Social Factors Affecting Interpersonal Interaction

There are several social factors affecting our interpersonal interactions. Culture, as the most important factor, plays a significant role on people’s daily interactions and behavior by defining the norms and values in a society (). As the functionalist view states, all the cultural norms are made to maintain social stability and equilibrium (). Many cultural differences, despite being minor, have an exclusive effect on the social order. For example, how a person responses to a compliment highly depends on the culture he follows. As an immigrant coming from the Persian ethic subculture, the general way of replying to compliments in the Canadian culture seemed remarkably different to me.
Compliment is a positive statement about others, that also functions as a cultural tool people use to harmonize their social

Functionalist propose that human behavior is governed by stable patterns of social relations (ppt). Factors such as the historical and religious background play a significant role in determining the social interactions(). Hence, certain manifest functions of the defined cultural norms make people respond to compliments differently in various cultures. In this case, the different compliment responses in the two cultures, or subcultures, is related to their differences in perceiving and valuing their expected social role. This example from my experience can be used to demonstrate the role of the norms governing the social behavior; the Persian ethic subculture in Canada does not always respond to the compliments the same way as people do in Iran. Due interacting to other cultures, some minor behaviors in the Persian subculture in Canada has gotten affected. Hence, it is expected to see accept responses more often in the Iranian groups living as a subculture in Canada. There is still sensible difference between the Persian and the Canadian responses to