What Is a US American? Part Two
Work Relations and Social Relations
It is common for Americans to make a distinction between friends in their work or professional world and friends in their social world. Although Americans are friendly with their colleagues, they usually do not develop deeper relationships with them outside the office. Americans also tend to be rather formal with customers, clients, and professional colleagues. In a meeting for example, they may exchange brief greetings with each other but then want to concentrate immediately on the business at hand. Therefore they may have difficulties functioning in cultures where you must cultivate a social relationship with someone first before they can transact business. It can be frustrating for Americans to have to develop a social relationship over some period of time before talking about more serious matters.
Egalitarianism
Although there are many differences in social, economic, and educational levels, a notion of equality runs through social relationships in the United States. Because Americans emphasize individual merit rather than a fixed social position and believe that anyone with industry can achieve and succeed in life, they tend not to recognize certain social differences when interacting with each other. For example, Americans do not often show deference to people of greater wealth, greater age, or higher social status. Visitors from other cultures who hold high positions sometimes feel that Americans do not treat them with proper respect and deference. On the other hand, when visiting other countries Americans may find it confusing to be treated as someone of a distinctly higher or lower status because of the way people in that culture perceive them. In the U.S., there is generally an attempt to equalize the relationship between two people and to avoid calling attention to rank and authority. Americans call each other by their first names much sooner and more often than people in most other countries. In the U.S., people are seen as having equal rights, equal social obligations, and equal opportunities to develop their own potential, even though in reality things are not always so equal.
Prejudice
There exists in all societies people with rigid, preconceived notions about other people, ideas, or customs different from their own; the U.S. is no exception. One of the most serious of these attitudes is racial prejudice, or racism. Many international students coming to the U.S. are shocked to find racism in many places and situations. Even though they may have read about cases of racism in the U.S., they are still dismayed when they experience it for themselves. Some Americans recognize that racial prejudice is a problem in the U.S., but progress in changing attitudes is, unfortunately, slow.
Role of Women
There is a strong feminist movement in the U.S. which aims to ensure that women have responsibilities and opportunities equal to those that men have. Although there are still many aspects of society in which women have not yet achieved this equality, women play a fairly public and visible role in this country and have more responsibility and authority than they do in many other countries. At the same time, some people may find that American society is more sexist than their own in certain respects. You may find that the dress and behavior of women here are quite different from those in your country. Some male international students have difficulty adjusting to circumstances in which a woman is in a position of authority because such situations do not occur in their own country. They need to be sensitive to this difference in women's roles. What some people consider the "proper" role for women is considered by others to reflect sexism or male chauvinism.
Problem-Solving
Because Americans feel that they can and should control their own environment, they also feel that any problem can be analyzed, discussed, and eventually solved. In some societies people can think of a national problem in terms of a hundred or more years. Americans do not think in such a long-range fashion. They want to solve problems as quickly as possible, and they have difficulty accepting the idea that some problems may not have solutions.
This approach to problems sometimes leads to confrontations that are shocking to people from other cultures. When faced with a problem, Americans like to get the facts, talk to the necessary people, and make some plan of action. If the problem is interpersonal-a problem between two people-an American is likely to talk directly to the other person about the issue, in an effort to reach an understanding. If the two people involved cannot solve the problem, they may go to a third person such as a counselor, adviser or mutual friend, who can act as an arbitrator. The idea is still to confront the situation directly and try to solve the interpersonal problem. This direct approach to people sometimes leads to difficulties for Americans when dealing with people who come from cultures where such directness is considered offensive or insulting.