Introduction
Culture plays a critical role in describing people's way of life according to their beliefs, values, law, and religion. Through communication, culture is passed from one generation to another. Understanding the integration of interpersonal communication is critical before focusing on the culture of the people. Interpersonal communication plays a vital role in helping people to understand cognitive constraints and barriers that compromise effective communication (DeVito, 2019). The essay's primary aim is to identify the effects of culture on communication, assess my other orientation, identify verbal and nonverbal communications approaches that are used to enhance the effectiveness of communication in human service.
Impacts of Culture on Communication
Understanding how culture affects communication is critical towards establishing effective communication between people. Before individuals build trust with one another, they need to understand the other person's culture to enable them to establish the most effective tool for communication. Some of the factors that influence effective communication include how much information to disclose, what to do, where, and when. Using such questions eliminates the assumptions that people make regarding different cultures across the globe. Understanding an individual's culture plays a significant role in knowing the behavioral dimensions such as beliefs, norms, values, and expectations. Due to differences in beliefs, values, and expectations in different cultures, the level of trust and openness when sharing information differs. Having a good understanding of a culture is fundamental because it determines the message to deliver to a particular group.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
In a human service setting, the professionals must portray cultural sensitivity when engaging in communication. One of the essential strategies of enhancing effective communication is improving open-mindedness, which helps human service professionals learn and accept different communication practices from various cultures. Some of the cultures that portray a high-context level of communication include Chinese, Korean, Japanese cultures, among many others. In such cultures with a high context level of communication, the measure of message exchange is high because they use non-verbal communication more than verbal. If people do not understand the meaning of gestures in non-verbal communication, it becomes hard to share information. In different cultures, non-verbal communication can be complex because the gestures or signs that one uses could mean a different thing in the other culture.
For example, in Chinese culture, maintaining minimal eye contact with a person when communicating is a show of respect, but to the western culture, it is a gesture of rudeness. Maintaining direct eye contact during communication plays a critical role in enhancing confidence and sincerity (Nakayama, 2013). People from western cultures prefer verbal communication because it is straightforward and easy for individuals to understand. Training humans service professionals to communicate with people from diverse cultural backgrounds is another strategy of ensuring effective communication between individuals. Human service professionals' training to communicate effectively with people from various cultures is another way of helping them appreciate the arts, customs, values, and behaviors of different people, critical in the human service setting.
Assessment of Other Orientation
When evaluating my other orientation as a measure of self-awareness, it is critical to consider other people's communications and perspectives. Making such considerations play a vital role in avoiding statements that are not culturally sensitive (DeVito, 2019). Acknowledging other people's importance is essential, for instance, asking them their views when solving problems. However, I always find it hard to reveal the appropriate facial expression when communicating with people from different cultures. It enables me to learn communication practices from different cultures, such as Chinese, to interact with them effectively in the future. With the element of other orientation, an individual shows a willingness to promote change by accepting different cultures' diversity.
Personal Communication Strengths and Growth
Even though I have a problem interpreting facial cues, I acknowledge the strength of tolerating ambiguity. I also embrace the diversity that has enabled me to work effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds. My ability to seek advice and work effectively with other people has easily helped me accomplish unfamiliar tasks. I also communicate with empathy and listen attentively when interacting with other people. However, I need to improve on nonverbal communication patterns to enable me to have effective conversations. I sometimes feel guilty after using signs that mean insults to people from other cultures. I have a motivation to diversify my interpersonal communication and ensure effective conversation with people from different cultural backgrounds.
Strong Other-orientation and Interpersonal Communication in Human Services
In a human service setting, having a solid other-orientation play a vital role in enhancing interpersonal communication enabling the human service professionals to make their clients comfortable and happy when sharing information. Focusing on other people's perspectives can improve interaction by encouraging traits like fairness and honesty during communication (Nakayama, 2013). Focusing on people's perspectives in the human service setting enables the professionals to develop credible strategies such as charisma and competence (DeVito, 2019). Developing competence and charisma are essential ethical elements that encourage interpersonal communication among human service professionals. Having other-orientation attitudes such as acknowledging the clients' beliefs and values, showing consideration, and allowing people to express themselves is essential in promoting interpersonal communication (Martin, 2015). Having other orientation as a human service profession is vital because it enables an individual to appreciate the clients' and workers' cultural diversity.
Culture and Self-Awareness in Interpersonal Communication
In interpersonal communication, culture and self-awareness are two critical things necessary for quality service delivery. Cultural awareness, competence, and cultural literacy are essential components required in promoting cultural intelligence. Achieving these components requires an individual to have strategic ways of enhancing self-awareness. An individual's ability to handle others effectively depends on their extent to which they understand their strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, and feelings (Nakayama, 2013). Culture and self-awareness are essential in interpersonal communication because they enable human service professionals to have effective communication, sound decision-making, strong relationships, and address task efficiently. Furthermore, self-awareness and culture play a vital role in motivating human service professionals to improve metacommunication, enabling individuals to use straightforward messages and talk by explaining their feelings appropriately (DeVito, 2019). Considering the culture and self-awareness in interpersonal communication is critical because it enables human service professionals to become culturally sensitive and inclusive in their human service setting.
Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Techniques to Demonstrate Self-Awareness and Culture
In human service, culture and self-awareness are essential, and therefore, professionals need to identify the appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication strategy to apply when interacting with their clients. Extensionalizing the message of one of the verbal communication techniques that professionals need to consider when engaging in a conversation. When communicating, the professionals should distinguish between words and how people refer to objects and issues. Similarly, treating words and objects can compromise the ability to address specific matters effectively. Recognizing change is also important because the meaning g of the words keeps on changing. Evaluating beliefs and regular updates of the messages help demonstrate self-awareness and culture in a human service setting.
Non-verbal techniques, on the other hand, are also essential in interpersonal communication because they convey information, for instance, using a smile to show interest or positivity. People should use non-verbal communication techniques in moderation because overdoing them can make people perceive the message differently (DeVito, 2019). Another technique that people use when communicating is vocal variations to match emotions. Nodding and leaning forward is a non-verbal technique that reveals an individual's interest in understanding the message. Human service professionals should demonstrate non-verbal techniques such as nodding or leaning forward to promote their reputation and communicate effectively with their clients.
Conclusion
Admittedly, culture plays a critical role in communication and encourages human service professionals to have self-awareness. The clients in the human service setting consist of people from different cultural backgrounds, and it is crucial to ensure effective interpersonal communication, which is culturally sensitive. Taking an interest in verbal and non-verbal communication techniques is one way of understanding the clients and helping them effectively. Encouraging the concept of other-orientation is fundamental because it enables human service professionals to avoid making assumptions about people from different cultural backgrounds. Considering culture and self-awareness play a critical role in enhancing the effectiveness of interpersonal communication.
References
DeVito, J. A. (2019). The interpersonal communication book.
Martin, J. N. (2015). Revisiting intercultural communication competence: Where to go from here. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48 , 6-8.
Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill.
