International Faux Pas

International Faux Pas
Students Name
Name of the Institution
Supervisor’s Name
Date
International Faux Pas
Faux Pas is a blunder or a slip in manners, etiquette, or personal conduct leading to an embarrassing social situation. In international setting, faux pas is a socially awkward or tactless act that violates the accepted social norm, custom and other rules of etiquette. This is because each society has a culture that controls our way of thinking, feeling, and the way that we behave or act. This is something that we learn during our lifetime. Such feeling and acting are at times referred to as mental programs. These mental programs are most often transferred from one generation to the other. It lies within our social environments that we have grown up and our personal experiences (Gooden, 2005).
Cultural differences begin from the family and is extended to the neighbourhood, to our school and other groups during our youth and adult life. Culture is about building on or cultivating what is present to us. Different countries and communities carry their own culture and it has some aspects that can be visible to others while most of it remains to be visible among our communities alone. This is where the issue of faux pas comes in, when one fails to recognize the difference between one’s culture and that of the other community (Moran, Harris, & Moran, 2011).
As a person, one of the behaviors that I have observed that is inappropriate to other culture in the United States is the culture of individualism. Individualism is form of culture where people identify themselves as individuals. This is different from the culture of collectivism where people are portrayed by a tight social framework. In collectivism, people will only differentiate their groups with other groups. This means that in a culture of collectivism, people will require to be in groups in order to protect their members and give them security ...