Critical Reflection: Cultural Self-Awareness & Intelligence in CUC107

This essay critically reflects on the importance of cultural self-awareness in developing cultural intelligence, drawing on concepts from Sociology 1. The essay begins by defining cultural self-awareness and cultural intelligence, and then explores their interconnectedness. The author discusses how understanding one's own cultural values and beliefs is essential for effectively interacting with people from diverse backgrounds. The essay highlights the significance of cultural awareness in the workplace to avoid conflicts and foster teamwork. It explains how cultural intelligence allows individuals to succeed in a global environment by making informed decisions. The author uses personal experiences to illustrate the challenges and rewards of navigating cultural differences and emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and adaptation. The essay concludes by reinforcing the crucial role of cultural self-awareness as the foundation for building cultural intelligence, leading to improved communication and understanding in everyday life. The essay also references various scholarly articles to support the arguments.

Sociology

1 | P a g e
Culture differs from one society to another it is separated by the caste, religion and
gender. It is important for people to have cultural awareness so that a bond can be built
between people of different culture. Understanding the cultural values and beliefs of others
help in establishing easy communication. It is necessary for the growth of an individual to
learn and uphold the values of other culture. A child that is born in third culture always has a
large scope of knowledge that could help in attuning according to the social surrounding. For
example a child from an Indian family living in America will have the greater knowledge
about both the cultures when compared with children from two different cultures (Russell,
2011). Culture awareness is important in workplace so that no conflicts take place between
team members (Russell, 2011). It contributes in understanding the ideas of other culture and
maintains easy communication so that team work increases.
On the other hand, culture intelligence allows a person to be successful in a global
environment. Cultural intelligence is important for leaders in an organisation as they allow
making decisions by understanding the philosophy of other culture (Thomas, et. al, 2015).
Apart from that, cultural intelligence plays an important role in daily life. It can be done by
having a brief knowledge of one culture so that they can deliver effective leadership
capability of other people. It is a step by step process, in which first step is ruminating about
the culture, second is being motivated about the culture and then performing the behaviour
accordingly. Cultural intelligence is most often referred to success of people in adjusting to
some other culture for examples when I go from India to China if I am able to learn their
culture easily then if have higher cultural intelligence. Apart from this cultural intelligence
also deals with behaviour that is understood to be as the intelligent in different culture. For
instance older people teach their new generation some cultural behaviour that makes them
more respected (Brislin, Worthley & Macnab, 2006).

2 | P a g e
Cultural self-awareness develops understanding of ones values and beliefs. For
example, the culture is differentiated by their customs and beliefs. The difference in beliefs
has split the culture across the globe. The customs of one religion differs from individual to
other. I practise Hinduism as my religion in with every individual hold each other as sisters
and brothers. My religion helped in trusting the dignity and respect of other (Miriam, Alon,
Raveh, Ella, Rikki, & Efrat, 2013). Practising the customs of my culture I believed that I
should understand other cultures aloe so that I become self-aware of other customs too. I
understood the situation of other religion so that circumstances could be understood and steps
could be taken accordingly. Gaining cultural self-awareness builds regularity and novelty
(Russell, 2011). It helps in knowing the uniqueness of each religion.
Apart from that, gaining the information about other cultures helps in developing the
behaviours and capability to solve the problem in an effective way. It supports the individual
to build cultural intelligent. Once the culture is upright it helps in understanding other
cultures too. It helps in having easy communication between people by avoiding the chances
of miscommunication (Ramsey, AbiAad, Jiang, Barakat & Drummond, 2016). There is
always a need of high moral standards so that interaction can be maintained easily. The core
reason of self-awareness is cultural intelligence that facilities interaction in normal life. For
example there are people in different parts of the world who do not go abroad in the fear of
cultural shock or say they believe that the difference might affect their well-being (Flanja,
2009).
Culture Awareness play an important role in everyday life of an individual as it helps
in understanding positive values and principals of one culture. From the research it was found
that there are various cultural conflicts that take place at the workplace. These issues arise
due to lack of awareness about the customs and religion. Cultural intelligence helps in
resolving cultural issues at workplace and even in society (Miriam, Alon, Raveh, Ella,

3 | P a g e
Rikki, & Efrat, 2013). Cultural awareness becomes the base of communication especially in
times when we have to interact with the person belonging to other culture. For example if a
man from America when to China and he has the knowledge of Chinese language, it would
be easier for him to interact with people in China. This is also necessary in terms of the fact
that behaviour in one community can be inappropriate in other community (Quappe &
Cantatore, 2005).
To gain cultural intelligence self-awareness is the first step. The tag of culture is
added to the identity from the day we are born as it is pre decided by the family background.
The culture also differs from one country to other. If considering a case the custom of china
differs in many ways with the western culture. The eating habits, the talking and
communication habits and the lifestyle are completely different. Thus, it is important to
become aware and learn about other customs.
The self-awareness about the culture is important as they help an individual to learn
about their behaviour and their concepts. It helps an individual of differ culture to easily
exchange their ideas. If the culture is understood it can lead to misconception at time of
understanding new things.
According to the (Ang, Rockstuhl & Tan, 2015), he states that cultural intelligence
and cultural awareness are related to each other and it plays a significant role. Cultural
intelligence can be built by sharing the ideas of one culture to another. It also bound them in
social activities that increase the interaction among themselves. From my personal experience
I can say that a have many friends from China. I faced many difficulties at the starting when
we use to go out for a lunch/dinner it was difficult to decide an order. The taste and eating
habits completely differ from one culture to another. Apart from that there communication
habits also differ as they were very polite and patient while talking. It was my self-awareness

4 | P a g e
about their culture that made things quiet easy. After a while, the awareness of my friend’s
culture helps in to adjust with them easily. Before individual go outside for the purpose of
study or become a volunteer, they might have not passed through the stage of stress and thus
they also not need of depth of cultural intelligence to help them for their survival in the
community (Magnusson, Westjohn, Semenov, Randrianasolo &Zdravkovic, 2013).
Culture intelligence can be defined as a process of analysing the behaviour and then
adjusting accordingly. Cultural intelligence is necessary to adjust time after time. It can also
be said that individual cultural intelligence is increased with practice, experience and positive
behaviour towards lifetime learning’s (Gaia, 2015).
I believe that cultural intelligence can be built by creating self-awareness. I have
added my personal experience that relates with the progress of cultural intelligence. Cultural
self-awareness has a significant influence on culture intelligence. Since people need to
improve their cultural intelligence if they want to improve their quality of life. Cultural self-
awareness is important to know about other culture.

5 | P a g e
References
Ang, S., Rockstuhl, T., & Tan, M. L. (2015). Cultural intelligence and
competencies. International encyclopedia of social and behavioral sciences, 2(1),
433-439.
Brislin, R., Worthley, R., & Macnab, B. (2006). Cultural intelligence: Understanding
behaviors that serve people’s goals. Group & Organization Management, 31(1), 40-
55.
Flanja, D. (2009). Culture shock in intercultural communication. Studia Universitatis Babes-
Bolyai. Studia Europaea, 54(4), 107.
Gaia, A. C. (2015). Short-term faculty-led study abroad programs enhance cultural exchange
and self-awareness. International Education Journal: Comparative
Perspectives, 14(1), 21-31.
Magnusson, P., Westjohn, S. A., Semenov, A. V., Randrianasolo, A. A., &Zdravkovic, S.
(2013). The Role of Cultural Intelligence in Marketing Adaptation and Export
Performance. Journal Of International Marketing, 21(4), 44-61.
Miriam, E., Alon, L., Raveh, H., Ella, G., Rikki, N., &Efrat, S. (2013). Going Global:
Developing Management Students' Cultural Intelligence and Global Identity in
Culturally Diverse Virtual Teams. Academy Of Management Learning & Education,
12(3), 330-355. doi:10.5465/amle.2012.0200
Quappe, S., & Cantatore, G. (2005). What is Cultural Awareness, anyway? How do I build it.
Retrieved July, 17, 2008.
Ramsey, J. R., AbiAad, A., Jiang, C., Barakat, L., & Drummond, V. (2016). Emergence of
cultural intelligence and global mindset capital: a multilevel model. Multinational
Business Review (Emerald Group Publishing Limited), 24(2), 106.
Russell, K. M. (2011). Growing Up A Third Culture Kid. Human Architecture: Journal of the
Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 9(1).

6 | P a g e
Thomas, D. C., Liao, Y., Aycan, Z., Cerdin, J. L., Pekerti, A. A., Ravlin, E. C., ... & Moeller,
M. (2015). Cultural intelligence: A theory-based, short form measure. Journal of
International Business Studies, 46(9), 1099-1118.
Wang, Q. (2016). Remembering the self in cultural contexts: A cultural dynamic theory of
autobiographical memory. Memory Studies, 9(3), 295-304.