Dimensions of Intercultural Interactions and Conflict. Lesson 2. In this lesson, our objective is, to explain the role of culture in conflict resolution and, distinguish between intercultural and intracultural interactions. For some of you, discussing culture may seem quite basic. For others, it may be seen quite a mystery. So, let us try to explain the mystery. The reason culture may be a mystery is for some of us, it's like breathing oxygen. We just do it. For others, there's a thoughtful background that goes into all the dimensions of culture. We learn our culture from our family, our parents, society, and it is the knowledge we accumulate of how we operate in our society. Each of us in different societies. Those who are outside our societies, can be referred by us as out groups rather than in groups. So out groups. If you do not have an education in the framework for thinking about culture, it's really largely invisible to you. Culture is common to someone like breathing, and only when there's behavior or words that you come into contact to that are different than yours, do you truly know your association with the behaviors and words that you have are unique. For example, it is very common in America that one should strive to be a unique individual and be a non-conformist. For those of you outside of America, you probably think of us as cowboys. That is valued by many in the U.S. culture. In contrast, in Japan, that would be rude and inconsiderate behavior, for example. Did anyone notice that in a recent tsunami in Japan in 2011, the news coverage of people in the natural disaster were behaving so orderly and properly, and frankly, in the best interests of the community. There's an unspoken code of behavior that connects most Japanese, in this case, even during extreme duress. That is an example of culture. From body language to word meeting, there is a learned set of associations made to words and actions, which help a society function. For the human brain, these associations makes sense of the world, and allow humans to live with less stress. Knowing that those around them are their group, their in group, their tribe, and there's a sense of community. All those words and gestures shared appear understood to each person in a community, but only to those inside the community is it obvious. For example, a particular hand signal in the United States may mean okay, everything is great. That exact same hand signal in Brazil is very, very rude. As human beings, our minds work like a library with books. We have systems of memory, which help us associate a piece of information with a feeling. Those feelings, help us move quickly through a series of inputs, thousands of inputs, a minute, a day. All that we have a reaction to. All these stimuli in our world that we see. Mostly across the continuum of, should we fear this thing or not? As it relates to our society, culture is a framework around a set of people chosen to be together. And how they see the world, such that they survive together. In some ancient cultures, the sun was worshipped as a God. It helped that culture make sense of their respect for the land and nature, in a way. In a modern U.S. culture, there's a lot of adventuring in open land. One has to be bold to survive. And oftentimes, one was alone, in this big wilderness. That nurtured a sense of independence in the settlers of the new land in America, which carries to this day, in this young country, in the underlying belief system of the people. A shared sense of identity, again, reduces the stress of fear and the unknown in human beings and produces a sense of belonging. It helps us, as we are ultimately animals, avoid feeling like we have to protect ourselves constantly from those around us. They were considered, just like us in our minds. For example, in the Jewish culture, even though, many are far apart around the world, there is a sense in each Jewish individual and community to create a hub or a center of connection, and that connection centers in Israel, for example. And for that connection to have a bond that goes back to their homeland, there is a shared sense of survival that I find in people of the Jewish culture. Culture is communicated at various levels and held on within us at various levels. Culture is communicated, sometimes in subtle, and sometimes in obvious ways. For example, at a surface layer, culture is communicated, for example, in pop culture, within movies and song. In a movie, you may have recently watched that is of a culture not of your own, you may have noticed hand gestures, eye movements, physical closeness that you wouldn't understand or wouldn't be able to translate within your own culture. But when taking the context of another culture. You may be curious to dive in and understand, why or how those actors are behaving the way they are acting. Or if you're listening to a song from another culture, you may dive into the meaning of the words or phrases and try to understand why they're said that way. Normally you'll find a very interesting story behind that. And maybe some historical context. Below that surface layer, there are symbols, and meanings, and norms, and deeper than that, there are traditions,beliefs and values of a culture. Finally, at the most basic level, one where we're all bonded, there's universal human need. Maslov's hierarchy of needs is an example of how that's represented. It is important, when beginning the study of intercultural interactions to have a distinction of what an intracultural interaction or a conflict is. We as people, already have enough conflict in our day with people within our own culture. Those are the personal and interpersonal level interactions. It adds more complexity to add an intracultural component to our interactions. As actors in our own plays, we look for areas where breakdowns are occurring in our relationships at home or at work, such that we're not getting our expected outcomes from our teams. It's even more complex with intracultural teams. To look past ourselves, and to look at the other actors in our play, who are of different cultures than us. And to look at their underlying belief systems, because we and they were raised with different ones. And if we look to understand theirs, we can look deeper to understand why they do what they do. If we took a pause and understood this. You have a chance to talk to them about this. You can ask, why do you behave this way? What underlying belief systems were taught to you at a young age? That your current actions are exhibited in this way in our interaction. And in that chance to ask, there is a chance for understanding. And when there's understanding, there's an attempt and possibility to change the way we interact together. And finally, in that possibility of changing how we behave together is a chance to achieve our shared income. Intercultural conflict focuses mostly on the divergent beliefs of two cultures, and hopefully, the people in conflict can attribute differences to variances in background beliefs, rather than the intention to hurt each other. Intercultural interactions force a deeper level of self-reflection in us, to truly understand what we take as given, or for granted, or as truth as to how the world works. These truths make us feel safe when we believe them. What is also true, to our discomfort at times, is that there are other ways to believe how the world works and how people can and should interact. The fact, there are other ways to be in the world, can shake our fundamental core, because we were taught to believe in our beliefs. And we were taught to interact in our culture, and we practice this every day, every minute of our lives since we were born. Above our self-awareness, we have learned ways to get along in our social circles. In a way to rise up to achieve what we aspire. That comes from level of emotional intelligence at a personal level, where we understand ourselves, and social intelligence of how we get along in our own cultures. We then have to learn how to communicate with others. In their style. And we learn their style through interpersonal communication. Finally, there's a layer of intercultural sensitivity that then makes all these dimensions in play at once, when interacting with those of other cultures. It should be all of our mutual interests to work hard, to self-reflect, learn others, and then decide the appropriate interaction style in order to optimise any intercultural interaction.
