics of a person. Not all the people can be clout or impact by the culture, for example, if everyone drink
or smoke, then you have to do it?, if all the people like to party or go out, you
also have to like doing that? I believe that each one decides what to adopt from
the culture, based on the personal interest and the moral beliefs.
