Going deeper on the thoughts by Lewis and his categories mentioned in my blog post from Thursday 20th of September. First our teacher tested if we learned anything from yesterdays lessons by dividing us in half and letting us tell things we remembered from yesterday. After that we started to talk about more on the topic and my teacher draw a pyramid related to it. From top to bottom, there were three things: personality, national level and human level.
After awhile, we watched a video about the categories and learned that there is a site we could pay to learn more about where we as individuals would belong. As told yesterday and said again today, most of us are hybrids. One characteristic in these categories is trust. Linear-active people trust in institutions, multi-active cultures trust in-group intimates and reactive people trust in reciprocity, schoolmates.
Further on we did a test to see whether we belong to high or low context on this website about Context of Cultures. The difference between my scores was only one point. My teacher wasn't surprised that us Finns would mainly be in the middle. She also gave us a new point of view on that, which implied that if you are neither high or low context, you could be turning a blind eye to some situations.
Digging deeper on ourselves, we completed yet another self evaluation considering our communication styles and individual characteristics. We were given some options from where to choose, e.g. are you direct or diplomatic, formal or informal, head or heart. We were often told not to think the questions too hard, but quite often it was almost impossible to ignore all the possible answers. If nothing, that was one thing to learn on the course: listen to your intuition.
From these few examples, I would say I am both direct and diplomatic, maybe more formal than informal - also depending who I am with -, and definitely rather head than heart, even though I do have some "heart" characteristics.
I guess this also shows in my communication style too. Some might even call it "tough love" when you tell things straight and honest. You are thinking that in the end it will be for the best of someone else, but they might not see that right at that moment.
I was also comparing my communication, or rather the Finnish communication, with for example Asian and American cultures and their communication style. I know that Asians are more likely to listen politely and never interrupt anyone. Then again Americans are very much the opposite, talking on top of each other. Americans also like to be loud and heard by everyone, us Finns are pretty much fine with smaller audience and I think so are many of the Asian cultures too.
It's good to learn about other cultures and their communication style to avoid possible communication mishaps. In general, I think you can get through all the communication problems with explaining more, getting to know the person and making sure the other person understands what you mean.
I guess this also shows in my communication style too. Some might even call it "tough love" when you tell things straight and honest. You are thinking that in the end it will be for the best of someone else, but they might not see that right at that moment.
I was also comparing my communication, or rather the Finnish communication, with for example Asian and American cultures and their communication style. I know that Asians are more likely to listen politely and never interrupt anyone. Then again Americans are very much the opposite, talking on top of each other. Americans also like to be loud and heard by everyone, us Finns are pretty much fine with smaller audience and I think so are many of the Asian cultures too.
It's good to learn about other cultures and their communication style to avoid possible communication mishaps. In general, I think you can get through all the communication problems with explaining more, getting to know the person and making sure the other person understands what you mean.
Context of Cultures: High and Low. Accessed [2018-09-21]. Available:
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