Introduction
As people from different cultures get to meet, communicate, and work together in social environments in our increasingly globalized world, there is bound to be misunderstandings in communication. This could occur in school environments, business places, religious environments, public offices, and any sociopolitical and economic setting. There are different forms of misunderstandings that are bound to occur from the multicultural misunderstanding. There is a myriad of reasons why these misunderstandings occur. They may be caused by the interlocutors’ cultural norms, beliefs, understandings, personal perceptions of the world, and linguistic differences. This paper discusses the causative factors of these multicultural misunderstandings and draws conclusions 4 readings, personal observations, and experiences as well as present suggestions on how to overcome these misapprehensions.
Outline of Causes of misunderstandings
Culture can be described in different ways as the way of living of a certain set of persons. Others define it as a mindset that places people in a distinctive category different from another category and can be exhibited in varied ways as human beings of varied categories interact with one another. The latter definition contends that this categorization of groups leads to stereotypes that lead to not only to a better comprehension of relationships and interpersonal communication of people of different cultures but also overgeneralization (Bowe & Martin, 2007). However, from personal experiences within the school environments where we come across people of different cultures, I would differ with the book since I am always intrigued by the knowledge of other cultures and I tend to be close to students from other cultures so as to understand more of their culture which ultimately makes us understand each other well. Thus, I would say probably personal perceptions of another person would be the cause of a misunderstanding.
When culture is defined as the way in which a person thinks, their beliefs, and set of values, as well as the psychological orientation of a person, then the cause of misunderstandings would be narrowed to it (Saint-Jacques, 2006). Since the way a person thinks about their own culture determines how they will understand another person’s way of thinking, if a person has negative perceptions about their own culture, they are most likely to have the same negative perceptions about other cultures. Therefore, when they communicate with another person of a different culture, their thinking will be guided by their negative perceptions leading to miscommunication.
Misunderstanding is quite evident when one communicates with another person and knows how they answer questions, undertakes their debates, engages others in discussions, writes anything on the cultural topic, or does their daily social activities. The different social categorizations in terms of age, educational status, gender, and exposure may cause these misunderstandings (Saint-Jacques, 2006). For example, in our lower stages of learning, we found ourselves often in misunderstandings with those of other cultures since with that age, our communication was limited to our own cultures. Similarly, when we meet people who are highly educated, they tend to easily understand people from other cultures while those of low education tend to get easily agitated when conversing with people from other cultures. Recently, while communicating with a colleague from another culture, he told me that some household chores were preserved to some gender and I failed to understand it, and I later came to realize that cultural misunderstandings are due to cultural beliefs.
Multi-cultural misunderstandings can be caused by a person’s perception of the world from a cultural perspective that is, a person’s subconscious alignment on concepts as deity, nature, and universal perceptions. Different cultures have different perceptions of the world, and in particular nature around these people. A person’s cognitive patterns including problem-solving techniques are greatly dependent on their cultural orientation (McDaniel & Samovar, 2006). In our daily religious lives at school and in the contemporary world, we get to meet people of different religions and it is a norm for some people to put images of their religious alignments on their homes and business premises under the surmise that it brings success. When we grew up, a businessman of a different culture set-up a business within our locality, and placed religious inscriptions on the entrance. People misunderstood him and his business came to close a few days later.
Neulipe (2015) posits that the values and principles of cultures make up an individuals’ expectation of another culture in that, while some cultures like Japan are communal-oriented, collectivistic, and high-context, in their communication with other people, they expect other people to put personal ambitions, desires, and needs below the collective good or the group-advantage. Such individuals would have misunderstandings with individuals from a cultural setting like America where individual interests are put above that of other people, in a quest to be the first among equals (Neuliep, 2017). Such an instance once occurred in a class environment where we were to answer questions in groups, after discussing them as a group. An individual whose culture was individualistic did not contribute much to the group discussion. However, during class revision, we found out that they had everything that we had not discussed and clearly opened up about not wanting to divulge everything to us in the group and led to a misunderstanding. Non-verbal cues like body movements and facial expressions also have different interpretations in different cultures.
Suggestions on how to overcome them
To overcome these difficulties, it is imperative for students from an early stage in life to be taught communication skills aptly since these will enable them to understand other people not only from their verbal communication but also the non-verbal ones. Schools, governments, and relevant stakeholders in globalization agenda need to enhance cultural relativism so that with the knowledge that each culture has its own beliefs, principles, and other differences, an individual will be able to understand another one from a different culture. Intercultural symposiums should be planned by different schools which aim at promoting cultural appreciation as people need to know each other well and appreciate their differences which tend to promote communication. Debates between different cultures in the society that are aimed at shaping the cognitive patterns of people should be encouraged. Equally, individuals should make it a personal objective be able to competently understand the culture of the people they are to live with when they are visiting a new environment or making a business venture in a new place with different cultures.