Do I find myself communicating differently with people from
different groups and cultures? I say yes.
Obviously there are different groups in my life that I am different
with. I don’t communicate the same with my family as I do with my church
friends or work people, or old people or children. You know depending on the
group I alter my communication strategy.
One thing from the reading that really struck me was the
section on gender (Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond, 2011. I have never been good at
communicating with men. The world of men is something I know nothing about.
OMYGoodness – it the worst when you have to talk to a guy you like. Oh boy. Anyways.
This section said that when men communicate they want or are giving information.
Mind. Blown. Me as a woman, like the
book said, is about relationship. (Beebe,Beebe, and Redmond, 2011). Now that I
know this nice tidbit of knowledge I plan to apply to my everyday life.
When I am meeting someone new I rely on the strategies I
have learned, typical of a middle class person in the United States. Stand up straight, look in the eyes, firm
handshake. I am received well by the person. Now that I have learned so much in
this program I now to be respectful of touch sensitive cultures. Or cultures
that don’t value eye contact as I do. And personal space issues. There are many
factors that I know to consider now when meeting someone new.
In truth I don’t meet
many people that are very different from me. There is a lot of racial diversity
and educational diversity; some economic, but overall most of the things that
we are discussing are the same. When I went to Europe a few years ago for a big
family trip I was hoping for some different cultures but I was saddened to find
that Europe is pretty American. Perhaps
I will go to Taiwan or somewhere different when I save up enough.
A second strategy would be to apply what we learned about
the platinum rule (Beebe,Beebe and Redmond, 2011). When interacting with others
– take the time to see things as they do. Don’t force your ways on other
people. Being open to others enhances all communication because it will break
down judgements that we have and create a more open world.
And as I mentioned earlier –when interacting with men now I
know to tone down the details and give the important information. I definitely
think this will help both me and the man I am talking to on the same page. Dads
at work, men in the world that I don’t know but have to interact with on a
daily basis, even men in my own family.
Overall I say this week was a good week. I feel like the more
I learn in this class the better I become because I can immediately apply what
we learn.
References
Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011). Interpersonal communication: Relating to others (6th
ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Koni,
ReplyDeleteNot good at communicating with men. When the right person comes along you will know what to say and it will come natural.You will learn later in life that often times it is the male who has a hard time communicating with the female. Great Post
Great Post! I think its important to communicate with people differently as long as we keep it positive and respectful.
ReplyDeleteKoni,
ReplyDeleteI loved your post! Im not good at communicating with men either ! I never had to growing up being that it was just my mother and I. Would you say that it was apart of my culture? However I try to be as natural as possible. Great post!
When you talked about shaking a person's hand when you met them I can remember when my aunt and uncle had some distant relatives of ours come into town from Italy many years ago. They spoke little to no English, we spoke no Italian, so it was very interesting. I remember holding out my hand to shake theirs and they grabbed me in a big embrace kissed one of my cheeks then kissed the other. I had no idea what was going on!!! Where was my handshake?? But they communicate differently and this was their hello greeting to a distant relative. And on a sidenote, if you like to travel, check out travelzoo.com. This is a discount travel website and we have booked two trips through this website recently and they were awesome and not too expensive!
ReplyDeleteKoni,
ReplyDeleteI think that it is important that we are able to change the way we communicate with different poeple who we are with. different relationships and conversation require different communication styles. great point!!