The Role of Culture and Self-Awareness in Interpersonal Communication:
Culture helps in describing the people’s way of life, depending on their beliefs, values, and practices like religion and law. Culture is generally passed from a generation to the next through communication. Before attempting to understand people’s culture, the integration of interpersonal communication is essential. DeVito (2019) holds that interpersonal communication helps an individual to understand cognitive constraints and different types of barriers like physical and language obstacles that interfere with effective communication. The objective will be identifying the effect of culture on communication, assessing my other orientation, and identifying verbal and nonverbal communication approaches that could be applied in human service.
Impact of Culture on Communication
In this first step, understanding how culture impacts communication is essential. People build trust with others when they first understand other’s cultures to establish the most effective communication tool to use when interacting. Particular considerations that go in place are assessing factors like where, when, what to do, or how much to disclose influence effective communication. Such questions generally eliminate most of the assumptions that people make regarding different cultures globally. From such matters, it is possible to know the behavioral dimensions such as people’s values, norms, beliefs, and expectations (DeVito, 2019). From the identified beliefs, the level of trust and openness in communication differs, hence impacting the context in different cultures. This is another significant aspect that helps in determining the kind of message to deliver to various groups.
For professionals in the human service settings, they have to portray cultural sensitivity the most significant strategy is improving open-mindedness. This helps a human service professional to learn how to accept diverse communication practices from different cultures. For instance, cultures in East Asia like Taiwan, China, Korea, and Japan, among others, have a high-context level of communication. This means that their measure of how messages should be exchanged is high because they prefer non-verbal communication more than the verbal. The non-verbal communication, however, is less direct, and it might confuse people from other cultures if they do not understand what the gestures mean. By looking at the Chinese, for example, minimal eye contact when communicating is a sign of respect, but in western culture, this is a rude gesture. Martin and Nakayama (2013) explain that direct eye contact through communication shows confidence and sincerity. Generally, westerners are low-context cultures, and they prefer verbal communication, for it is straightforward, which helps people understand each other easily. Another strategy is training the human service professionals to communicate with clients and workers with diverse cultural backgrounds. This would also help the professionals learn how to appreciate art, customs, and behaviors of different groups, which is essential in human service settings.
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Assessment of Other Orientation
In my evaluation of my other-orientation, which is one measure of self-awareness, I try to consider other people’s perspectives and communication patterns. This helps me avoid making the “I am right statements,” which do not promote cultural sensitivity (DeVito, 2019). I also acknowledge the importance of other people, whereby I always ask for their views concerning solutions to problems. However, I recognize that I find it challenging, revealing appropriate facial cues, especially when I engage with individuals from different cultures. This challenges me to educate myself about the communication practices of diverse cultures like the Chinese. I have acquaintances from this group; therefore, I would want them to feel that I care about their feelings. I believe having the element of other orientation portrays one’s willingness to promote change by accepting the diverse values, beliefs, and practices of other people.
Personal Strengths and Improvement
Although I have a significant challenge of interpreting facial cues, I can also acknowledge the strength of having a high ambiguity tolerance. Regardless of the working or social settings that I find myself in, I am comfortable with the people surrounding me because I embrace diversity. This has enabled me to engage in unfamiliar tasks freely because I know the importance of seeking advice and working in teams to accomplish the tasks. Also, I communicate with empathy and listen attentively to understand the message from the other person. This has enabled me to show the people I interact with that I care about their emotions, perspectives, and I am curious to know more about them. However, one area I need to improve is learning the nonverbal communication patterns, as identified in my assessment reflection (DeVito, 2019). I believe this would assist me in having a more impactful conversation. In most cases, I always end up dumbfounded when I realize that I have used gestures that have different meanings in different cultures. For example, I once used a thumbs-up sign to show approval in a group activity; however, among the members was an individual from Bangladesh who told me that was an insult. I felt embarrassed since I did not mean any harm. Nevertheless, this was a lesson, and from the cultural awareness course, I am more than motivated to diversify extensively my knowledge concerning interpersonal communication.
Other Orientation and Interpersonal Communication
Generally, having an other-orientation attitude would improve interpersonal communication in human service. On this note, this would enable human service professionals to make their clients happy and comfortable when sharing their issues. Focusing on other people’s perspectives enhance interactions by encouraging an individual to portray traits like honesty and fairness. DeVito (2013) holds that these characteristics in human service influence the development of credibility strategies like competence and charisma. These are essential ethical elements among the professionals which encourage interpersonal communication. Hence, having an other-orientation attitude like acknowledging the beliefs and values of clients, allowing people to express themselves freely, and showing consideration promote interpersonal communication (Martin, 2015). Every client seeking aid from human service settings expect that customer-service delivery is customer-centered. This means that having the other orientation is an indicator that a human service worker appreciates people’s differences in terms of culture.
Also see: Effective Interpersonal-Communication
Culture and Self-Awareness in Interpersonal Communication
To deliver quality services, culture and self-awareness are two critical elements in interpersonal communication. For one, cultural literacy, competence, and cultural awareness are all components that promote cultural intelligence. Achieving this requires an individual to identify strategic ways of enhancing his or her self-awareness. Secondly, the extent to which one knows the strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, feelings, and personality tendencies allows him or her to have an in-depth understanding of how to handle others (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). Therefore, culture and self-awareness are critical in interpersonal communication. In this case, they shape how professionals should communicate, build relationships, make decisions, as well as address tasks. Additionally, both culture and self-awareness motivate individuals in human service settings to enhance metacommunication effective. DeVito (2019) emphasizes that metacommunication is essential in interpersonal communication that encourages people to practice their talk by explaining their feelings appropriately and using straightforward messages. Additionally, they learn how to seek clarification when they are not sure of the message being delivered by the other person. Therefore, having such considerations in interpersonal communication facilitates cultural sensitivity and inclusivity in human service.
Examples of Effective Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Techniques
Granted that culture and self-awareness are critical in human service, professionals need to identify appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to apply when serving. A verbal communication technique that a human service professional could consider is extensionalize the message. Professionals are encouraged to distinguish between what exists in the real world and how people refer to objects, issues, and events, among others. Otherwise, treating words and objects as similar aspects prevents one from addressing specific matters that are in question. Another technique is recognizing change, considering that the meaning of words keeps changing. Hence, performing a regular update of the messages and evaluation of beliefs can help in demonstrating self-awareness and culture in human service settings. Additionally, non-verbal communication techniques are also essential, and one of them is conveying a smile to show interest, positivity, and even attention. However, DeVito (2019) illustrates that this should be done moderately; otherwise, overdoing would be perceived negatively. Another technique is using vocal variations to match the emotions being portrayed by the other person communicating. The difference could be in rate, pitch, rhythm, and volume, which again should not be overdone since this might disrupt the communication and also make the person talking to feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, nodding and leaning forward is an approach that is encouraged since it reveals that an individual is interested and is listening keenly to understand the message. When the professionals demonstrate these techniques in human service, they promote their reputation and that of the organization.
Conclusion
In conclusion, culture has a significant impact on communication, and it encourages human service professionals to have self-awareness. These are factors that improve interpersonal communication considering that in human service settings, there are clients from diverse cultures. These people have different needs, and the only way a worker can understand them is by taking an interest in knowing the verbal and nonverbal communication they use to help them. This encourages the concept of other orientation, which every professional should possess to avoid making assumptions of people from different cultures.
Reference
DeVito, J. A. (2019). The interpersonal communication book. Instructor, 1, 18.
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Martin, J. N. (2015). Revisiting intercultural communication competence: Where to go from here. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48, 6-8.
