02/09/2021 - Week 5: Cultural Miscommunication

As we mentioned in the previous posts, all cultures are different. They can vary on so many distinct aspects, like time, and because of that, some misunderstandings can occur (We will talk about some of these misunderstandings in the next posts). Those misunderstandings are more common when related to concepts of politeness, kindness, and grief.

What is polite in one culture, may be rude and inadequate in another. And this happens because cultures have different values and beliefs, leading to one behave to be judge differently in each culture. Check this video for a better understanding:

In this video, we can take a look at how people from distinct cultures may understand the same situation, and also react to it. Because of their different background, they picture those things in distinct ways, evaluate and lead to also distinct conclusions. This happens because the icebergs of our cultures have an unseen basis, that others cannot understand just by superficial look (they might think they are traveling in safe waters, but they are about to crash in the ice). They have to observe it, ask, and try to understand the hidden bases.

Let’s review the Brazilian mom and Italian teacher interaction on the video, for example (1:08 in the video). By her superficial look, the teacher thought the mom was too restrictive and demanding on her child’s education. But, by a more profound and guided look, the teacher could understand that the mom’s culture is more demanding on reading and writing, and kids start those studies pretty early on school (as a Brazilian, I can confirm this fact). By a study of the cultural “iceberg”, the teacher could understand the demand and better react to those requirements.

But how we avoid miscommunication happening while we communicate? Well, that is not as hard as it seems. If we look ahead and try to understand the cultures of those we interact with, paying attention to possible miscommunications, we can get ourselves out of a lot of problems. Still, we may slip in our communications. Just remember that miscommunications are always possible to happen, and try to understand their sides before judging them. As John Ivers said, they are not trying to frustrate you, they have good intentions, they are just working off of different paradigms.

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