- Contextual variables explaining the influence

2005

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Современные тенденции инновационного развития науки и образования в глобальном мире

Why do representatives of different cultures understand and perceive the world so differently?The most obvious differences are observed in European and Asian ethnic formations.Oriental culture is mostly characterized by contemplation, while Western culture is identified by dynamics where culture should fill human life with new knowledge and beauty. In fact, the differences between two societies are quite stark. One way or another, but Western and Oriental culture enters into a certain conflict situation in contact with each other. Then the differences between cultures are worthy to study thoroughly and draw a line between the differences. Or maybe these are all false beliefs that are no longer valid in modern society?

2021

, 2017). Cultures exist to serve the vital, practical requirements of human life-to structure a society so as to perpetuate the species, to pass on the hard-learned knowledge and experience of generations past and centuries past to the young and inexperienced in order to spare the next generation the costly and dangerous process of learning everything all over again from scratch through trial and error-including fatal errors (Sowell). Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place (Triandis). First, it is "humanmade" and behavior that must be learned. Secondly, culture is subjective including values, beliefs, attitudes, norms, and foundational behaviors. Thirdly, culture has language or a set of symbols and also rules for using those symbols to be transmitted and shared. Culture is a code we learn and share, and learning and sharing require communication. Communication requires coding and symbols that must be learned and shared (Smith 1966). There are three primary dimensions-language, physical, and psychological (Borden, 1991, p. 171). The language, physical, and psychological dimensions of culture are interdependent (Martin, 2011). When there is a contact of different culture, there is culture diffusion which is the process by which the two cultures learn and adapt materials and adopt practices from each other (Martin, 2011). Diffusion is a mechanism of change that is seen by the spread of various ideas, concepts, institutions, and practices from one culture to another (Samovar, 2017) Increasing globalization render increasing contacts of cultures which might lead to a world culture, which is the idea that as traditional barriers among people of differing cultures break down, emphasizing the commonality of human needs, one culture will emerge, a new culture to which all people will adhere (Martin, 2011). The United States continues to welcome a large number of immigrants each year and has been referred to as a melting-pot society means a sociocultural assimilation of people of differing backgrounds and nationalities; the term implies losing ethnic differences and forming one large society or macroculture. However, many U.S. citizens want to maintain their ethnic-cultural heritage including their original culture and language such as China town in Sanfrancisco and Sydney, Thai town in Sydney. Therefore, it might become a kind of microculture where cultures exist within cultures. the United States is a salad bowl of cultures rather than a melting pot (Martin, 2011). Culture innovation refers to the discovery of new practices, inventions, tools, or concepts that may produce changes in practices and behaviors for a particular culture (Samovar, 2017) Major characteristics of culture Firstly, culture is shared. culture is a group worldview, the way of organizing the world that a particular society has created over time. This framework or web of meaning allows the members of that society to make sense of themselves, their world, and their experiences in that world (Samovar, 2017). It enables member of similar cultures to predict how other members are most likely to behave in a given circumstance, and it tells them how to react accordingly (Haviland). Secondly, culture is transmitted from generation to generation from family to society. Thirdly, culture is based on symbols such as flags, wedding rings, gestures, words, dress, objects, statues, and religious icons all have message value, which include verbal and non-verbal messages. Culture is learnt from a large variety of sources, with family, school, church, and community being the four most powerful institutions of culture. For example, from proverbs in the form of colorful, vivid language and with very few words-reflect the insights, wisdom, biases, and even superstitions of a culture, which are basic principles accepted within the culture, or from folktales, legends, and myths about the customs, traditions, and beliefs linking people to their history and root them to their past; from art such as myths, songs, dances, paintings, carvings that displaying and confirming values that members of a culture hold in common; also from media such as television, online discussions, blogs, social networks and hundreds of other outlets, people share themselves and their culture. Culture is dynamic subjected to change relating to the spread of capitalism, population growth, large movements of immigrants, the proliferation of information technology, wars, and environmental concerns. All of these cultural incursions, whether from within or without, cause both major and minor modifications to culture (Samovar, 2017) Elements of culture: World view is the way a people interpret reality and events, including their images of themselves and how they relate to the world around them. Religion help people understand the universe, natural phenomena, what to die for, and how to dwell among other people such as social control, conflict resolution, reinforcement of group solidarity, explanations of the unexplainable, and emotional support History is common culture creates a strong sense of unity and identity which also help explain contemporary perceptions held by members of those cultures. However, it is important to remember that authorities often selectively recount and mold historical stories in an effort to construct a desired public perception. The conflict among China, Japan, and Korea over different presentations of history is an example. cultural interpretation. Social organization such as institutions such as family, government, schools, tribes, and clans. Language to trasmit culture. Case study such as religion, values of individualism vs collectivism Types of cultures Subcultures or microculture are groups of people possessing characteristic traits that set apart and distinguish them from others within a larger society or microculture. For example, The U.S. microculture is white 66.07% of the population while the largest U.S. subcultures include Hispanics (or Latinos) (15.06%), African Americans (12.62%), Asians and Pacific Islanders (5.06%), and Native Americans (1.19%) (Martin, 2011) Cultural information that you are willing to share with outsiders is considered frontstage culture, while cultural information that is concealed from outsiders is considered backstage culture. Frontstage and backstage cultures vary by culture and by individuals within the culture because some people are inherently more open than others (Martin, 2011). Culture is learned through perception. Perceptions are formed in various ways: where we are born and raised, the language we learn, the people and environment with which we live, and the psychological stimuli we encounter. No two individuals view the external world the same because no two individuals receive exactly the same stimuli or share the same physical sensory receptors. Because we know only what we have personally perceived and cannot know for sure what someone else has perceived, intercultural communication involving different cultures becomes particularly difficult (Singer, 1998). Perception, the learned meaning of sensory images, may involve learning a new reaction to an old learned stimulus (Martin, 2011) Attribution, or the ability to look at social behavior from another culture's view, can cause communication problems because known experiences from your own culture are used in explaining unknown behaviors of those in another culture (Martin, 2011). Attitudes are our likes (or affinities) and dislikes (or aversions) to certain people, objects, or situations. Attitudes are rooted in our behavior and in our emotions (Weaver, 1998). Individualism refers to the attitude of valuing ourselves as separate individuals with responsibility for our own destinies and our own actions. Proponents of individualism believe that self-interest is an appropriate goal. Collectivism emphasizes common interests, conformity, cooperation, and interdependence (Martin, 2011) Ethical standards are guidelines established to convey what is perceived to be correct or incorrect behavior by most people in a society. According to Ferrell and Gardiner (1991), ethical conduct "is something judged as proper or acceptable based on some standard of right and wrong" (p. 2). According to Borden (1991), being ethical means keeping your values in balance; if you compromise your values, you are being unethical. Personal ethics or moral standards may differ from societal ethics. Your own standards of what is right and wrong may be more stringent than those of your society as a whole.

Rudyard Kipling says in the Ballad of East and West: " East is East, and West is West; and never the twain shall meet. " Yet, he never expected that with the technological development in transportation and communication, the Westerners and Easterners that have quite different cultures respectively would meet so frequently nowadays in international settings. However, in a sense, Kipling is absolutely correct in that people with different cultural patterns (including beliefs, values, attitudes, norms, customs, and material aspects), especially those from East and West, do encounter communication difficulties, breakdowns, misunderstandings and even conflicts and confrontations just because they fail to understand each other in their intercultural communication. The study of intercultural communication is not something new. However, the perspective from which the author probes into the problematic interaction between Easterners and Westerners is something different. In the paper, the author compares some major cultural patterns: high-context communication vs. low-context communication, individualism vs. collectivism, equality vs. hierarchy, and assertiveness vs. interpersonal harmony. Each of these cultural patterns is defined by examples, two opposite patterns are contrasted, and then potential problems are presented, thus making quite obvious the differences between East and West and their possible consequences in the intercultural communication. Understanding these cultural patterns or orientations which underlie most common behavior of the Easterners and Westerners helps us to see beneath the surface to find out why people from East and West act as they do. This discovery may lead us to appreciate the rich diversity and genius that exist in different parts of the globe, avoid potential intercultural problems and become successful communicators in the interaction between East and West.

Culture is defined in various ways. It is the patterns of learned and shared behavior and beliefs of a particular social, ethnic or age group (Unknown, n.d.). It is the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group (Merriam Webster, n.d.). "Most social scientists today view culture as consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies; it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways" (Banks, n.d.). "Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another" (Hofstede, n.d.). "By culture we mean all those historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and non-rational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men" (Kluckhohn, n.d.). Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art. norms of behavior, such as law and morality, and systems of belief (Boston University, n.d.). And in general, the word culture is considered as an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups (Unknown, Wikipedia, n.d.). Polytechnic University of the Philippines Intercultural Communication Every individual grew up following the culture he/she knew of. It usually depends on the group you belong to-your social, ethnic or your age group. One's culture speaks of one's identity. The views, beliefs, opinions, and the way of living of a person is greatly affected by his/her culture. More often than not, the difference in culture can cause division and conflict among groups of people. People tend to misunderstand, misjudge or misinterpret another person because he/she believes in something that's different from what he/she is used to. Intercultural communication aims to minimize if not stop the conflict among different cultures. It speaks of the importance of respect in perceiving another culture and seeing communication as the key to a more understanding society. As we all are raised differently by different people with a different set of background, understanding and respect among one another is very important in order to live in peace with the people around us. As people understand what culture is and as they begin to recognize that one's culture can be different from another, then people will begin to realize that it is possible to live in harmony with the rest of the world as long as you learn to respect the beliefs of other people without imposing yours on them. Cultural values refer to the worldview of a cultural group and its set of deeply held beliefs. They reflect the shared perception of a group of what ought to be and what not is (Unknown, SlideShare, n.d.). Language is a part of one's culture and it plays a big role in communication. Communication, on the other hand, is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed (Unknown, SlideShare, n.d.). It is necessary in order to have understanding between people, among a certain group or even across different groups. In communication, there has to be a message sent by the sender to its receiver and this has to be both ways for it to be effective, otherwise, the message may be misunderstood thus a miscommunication may occur. As people from a certain culture may be using a language that is completely different from that of another group, communication can be a barrier and it may cause major misunderstandings between or among the groups. Polytechnic University of the Philippines Intercultural Communication In communication interactions, power is usually used and it plays a very important role but is not as obvious as it seems. One of the techniques that people use to assert power in their communication interaction is the dominant communication system. In here, privileged people or the people in authority usually dominate the other. One example is when people with a higher standing in society usually impose their beliefs on the rest of the group. However, the inferior group could also resist the power of the dominant group through political and legal means or if they make use of boycotts, strikes and sit-ins. We all know that culture is a learned pattern of beliefs and it is shared by the individuals that belong to a group. The culture of one group may vary from that of the other group. This may cause conflict between or among groups but it can still be avoided or stopped through intercultural communication. As the culture of different groups vary, so are the people within every culture. Even when beliefs are shared by the people in the group, there are still other factors that could influence a person to believe something else. And the beliefs or values of a person and whether he/she will stick to what he/she used to believe in or not is a choice every individual can make. As we all know, there is no identical individual and with this, cultural struggles within a culture may still occur. Thus, culture can be a contested zone or site of struggle.

Psicothema, 2000

The re s p e c t ive influence of social stru c t u re and culture in the det e rminants of social behavior is a classical deb at e. Social stru c t u re is conceived of as a set of social re l ations, such as economy, powe r and status. Social stru c t u re is a persisting and bounded pat t e rn of in-Conceptions of culture, collective memory, ethnic identity and cultural explanations are reviewed and criticized. Subjective culture is conceived off as shared denotative, connotative and pragmatic knowledge. Culture is conceptualized as fluid tension systems in which there is a coexistence of heterogeneous and contradictory aspects. Cultural values designed what is desirable in societies and are related to five basic themes of social coordination, like the relation with authority; the relationship between the person and society; the concept of masculinity and femininity, conflicts and their resolution and the conception of time. Cultural explanations posits that a social behavior in accord with a widely shared moral attitude occurs in spite the situation may offer different opportunities. A cultural explanation should be tested against situational and socio-structural explanations. Direct assessment of the norm and values are necessary to avoid tautological reasoning in cultural explanations. Culture is also a set of regular situational contingencies or collective and practices and subjects learn to define situations and practices in cultural perspective. A cultural explanation should pit «desirable institutional arrangements» against non-volitional situational contingencies or socio-structural characteristics that are the effects of non desired historical changes. Culturalist explanation assume that culture arise in an dependent manner of situational forces, like peasantry life style and the representations of limited good, social life in slums and culture of poverty, or herding economies, state weakness and dominance of cavalry as social career and honour culture. Nonobstant values and norms have a life apart from the situations and endure beyond the demise of original situations, as shows the culture of honour case. However, most of data on culture and socioeconomic development shows that individualism and protestant work ethic's (PWE) beliefs are a result and not a cause of economical growth. Contrary to Weber's ideas the PWE were more strongly endorsed in poorer, collectivistic and high power distance societies. Finally, some data suggest that culture can act as independent variable, like is the case of social capital and economic development.

Pakistan Journal of International Affairs

Pakistan is among the poor and over populated countries having abundance of natural resources and geographical prominence. It also has a multi-cultural society that comprises of different sub-cultures. After more than seven decades of independence, it has not been able to establish a coherent and composed social system yet, tangled with fragmented, mobile and materialistic society. Pakistan’s economy is primarily based on agriculture, gradually progressing towards industrialization and urbanization. The urban modes of living have also been widespread across the country. Traditional culture has been over saturated but the new one is struggling to takeover, therefore ideological divisions and moral uncertainty penetrates through the roots of its foundation. Pakistani society is divided and diverse, poor but in a process of transition. Therefore, the study aims to identify and examine the motives of uncertain and assorted elements of Pakistani culture which cause hurdles in the process...