Cross-Cultural Relattionships - Essay Example

the cultural dimension of power distance tends to address policy issues and post news regarding political figures and government officials on the Web' (Jing, 2008). In the US, great attempts are often made to reach across cultural boundaries, in orderto gain greater insight, develop friendships, partnerships and for a variety of reasons. Typically the first step taken is to learn a language. As a so-called melting pot of manydifferent ethnic backgrounds, the US provides an opportunity for every citizen to learnmore about the cultural backgrounds of others.

However, what usually occurs is activeexclusion of those who look or act different, whether in schools, the workplace and even in places of worship. Personal or individual views of how one perceives his or her ownacceptance of other cultures is often skewed. In a study of computer moderated communications(CMC) versus face to face (FTF)communications, between North American and East Asian college students, 'East Asian and North American college students tend to display greater self-disclosure in CMC as compared to FTF interactions' (Yum & Hara, 1996).

The basis for this phenomenon is explained by students as the low risk factor of involvement. However, East Asian students were not perceived as self-disclosing by American students, as much as by themselves. This represents a difference in cultural values. To East Asian students, any type of self disclosure may be considered more risky than to American students, even if in an online environment. Cultural values are evident here. Other cultures can behave more private and self-contained.

This may explain why those who look or act different, are shunned in many settings.Lack of. and Hara, K. 2005. Computer-mediated relationship development: A cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1). Available from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/yum.html [Accessed 26 October 2008] Schnell, J. 1990. A Comparison of Faculty Dominance in US and South African Classrooms as it Related to Cross Cultural Relations. pp 3-19. Available from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/20/7a/af.

pdf [Accessed 27 October 2008]