Hi, I'm Julie Tietz, and welcome to Conflict Resolution-- Putting the Pieces Together. Today, we're going to talk about addressing cultural worldview differences in cross-cultural conflicts.
Let's start off by defining a couple of terms here. Culture is defined as a group of people, so human, social, organization. And the people within a culture identify themselves as a member of the specific group. And the group shares norms, traditions, and viewpoints about the world. And these are mutually agreed upon by the specific group or culture.
And a worldview is how the person interprets and makes decisions about their specific environment or world. And this includes beliefs or assumptions about what they believe to be right or normal. For most people, it is really unlikely that they will attribute their perceptions-- so what they see as right about the world-- and relate it to their cultural worldview.
So they believe that their beliefs are universally right or true. So everyone holds the same beliefs or perceptions. And they don't necessarily attribute it to their cultural worldview, unless there is some specific training involved where they realize or know that their specific cultural worldview is pertained to themselves and that there are other cultures that may have different worldviews that aren't necessarily in line with their own.
And the best way to really understand that there are different cultural worldviews and to become fluent in a specific culture that is not their own, it takes years of immersion and participation within that specific culture. And we can call this cultural competency. And when we are culturally competent, we have the ability to recognize that different worldviews could be or might be an issue within a conflict and conflict resolution processes.
Again, a part of being culturally competent allows a person or individual to recognize that the specific worldview could have an influence on the conflict, and understand that the differences in between these worldviews can interfere with mutual understanding. And in a conflict resolution process or a conflict, there are ways that we can raise these differences effectively and ineffectively.
A great way to raise these differences effectively is to ask clarifying questions. So we're going to make sure that we are coming from a place of curiosity and really wanting to understand the other person's worldview. So we're going to ask clarifying questions. And also we're going to avoid stereotyping and blaming.
So we're not going to ask the other person to justify their cultural worldviews or their norms. And we're not going to stereotype them and generalize their specific culture, or blame them that their norms are wrong or that it's the reason why we are having a conflict.
And in asking these clarifying questions and avoiding stereotyping and blaming, we can have an open discussion on our differences. And when we do that, we are again coming from a place of curiosity and wanting to reach mutual understanding. And this allows for the parties to feel comfortable and more open in having that cultural dialogue.
And also in having this open discussion, we can relieve some of that pressure that the parties may have. And having differences and worldviews can make it really hard for people to understand each other. So if a person comes from a culture that is more collectivist and really looks at the whole group as important, it may be hard for them to really push their individual interests. And so recognizing that worldview difference, we can better understand and hopefully come to some mutual understanding upon those worldviews and really dig down and find what the interests are and come to a conclusion or an agreement upon how to resolve the conflict at hand.
So let's go to key points here on addressing worldview differences in cross-cultural conflict. We need to know that unless there is specific training, people are unlikely to attribute their perceptions about the world to their specific culture. And rather, they believe that their beliefs are universal and that everyone must also believe the same things are right and true.
And in order to become culturally competent and fluent, it really requires participation and immersion in a culture that takes a significant amount of years. And when we are culturally competent, we recognize that cultural worldviews might have an influence on specific conflict.
And there are effective and ineffective ways to address differing worldviews and conflict. So we talked about asking clarifying questions as an effective way to address this, as well as avoiding blaming and stereotyping as ineffective ways to address differing worldviews.
Here are your key terms before we go. Feel free to pause and look at them a little bit closer.
Thank you so much for taking the time out to view this. I hope that you've learned something. And I can't wait to catch you again next time.