CAPS #6

The intercultural relationship that I decided to talk about is the relationship I have with my brother.  I chose to do this relationship because we are very close, but sometimes it is hard to understand each other because we are different sexes.  Because we are different sexes, this shows how our relationship is intercultural.

The benefits that I get from this intercultural relationship go with the benefits that are mentioned in the book which are acquiring knowledge, breaking stereotypes and acquiring new skills (Martin & Nakayama, p. 391). The first benefit, acquiring knowledge, is that I learn more about males by the way he talks and acts.  Another benefit that I get from this relationship is that it breaks the stereotype that some people have about males.  For example, some people think that all boys care about is sports and sex.  My relationship with my brother breaks this stereotype completely because we talk about politics, religion, and many other things that have nothing to do with either of those topics.  The last benefit that I have gotten from this intercultural relationship is that it helps me acquire new skills.  He has taught me a lot of things that I wouldn’t have known how to do if it weren’t for him such as playing poker, throwing a football, and how to relate to boys in certain ways.

One of the challenges that our intercultural relationship faces is that he treats me like a boy sometimes.  For example, he will say something mean as a joke, but I take it to heart.  If this were any of his guy friends, they would just laugh and not care about the mean comment, but because we are different sexes this makes things difficult.  Another challenge that our relationship faces is that we do different activities for fun.  For example, he likes to work out and play sports, but I like to just relax and hang out with friends. 

A dialectic that explains our relationship pretty well is the differences-similarities dialectic.  This explains our relationship because we are very similar because we grew up in the same household and have some of the same genes so this helps us to get along.  We also have the same beliefs which provides us with cognitive consistency (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 398).  The differences part of this dialectic comes into play because of our different sexes.  We find each other intriguing because we aren’t a part of the other person’s culture.

Another dialectic that explains our relationship is the privilege-disadvantage dialectic.  This explains our relationship because since my brother is older than me and also a male, he might seem himself as being in a more powerful position.  This would make him privileged and me at a disadvantage.

All relationships have benefits and challenges, especially intercultural relationships.  I think it’s important to find these benefits and challenges to see how to improve relationships.  Moving forward, I hope to talk with my brother about some of the challenges we face so that we can improve the relationship we have.

References

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.