Nigerian Economy - Impact of Culture Differences in Personal Interaction

Impact of culture differences in personal interaction

As the globalization becomes even commonplace, more people from different cultures gather and interact with others. As a result, the impacts of culture differences are play an important part in people's daily communications and collaboration that may improve or impair the effectiveness of interactions.

Communicating with people with culture differences does present a lot of difficulties. The first one is language. Without the fluency in spoke English, it is no easy work to communicate effectively. Talking effectively requires us to speak clearly, making sure that people understand our intention so that they will be able to reply or react. I personally have experience some times of such failure in communicating. As a native Chinese speaker, I often feel nervous when I begin to talk to others in English, and I may stammer during such situation. This is quite an example to indicate that language barrier is a major problem in cross-culture interactions. In addition to the spoken language, the body language is also quite an important factor. Not only the verbal language differentiates each other across various countries, but also the body languages make a difference. As people in different cultures think in different ways, they sometimes regard same gesture as different meanings. In the states, making a circle with your thumb and index finger means ok, fine or to show approval, but in turkey it means that someone is homosexual. In Australia it means zero, and in Germany it means job well done. Second difficulty is the ideology. Ideology, simply put, is the different ways of thinking, valuing. We are born and brought up in different cultures; we acquire diverse views and customs, and as a result these ideologies are formed in our minds. For instance, as we know eastern society is quite collectivistic while the western is more individualistic. People in eastern country such as Japan tend to work together, cooperate closely to get their works done. And employees in companies prefer to preserve the harmony of the whole group over individual rights. On the contrary, people in some western countries behave in ways that are person-centered. They have a low-context communication and often make decisions on their own. Everyone is used to showing their feelings such as anxiety, fears in public and agues with others if they don't agree. Such differences in mind often present barriers in cross culture interactions. Thus we are likely to expect that quite a number of interactions are failed due to the culture differences.

Students like us who study abroad are very good examples to show the consequence of culture differences. Students study abroad always group themselves with people that are from the same country or the same hometown as having the same culture makes them easy to communicate, have the similar topic to talk about or due to some other