Essay on the Influence of Culture on Conflict

Culture has been considered as a fundamental part of both conflict, and also the conflict resolution as well. Culture can also be described as a foundation for each of us in performing our behavior in our lives and relationship with others. Despite the fact that culture has been viewed as a powerful thing, but many times, culture is an insentient thing that able to influence conflict, Not only that, it even has the capability to influence the efforts to resolve the conflict itself in unnoticeable ways (Cronin & Mandich, 2015). The reason is obvious, the world is filled with a variety of different cultures which each of them has its own norms, beliefs, and also characteristics.

Examples of Culture Influences Conflicts

Culture has been inserted in every single conflict with a strong reason which mentioned that conflicts emerge in human relationships. In fact, culture has always being a factor in a conflict, no matter the influence made by culture is quite gently or strong. For each conflict that contacts humans, there is always an element of culture in which we create the meaning and keep our identities. For example, we can view a conflict between Pakistan and India regarding Kashmir that has been famous nowadays. This conflict is not only around boundary, territorial, or any dominance issues. Instead, the conflict in Kashmir is also included about symbol, acknowledgment, and legitimization of diverse characteristics, different cultures, and ways of living. A simple example we can take is from the culture which presented in different non-verbal languages for each country. For instance, in some Western and European countries, hugging is one of the common ways that people normally do to greet others, whether boys or girls. However, some Asian countries restrict this greeting method and limit this hugging only for people who belong to the same gender, means boy with boy, or girl with girl. They do not allow a boy and a girl to hug each other as a greeting method. This might trigger a conflict is there is no knowledge and understanding between these different cultures since in Asian, hug as a type of greeting if performed by a boy and a girl, then it is definitely against their cultural norm (Fry, Bj”rkqvist, & Bjorkqvist, 2013).

There are many examples we can take that approved that culture influences the conflicts. For instance, the conflicts between the parents and their teenagers formed by the generation culture, or the conflicts in the workplace due to different cultures of the workers, which able to create tense or inappropriate communication, and even hassled up the relationships. Thus, culture infiltrates conflict, no matter in which situation it belongs to. Most of time, culture even forces conflict with intensity.

Understand Culture Influences Conflicts

Even though culture is not the actual cause of conflict, but culture is tangled with the conflicts. Every time there are different shells in communities, organizations, or even families, then culture will always exist, forming out the different ideas, different attitudes or behaviors, and ultimately will lead to different outcomes. Some psychologists have reserved various methods for modelling how culture has the capability to influence the ways people negotiate this relational conflict. The most common method has come up as the approach of seeking the cultural characteristics, general, the steady value-orientations that anticipate an assortment of culturally standard behaviors of conflict resolution. Although culture is tangle with the conflict itself, these various methods in conflict resolution have minimized the cultural issues along with its influences. Those experts have also stated that understanding culture and bring the fluency of culture to the conflicts will support people to create further deliberate and adaptive selections (Wyer, Chiu, & Hong, 2009). 

 References of The Influence of Culture on Conflict

Cronin, A., & Mandich, M. B. (2015). Human Development and Performance Throughout the Lifespan. Cengage Learning.

Fry, D. P., Bj”rkqvist, K., & Bjorkqvist, K. (2013). Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution: Alternatives To Violence. Psychology Press.

Wyer, R. S., Chiu, C.-y., & Hong, Y.-y. (2009). Understanding Culture: Theory, Research, and Application. Psychology Press.