Barna's Intercultural Communication Obstacles

Name: Institution: Date: Barna's Intercultural Communication Obstacles Culture influences how people communicate. There are many unique cultures around the world and it is inevitable that two or more people from different cultures have to communicate. Intercultural communication has its own obstacles because of varied factors. Barna outlined 6 of the issues that create difficulty between members of different cultures when they are communicating. Barna advises people to avoid these pitfalls when communicating to members of different cultures to ensure they have an effective communication. People tend to judge others at first sight. After judging they expect information that matches their judgments and therefore, they filter what they hear into what they approve or disapprove. Though the human brain has evolved to learn how to make conclusions with very little information as an evolutionary advantage, these unfounded conclusions hurt the communication process. Barn points out that in ‘each person’s culture or way of life always seems right, proper and natural. This bias prevents the open-minded attention need to look at the attitudes and behavior patterns from the other’s point of view.’ The environment and many other factors dictate our habits, languages, behaviors, etc. The seemingly small variations in environmental factors have changed the ways these people interpret and perceive some things and since they are lacking or different in the other person’s culture, they may be interpreted differently. (Barna, 1994) points out the example of the afternoon siesta. Someone might interpret it as lazy but the temperature in that area is about 1150F at midday. It is important to be open-minded around other cultures and rather than judging them, try to understand the underpinning reasons why they do what they do. Most people tend to view other cultures through the lens of their own culture. They tend to assume the very thins that they have in their culture are standard across all cultures. For example, they may assume that some gestures such as smiling to strangers are to be welcoming and friendly while the other people find it rude and fake. Many westerners have been taken aback by the ‘unwelcoming’ nature of the Asians citing that they do not like to smile....