BARRIERS TO INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Have you ever feel stuck trying to explain something to a foreigner ? don't worry that is what its called barriers in communication, it is normal to experiment some uncomfortable feelings while you are talking to a foreign person, these refer to the main causes of frustration and misunderstanding in intercultural encounters.

People from different cultures may be not able and not willing to communicate with others due to various reasons such as:

1. Assumption of similarities: most commonly seen when people traveling abroad try to act in the same way or manner as if they were in their home country which can cause a lot of troubles, in order to avoid it, its important to study and analyze before traveling, the culture you will be, such as attitudes, manners, laws, religion among others that would be cause of discomfort  dealing with others, as we know, people might have different assumptions and views of the same topic, and we need to be prepared to deal with it, if not we have to be aware of the difficulties in communicating with people from other cultures.

2. Preconceptions and Stereotypes: in order to make it easier to understand, this is basically how we stereotype preconceptions of a person from a unknown culture and how we interpret his/her behavior according to this preconception, whether or not the reason of the reaction or action( behavior) its what we think it is 

3. Tendency to Evaluate: the human being have the tendency to approve or disapprove the statement or actions of any person or group rather than correct or comprehend the thoughts and feelings expressed  from other´s perspectives 

Ethnocentrism: Ethnocentric people tend to value their own culture above everything else and judge the others using one’s own cultural criteria. To some extent, all the cultures are ethnocentric. This is natural, since people have been brought up thinking that their way is “the natural” way to do things. However, ethnocentrism can also lead to cultural misunderstandings if it is not recognized because it provides us with only limited choice of human thinking and behaving.

4. Anxiety or tension: this sensation if commonly seeing when facing a conversation in a foreign language, or between people who doesn't spoke the same language, and its just because of the willing they have to be understood. it is also known as stress 

5. Language Differences: differ in the use of different languages to communicate with others, no just about idioms, communication its more than words, it is how express the ideas. Communication "differ not so much in what they can express as what they must express." that is what cause huge of misunderstandings at the moment of try to say something being told in a way and being interpreted by other 

6. non-verbal communication: this is the type of communication where words are not needed to understood the message, are the actions who have socially shared meanings, and are characterized for being intentionally sent or interpreted, are consciously sent and received 

STEREOTYPE AND PREJUDICE 

stereotype: are judgments made about individuals based in group membership and those can be positive or negative but are usually an exaggerated idea of what a group is like, are cognitive representations of how those members are similar to one another and different from members of other groups, stereotyping a group is describing or defined their specific beliefs, how they behave or their abilities

Prejudice: refers to the attitudes and feelings, it is the irrational suspicion of a particular group, race, religion or sexual orientation is a feeling towards a person based on their affiliation with a group.

Prejudice and stereotyping are generally considered to be the product of adaptive processes that simplify an otherwise complex world so that people can devote more cognitive resources to other tasks, are biases that work together to create and maintain social inequality. 

  

What is Implicit stereotyping? 

according to Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). An implicit stereotype is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group.Implicit stereotypes are influenced by experience, and are based on learned associations between various qualities and social categories, including race or gender. Individuals' perceptions and behaviors can be affected by implicit stereotypes, even without the individuals' intention or awareness. in the other hand Explicit stereotypes are the result of intentional, conscious, and controllable thoughts and beliefs. Explicit stereotypes usually are directed toward a group of people based on what is being perceived.

SOURCES:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/12/differences-among-languages

http://study.com/academy/lesson/prejudice-discrimination-stereotypes-definitions-examples.html

http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr34/dumessa.html