Abstract
The main aim of this study is to examine the effects of multicultural experience on an individual. Multicultural experience shapes people’s opinions and behaviors. They help people to acquire new ideas and appreciate other people’s cultures and traditions.
Multicultural experience can be both positive and negative depending on the type of influence it exerts on an individual. The study also explores the effects of social group discussions on an individual and the researcher’s real-life intercultural experience.
Introduction
Globalization has increased the level of intercultural contacts and the subsequent prospects of acquiring multicultural experience (Langer, 2000). The reaction of people to globalization has been both varied and polarized.
Critics have argued that globalization threatens the viability of local values, cultures and undermines individuals’ sense of identification with his/her community.
On the other hand, proponents believe that globalization has enriched people’s mind, removed social obstacles, and even strengthened the spread of human rights and democracy. Others have commented that multicultural experiences improve people’s creativity (Chiu & Cheng, 2007).
Some studies have shown that intercultural experience can easily be frustrated when the situation highlights the need for firm answers or when people experience threaten their existence, making them conform more rigidly to their original ideas and cultural practices.
These individuals may even view the new ideas and practices not as a source of motivation, but as contamination to their original cultures (Chiu &Cheng, 2007).
Subjects related to the cultural and psychological outcome of multicultural experience have been a consistent topic among many global academic and public forums.
The effects of multicultural experience on creativity and psychological resistance to foreign cultures have formed the major subjects in these forums (Chiu, 2008).
Effects of social group discussion on an individual
According to numerous studies carried out around the world, group discussions have been found to have a significant effect on individual decisions and opinions.
The methods by which these social gatherings exert influence on an individual during discussion have been a subject of interest for a long period, with two methods being the most dominant in the social arena.
The first method is the normative influence which is based upon the desire to conform to societal expectation.
The shift in judgment is assumed to be an outcome of exposure to other people’s ideas/preferences and from the consequent adherence to the norms that are inherent to the preferences (Kaplan & Miller, 1987).
The second method is an informational influence, which is based upon the approval of the information received from others in the discussion as proof to the reality.
The shift in judgment is attributed to the sharing of pertinent arguments and true-life information about a particular subject in question.
These two methods of influence have been of major concern especially in evaluating the impact of social groups on individual opinions.
During group discussions, both group’s judgment and individual preference are often inclined in the same direction just as an average individual’s pre-discussion preference. In a matter of fact, group polarization is not an unavoidable consequence of discussion (Chiu, 2008).
Transforming toward more reasonable position may at the time not take place, and at other time, there may be no change at all.
Research on the advantages of normative and informational influence without any exception has attempted to establish which of the two methods gives the real explanation.
For instance, some studies found that the content of the discussion is not significant and the shift in people’s judgment and behavior is as a result of other people’s preference.
Other studies posited that the predominance and spread of arguments completely predict the changes (Kaplan & Miller, 1987).
Researches have also shown that informational influence, in general, produces more often and powerful shifts than normative influence. However, normative and informational influence operates on individual members at a different level.
Normative influence is concerned with a social group and the individuals in it, while informational influence is concerned about how to get at the right conclusion or solution. According to Kaplan & Miller (1987), many of the issues on which social groups make a decision can be traced along a scale.
At one end of the scale are intellectual issues, for which there are, or are regarded to be expressible right. At the other end of the scale are judgmental issues, which entail behavioral, moral, or artistic judgments for which there are no expressible accurate answers (Kaplan & Miller, 1987).
For intellectual subjects, the social group’s duty is to find out the right and accurate answers, whereas, for judgmental subjects, the social group’s duty is to find out ethical, valued, appropriate, or likable position.
For judgmental items, the social groups are apprehensive not so much with looking or determining the correct answer (as with the intellectual subjects) but with which action to take in case the right solution is not reached at and there are no rational criteria for finding one.
For judgmental subjects, the correct answer is realized by arriving at a consensus. The difference between intellectual and judgmental questions does not mean that rational subjects entail no judgmental element, but no appeal for agreement (Chiu & Cheng, 2007).
Many psychological and social studies show that all knowledge rests on an inherent social consensus about the rational and epistemological foundation of that knowledge.
Nor does the difference between the intellectual and judgmental subjects imply that judgmental subjects entail no mental element, no regard for facts and accurate answers. Somewhat it means that in judgmental matters the information alone does not establish the choice of an alternative.
The favorite alternative depends not on the assembling of the facts and finding out the truth but on the declaration of preference and the attainment of consensus (Kaplan & Miller, 1987).
Many people believe that the type of subject about which a social gathering or a group decides to shapes the mode of influence that an individual assume. Informational power (based on facts or reality) predominates when the subject is intellectual or meant to achieve an accurate answer.
On the other hand, normative influence predominates when the item is judgmental or concerned with reaching a consensus (Kaplan & Miller, 1987).
Intellectual matters necessitate the use of facts and relevant information and provision of the means of establishing the accuracy of one position as opposed to another (Chiu &Cheng, 2007).
Judgmental subjects for whom an accurate answer cannot be achieved, facts and information become less significant, and decisions are sustained by social values and consensus of choice. Shared values represent common expectation about a particular subject or person.
Researchers have pointed out that putting more pressure to conform to such values is one means of achieving consensus and ascertaining social reality, given a lack of feasible accurate answer (Kaplan & Miller, 1987).
Many studies have established that social groupings have more difficulty in reaching a common decision than majority decisions.
However, this raises some questions such as whether individual members of a group will share information more fully if the decision made is unanimous; or whether the information will finally be exhausted and the individual members resort to plain declarations of choices, known in other words as normative pressure.
The answer to this type of questions depends on the category of the subject on which the decision is to be sought and that the rule on decision controls the effects of subject type on the method of influence that is attempted (Chiu &Cheng, 2007).
Real life Intercultural experience
On September 5th, 2007 when I was seated at a far end corner in a restaurant, I heard two neighboring strangers arguing about the HIV prevalence in Africa.
One of the two customers, who was a young woman approaching 30, ignorantly attributed the rapid spread to African primitive cultures such as polygamous marriage, while her partner who was a man in the mid ’30s, attributed the spread of HIV in Africa to traditional cultural practices such as right of passage which includes both male and female circumcision using rudimentary tools.
Having been in Africa with the first-hand information regarding African affairs, I was drawn into their conversation. I explained to them that the spread of HIV in Africa is as a result of numerous challenges some of them being poverty, politics and to a small extent cultural practice.
We argued on the impact of polygamy on the spread of HIV, and I gave examples of some of the Arab countries like Saudi Arabia whose populace practice polygamy but have the least cases of HIV infections.
This is partly attributed to strict Islamic laws that govern polygamous marriage which is lacking in Africa.
From the discussion, I realized that the two strangers had acquired most of their information on the subject of HIV in Africa from social discussions and debates. Therefore, the two lacked real facts and information on the ground to back their argument.
From the discussion, I established that many people still have little information on HIV and Aids even in the developed countries, which despite the massive ads and campaigns are still ignorant.
Therefore, these countries need to increase their awareness level and provide more information to their citizens.
Our discussion was both intellectual and judgmental. Intellectual on the basis that we were trying to establish the reason why HIV is more prevalent in Africa pointing out some of the relevant facts from the recent research works, while at the same time it was judgmental since we tried to reach a consensus but in vain.
Our discussion also made me realize how weighty the subject of HIV and Aids was and that the society in the western countries had an uphill task to curb the spread of this disease.
This came as a result of some of the statistics that the two strangers gave me regarding the increased rate of infection in the developed countries.
The discussion also played an important role in shaping my moral behavior as I came to understand that HIV and Aids are real even in the west. People are supposed to be very vigilant in their efforts to curb the spread of this scourge.
Conclusion
Multicultural experience expands people’s ideas and creativity. From these experiences, individuals get to learn new ideas and other peoples’ cultures thus help them appreciate each other. Multicultural experience entails both intellectual and judgmental discussions.
Intellectual subjects necessitate the use of facts and accurate information to reach a correct answer, while judgmental subjects in most cases do not rely on facts and information and answers are arrived at through consensus.
Social or group discussions have considerably influenced other peoples’ decisions and opinion.
References
Chiu, C. (2008). Multicultural psychology. In D. Matsumoto (Ed.), Dictionary of psychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UniversityPress.
Chiu, C., & Cheng, S. Y. (2007). Toward a social psychology of culture and globalization: Some social cognitive consequences of activating two cultures simultaneously. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1, 84–100.
Kaplan, M.F., & Miller, C.E. (1987). Group Decision Making and Normative Versus Informational Influence: Effects of Type of Issue and Assigned Decision Rule. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(2), 306-313
Langer, E. (2000). Mindful learning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 220–223.