Running head: ELEMENTS OF CULTURE & LISTENING AS BARRIERS Elements of Culture and Listening That Are Barriers to Interaction Institution Affiliation Date 1 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE & LISTENING THAT ARE BARRIERS TO INTERACTION 2 Elements of Culture and Listening The world is diverse in terms of cultures that are represented. Culture defines who a set of individuals are and what they believe in. As individuals grow up and interact with different environments, they are bound to find new cultures which they may adopt. Cultures are learned through communication, that is, through nonverbal cues as well as perceptions that mold the behaviors of others. There must be two or more parties that relay messages and receive feedback to be able to understand the culture. The main elements of culture are; the language in which the words and ideas are shared and are common among a particular group. The second is a symbol which is used to represent a specific culture. Third is norms, which are the rules and guidelines of the behaviors of people. The fourth is values that define what people of one culture are and what they believe in. The fifth is beliefs, and lastly, cognitive elements which define how a person copes in an environment (Bodie, 2012). Elements of Culture that are Barriers to Effective Listening of Different Cultures Listening to people of different cultures is a way of learning about their cultures. However, this can become difficult because of various elements of culture that cause barriers to listening and interaction. The first and significant barrier is language as an element of culture. Various communities with different cultures speak different languages. To listen and understand another language requires one to be familiar with the language. Therefore, a language barrier is a significant difficulty in listening and interacting with the people of other cultures. A language barrier also leads to misinterpretation of information that is given, which may cause poor judgment and misunderstanding between two people. Additionally, it becomes difficult to hire an interpreter when interacting with other people of different cultures, as it is expensive and ELEMENTS OF CULTURE & LISTENING THAT ARE BARRIERS TO INTERACTION 3 tiresome. In the long run, all parties lose interest in communicating with each other (Andreatta & Ferraro, 2012). The second difficulty is as a result of beliefs and norms. When interacting with people from different cultures, each person will practice their own beliefs and patterns. What one believes in may not be what the second party believes in. Therefore, one may not listen effectively since their interaction would be limited. They would not practice different beliefs; for instance, the interaction between the Hindu culture and Christian culture is limited because both have different beliefs. Norms and practices also cause interaction barriers as many people are not willing to abandon their standards and adopt what others do. They may find their practices as a taboo to their culture, which will cause them not to interact or communicate effectively. The third element of culture that causes difficulty in listening to other cultures is making prejudgments of the other person. When listening to people from different cultures, it is easy to judge them without listening attentively to why they do what they do. If someone makes a judgment without seeking a clear understanding, they tend not to listen effectively. The fourth element is the cognitive element. When communicating and interacting with people from different cultures, one must be able to adapt and cope with the existing social situation. Therefore, if one's cognitive element is not active, they may not be able to have constructive communication because they are not comfortable in the social setting of the other person's culture. The last element that may cause a barrier in listening and in turn, hinder interaction is value. Values define the culture of a group. If one is interested in learning a culture, communication may be barred because of conflicting values. They may not be interested in listening because they do not want to violate the values they believe in. This means one cannot ELEMENTS OF CULTURE & LISTENING THAT ARE BARRIERS TO INTERACTION separate culture and values, which causes a barrier to active listening between two parties of different cultures and hence are unable to interact effectively (Bodie, 2012). 4 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE & LISTENING THAT ARE BARRIERS TO INTERACTION References Andreatta, S., & Ferraro, G., (2012). Elements of culture: An applied perspective. Nelson Education. Bodie, G. D., (2012). Listening as positive communication. The positive side of interpersonal communication, 109-125. 5 Running head: PERCEPTION AND CIVILITY Perception and Civility Institutional Affiliation Student’s name Instructor’s name Course Date 1 PERCEPTION AND CIVILITY 2 Perception and Civility News event in which perceptions reduced civil discourse Civil discourse is usually caused by lack of knowledge on the controversial issues, making it difficult for people to understand the whole concept due to different views that exist. This explains the reason as to why people still argue on the same things for a long period, without even getting closer to the right thing. One way which can be used in reducing civil discourse in by use of perceptions. Perceptions refer to what people understand, believe or feel is right concerning different matters. One of the current news event in which perception reduced civil discourse on the issue of mental health among kids. According to the news by Janice Davis which was published on 9th June 2019, the perception was that drugs, social media, and transgenderism were the primary reasons as to why most kids were suffering from mental health. This means that most desperate actions most youths/kids get involved in like attempting suicide are usually caused by these three factors. Actions which contributed to reducing the civic discourse include multiple research which was carried out in identifying the major cause of mental issues among the youths/ children. Among them, we have aspects like genetic disorder, child abuse, and inappropriate medical attention on the affected kids, among other factors. All these different factors supported by the research in one way or another tend to step out from the three significant perceptions made earlier, creating a conclusion that drugs, social media, and transgenderism highly impact the mental status of kids/ the youths. PERCEPTION AND CIVILITY 3 Aspects which affected the perception There are various factors which facilitated that perception of the significant factors affecting the mental status of the youths/kids. One of them is the first impression, in this case, in almost every city we meet youths having psychological issues are mostly involved in drug abuse, have genetic problems or are suffering from social media distress. Even by randomly depressed youth about some of the reasons behind the mental state, these three factors are very common. The stereotype that the current society is driven by social media and drug abuse among the youths also contribute in coming up with the perception aiming at finding out the root cause of mental issues among this group of people. Limited exposure is also another issue that contributed in this common perception. Most people find it difficult to research on issues related to psychology, making them rely on some of the common issues they believe might be having an impact on the mental state of the youths. Generalizing of health matters has facilitated more rise in different perceptions. This belief of having mental issues among the users being caused by these three factors is also affected by cultural beliefs. Other than genetic issues, most people believe that the influence of western culture has highly contributed to mental and even general health of individuals, especially the youths. Some of these practices like drug abuse are not very common in most culture, especially among teenagers, and any health issues users tend to suffer from are directly linked to the use of drugs. Basically, practices which conflict with the standard cultural practices. PERCEPTION AND CIVILITY 4 References https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/drugs-social-media-transgenderism-no-wonder-kidsmental-health-is-suffering/ 1 Running head: COMMUNICATION Communication model Instructor name Student name Date 2 COMMUNICATION Communication model Communication is very essential when it comes to exchange of Ideas, thoughts, opinion, and expressions. The message received by the receiver is not always understood in the same context as it was desired by the sender. One of the interpersonal interaction which I have recently and was not as effective as it should be was an interaction with the head of the department of my organization. The communication took place during the conduct of the cultural festival in the organization. The head of the department organized a meeting and told that all the members will be assigned a single task only. However, at the end of the day, the mail was sent where it was given that I am supposed to perform two tasks instead of one. The next day, a notice was circulated where it was given that I will be sharing one of my duties with my colleagues. The model of communication is based on Linear model of communication. (The linear model of communication, n.d.) The communicators are the head of the department and myself. The sender of the message was the head of the department and I was the receiver of the message. The communication process completes once the sender sends the message to the receiver. Sometimes the receiver gives the feedback to the sender which helps them to know if the message was understood in the sense it was desired by the sender. COMMUNICATION 3 The three channels of communication were spoken words, written notice circulated, and electronic mail. All the three channels communicated a different message. In the spoken words, the message to me was the assigning of the single task. In the written notice circulated, the message was assigning the two tasks. In the electronic mail, the message was sharing one of the duties with my colleague. Physical context means the actual settings life physical location, noise level, time-of-day, etc. It had an impact on the interaction during the meeting in the form of noise level from the people talking near the meeting room and the noise of the fan. Temporal context means the expectations based on past experiences. It had an impact on the international as it was expected that the single task will be a signed instead of the two tasks. Social psychological context means the balance between the emotional state of people as well as their personal relationships. There wasn't any effect of social psychological context. (Communication in Organizations, n.d.) There weren't many interferences present during the interaction. It was just the people who were talking near the meeting room and the noise of the fans in the room. The meeting was conducted one-to-one, that was the reason so many people gathered around the room for their turn. The three channels of communication created different perceptions based on the experience. It created chaos and confusion as I was not able to identify the exact number of tasks that I should do in the event. The verbal messages used created both positive and negative effect on the interaction. It was positive because it provided the expected information in the beginning. On the other hand, It was negative because of interferences in the form of noise from other individuals and COMMUNICATION 4 from the nearby electrical devices. I used positive words as I agreed to the instructions given by the way of verbal messages. There wasn't any ambiguity in the verbal messages. The nonverbal messages affected the interaction in the form of confusion regarding the duties to be performed. The international verbal message was that I have to do two tasks instead of one during the Cultural Event. There wasn't any unintentional message during the entire conversation. Yes, I accurately decoded the messages that I received from the other individual but it created confusion because the messages sent by the three different channels had three different meaning. Based on my feedback to the head of the department, the message was accurately decoded by the receiver which intended to ask for the number of tasks that I am supposed to do. As all the three channels created three different meanings, it necessitated to send feedback regarding the clarification of the work to be done by me. 5 COMMUNICATION References Communication in Organizations. (n.d.). https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Clo-Con/Communication-in-Orga nizations.html The linear model of communication. (n.d.). https://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-management/management/business-studies/ret ail-marketing/content-section-3.2
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