Three dialectical tensions played a significant role in shaping my interactions with the vendors at the Big Rapids Farmers’ Market: Cultural-Individual, Differences-Similarities, and Personal-Contextual. The Cultural-Individual dialectic encompasses the behaviors learned through cultural influence and the individual norms one develops that may vary from the larger culture (Hollingsworth et al., 2021). Tensions arose when my individual style varied from the vendors’ styles. The Differences-Similarities dialectic emphasizes the importance of looking at both differences and similarities among groups (Hollingsworth et al., 2021). This dialectic helped me balance between trying too hard and not trying at all. Finally, the Personal-Contextual dialectic considers how individual …show more content…
Lindsey can be a bit terse and hard to read, but I know she likes me because she comes up to me to give me her rent. I always joke with Rick that I’m coming to “steal” his stand’s money and his friend always offers me a pet rock. The Cultural-Individual dialectic helped me identify that my communication is an exception to the cultural norm (Hollingsworth et al., 2021) and I used that to change my approach to connecting with the vendors. Again, the low power distance market culture affected how I communicate with the vendors. The vendors who saw me as being on the same level as them were primarily the ones who spoke amongst themselves to solve their issues with the new space. I saw this as them forming an “us against them” dichotomy which threatened my competence. Looking at it through the Differences-Similarities dialectical tension morphs that situation into simply a difference in communication style. Focusing so much on this difference between me and them, I was polarizing those with which I could have something in common (Hollingsworth et al.,