Communication with People of Different Cultures

When people interact with the unknown they act differently than when they around the familiar, it is just the way that humanity is. However, stereotypes of different cultures have made this an effect that occurs on a larger scale. For example when a child who has grown up in a predominately black neighborhood, and hears about all of the wrongs that have been done to them by past white people, that child is being exposed to the stereotype that white people are evil and abusive. When that child encounters a white person for the first time, he or she may act hostile and loud while, with people of their own race, he or she is respectful and timid. The same can be said for a white child exposed to the negative stereotypes of black people, and meeting a black person for the first time. He or she can go on the defense around black people and look for reasons to act against that black person because he or she is looking for something which makes that person dangerous. Even outside of situations where people have been kept isolated from other cultures, and encounters an unknown culture, he or she will still act differently than somewhere they are familiar with. For example, I have always been around people of different cultures, and as a result I have always been interested in different languages and cultures. However, when I go somewhere and am surrounded by Hispanics, or whites or even Indonesians, I immediately turn into a quiet, shy, respectful ten year old child, despite the fact that I am now 18. I have entered a world different than the one that I am usually in. I am still myself in these situations, but I am a different version of myself.

In a parallel world, it would be very similar to the experience I just described. The world would still be the same, but there would be a different version of people. Those who on Earth are loud and flamboyant would be quiet and timid in a parallel world, and vice versa. People physically encounter worlds which create a different version of themselves. In the minds of the people who experience someone else’s, let’s say alter ego, will allow that alter ego to live on in their minds, so that the person they encountered has two lives. The one he or she actually lives, and the one that the people they have encountered believe he or she lives. 

Works Cited

1. Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied psychology, 46(1), 5-34.
2. David, E. J. R. (2019). Cultural Humility: The cornerstone of positive identity formation and development for Youth of Color. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 28(2), 89-101.
3. Devine, P. G. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of personality and social psychology, 56(1), 5-18.
4. Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum model of impression formation, from category-based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. Advances in experimental social psychology, 23, 1-74.
5. Greene, S. (2013). Making place for sexual alterity: The role of heteronormativity in the formation of community. Sociology Compass, 7(2), 118-128.
6. Kunda, Z., & Thagard, P. (1996). Forming impressions from stereotypes, traits, and behaviors: A parallel-constraint-satisfaction theory. Psychological review, 103(2), 284-308.
7. Lippmann, W. (1991). Public opinion (Vol. 6). Transaction Publishers.
8. Quist, H. (2017). LGBTQ politics, activism and identity in Asia: Implications for a growing global movement. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 4(2), 198-209.
9. Roccas, S., & Brewer, M. B. (2002). Social identity complexity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6(2), 88-106.
10. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. Psychology of intergroup relations, 7(1), 7-24.