Cultural Barriers to Communication

Some cultural barriers to creativity include conforming to group norms, expecting practicality, expectations of politeness or social order, depending upon generalizations and stereotypes to much, and trusting logic and reason to much. These cultural barriers could easily keep a group from being creative in a lot of ways. If a group is to focused on everyone conforming, or expecting everyone to agree with the majorities solution, it could severely dampen an individual’s voice and ability to introduce new or different solutions. A barrier that I find particularly annoying is when a group relies to much on the reason or logic behind a previous solution. This can become an issue when trying to get a group to brainstorm for new and interesting ideas. If the group members think that their solutions are to outlandish or illogical, they are less likely to move forward towards new and useful solution. I’ve found that brainstorming, even crazy or illogical things, can really benefit a group, because it brings up new ways of approaching or seeing a problem. And when other group members see or hear an idea, even an outlandish one, it may spawn a similar but more reasonable solution, thereby building a structure that can create a new idea. I feel as though, like most other people, I encounter these barriers on creativity pretty often. But I’ve realized that a lot of these barriers are around for a reason, and understanding those reasons can be really helpful when wanting to move around them, or see the problem form a perspective other than the “way its always been”.