每一天世界上来自不同文化背景的人们都在互动着。人们对彼此不同文化习俗的了解更加深入，对这种相互联系的关系也理解的更深了。在每种文化内部，都存在着一些“可以做”和“不能做”的规范，这些规则镶嵌进了个体文化之中。如果我们能够对文化互相产生冲突的情景做出进一步观察，我们肯定能发现，每种特定的文化对这个社会特定的元素都有自己的感知角度。
我们常常遇到跨文化交流中的冲突问题，牵涉其中的某一个人或者是所有人，都感到震惊或是感觉自己被冒犯。光在美国这一个国家，这样的冲突就数不胜数。如果我们想要与不同文化背景的人们顺利的进行交流，就一定要力图避免冲突。本文主要对美国文化习俗和其他国家的文化习俗进行对比研究。
劳瑞拉▪德雷瑟例举了各种各样的文化种类，既有美国本土的，也有其他国家的，并这些文化如何相互联系进行了分析与对比。在研究最初，她举出的例子是美国记者在阿尔巴尼亚遭遇的“邂逅”文化冲击。美国人认为”yes”代表同意，”no”代表反对，但是在阿尔巴尼亚，点头意味着反对，摇头意味着认同。
Everyday across the world people of various cultures are interacting with each other. People are getting to know more about each other and about their different customs and how they relate to each other. With every culture there are the dos and don ts embedded in the individual cultures. If we closely look at instances in which these cultures conflicted with each other we are bound to know more about how a certain culture perceives certain elements in society.
Everyday there are cross-cultural mishaps in which either one or all of the people involved are either shocked or offended. In America alone these mishaps are numerous and should be avoided if at all interactions between people from different cultures are to all communicate smoothly. This paper thus seeks to review the American cultures and customs with comparisons being made with those from other countries.
The main basis of study for this paper is Norrine Dresser s book, Multicultural manners: essential rules of etiquette for the 21st century. This paper analyses Dresser s views on cross-cultural interactions and mishaps and seeks to make comparisons on her views of American culture with those of others.
Norrine Dresser illustrates various cultures both American and non-American and gives insights and comparisons into how these cultures are related to each other. She starts by giving an illustration of American reporters confusing cross-cultural encounter in Albania. She mentions that as Americans they assumed the yes/no agreement and took it to mean the same way as their culture. However this should not have been the case. She says that in Albania the nodding of the head meant no and the shaking of the head meant yes. From this we garner that if the Americans were more careful and asked what the shaking of the head meant instead of assuming it, they would saved much more time. She further illustrates using the example of an American husband taking his visiting Albanian in-laws to the airport. The airline attendant was notably frustrated when she asked the usual questions such as did someone ask them to carry something onboard, as the Albanians nodded their heads up and down. The airline attendant assumed this was a yes gesture and thus it seemed to her that they were threats to the flight. Were it not for the American in-law who explained their culture who knows what could have happened. In such a situation, according to American culture and laws, the Albanians would have been arrested on suspicion of being terrorists. Other illustrated examples of the reversal of the yes/No agreement are also given e.g. Bulgarian culture.
Norrine Dresser further shows how ignoring or assuming one s culture can be detrimental to a relationship between the two people. Using the example of the cross-cultural encounter between Karl, an African American and Henry, a white chairperson she illustrates the hazards of assuming each others cultures. Henry out of ignorance assumed Karl s culture and began conversing with him in mock African American dialect and gave Karl a high five. However, Henry did not consider that due to his social and educational upbringing Karl was not allowed to do such. He did not consider that Karl may consider his actions to be an insult though not intended. Thereby Karl may have lost an important business contact. Through this illustration, Dresser shows that stacking up someone with his culture may not be the wisest way of building up a conversation with them. We are able to learn that it is much better to ask the people
