Mara Droppers

Action CQ
12-5-15
Prof. Johnston
Self-Assessment Action CQ
Learning about how to improve CQ has been a really great
challenge for me. I grew up believing that I was exposed to lots of
different people and different cultures. Yet, after taking this class I have
realized that although I do have many friends who have grown up with
different backgrounds than I have and unfortunately I still do not
initiate conversations about cultural backgrounds and shy away from
some controversial topics. Yet this assignment really caused me to step
out. Although we were supposed to interview someone we did not
know very well, I unfortunately ran out of time and decided to
interview a friend of mine who I have been a friend with for three years
now. Her name is Paris Madison. Paris grew up in Grand Rapids
Michigan and went to public high middle and a private high school. In
our interview we talked a lot about what life was like growing up, and
how being an African American in a private Christian high school. We
talked a lot about recent news, and how what is happening effects
Paris life along how it effects my life. I absolutely loved having this
conversation because I was able to break down barriers and just
talking openly with my friend about how we each experience life. It is
crazy to me that Paris is a good friend of mine yet I have never had the

courage to ask her how she is doing and how her cultural background
has effected the way she sees the world and even the way she sees
me. We had a fantastic conversation and I would not trade that time
with my friend for anything, and hope because of it to feel more
comfortable to continue these conversations.
I created the self-evaluation attached below and gave it to Paris
to fill out. Her answers were encouraging. She felt as if I was able to
adapt my style of communication in order to best have a genuine and
conversation. She also commented on how I did a good job with
perspective taking, she said, you connected with me and what I was
saying in an appropriate way and didnt make me feel uncomfortable
about it. I was really happy to hear that because the last thing I
wanted was to be inappropriate and jeopardize our friendship. I also
was pleased to hear that she was happy with how I listened and felt
that I was truly interested in her cultural background and how she
appreciated my body language and that I seemed genuinely interested
and invested the entire conversation. I was very pleased with all the
things Paris commented about our conversation and am so grateful
that we got to have such an intentional time together.
Action CQ to me seems like how we behave and what we do to
use our CQ and how we are intentional with people of different
cultures. I feel like this interview with Paris has caused me to think
about that, and how my CQ interacts with and change my behavior. I

was disappointed with myself after my conversation with Paris because

although we had a great conversation and we got to talk about things
that were real and that we hadnt talked about before; I was upset
because we hadnt talked about them before. It took a school
assignment for me to talk to my friend about her background and
about her cultural history. I feel like within the interview things went
really well, I did not feel uncomfortable at all and neither did Paris, yet I
would hope that in the future we could just talk openly about these
things instead of waiting till life forced us too. I am really happy that I
chose to interview Paris and feel like our relationship has been
strengthened. I hope to continue having these types of conversations
with many of my friends and truly beginning to understand our
backgrounds, and how we can begin to authentically know each other. I
am very grateful for this assignment and feel as if it was a great
experience.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (I also adlibbed some questions)

1. Where did you grow up and what did you dislike/like about it?
2. How does your family communicate most effectively?
3. If you could choose one thing or word that represents the culture
you grew up in what would it be and why?
4. Growing up who did you look up to the most and why?
5. What kinds of things did you and your family do for fun?
6. Is there any foods that you grew up eating that you would say are
representative of your culture?
7. Do you speak any other languages?
8. Did you grow up in a religious home? If so what did your family
believe? Was religion a big part of your life?
9. How has what you have seen in the news affected your life.

EVALUATION QUESTIONS
1. Did I appropriately adapt my comm style to You?
2. Did I demonstrate perspective taking? is the act of viewing a situation or
understanding of a concept from an alternate point-of-view
3. Did you ever feel uncomfortable because of my behavior during our
conversation?
4. Do you feel like I Listened and truly wanted to learn about your
cultural background?
5. Comments/feedback about my intercultural, comm, skills
Pariss ANSWERS to EVALUATION QUESTIONS
1. If i understand what you mean by this I think you did adapt your style to me
and make it in a way that i understood what information you needed from me
(???)
2.I felt like you did a nice job of this, you connected with me and what I was
saying in an appropriate way and didnt make me feel uncomfortable about it. It
wast like oh yeah i couldnt walk a day in your shoes and left it at that type of
thing. It was more like i cant even imagine, because By you demonstrating
your perspective in that way I feel like I was able to further connect with you and I
think that helped flourish the conversation.
3. I was not at all uncomfortable I felt like you presented the discussion questions
in a way that were made sure l would not feel uncomfortable or threatened or
confused or any unusual emotion about what you were asking. If it was
something more personal or more sensitive topic you made it clear that i did not
have to answer the question if i wanted to, so in other words you werent being
pushy or adding any type of pressure. So no, nothing was you said or asked
made me feel uncomfortable, I might even argue that I was so comfortable that I
felt okay with getting more in-depth with my answers and sharing more personal
things.
4.Yes I do feel as if you listened and truly were interested in my cultural
background. The biggest indicator of that to me was through your body language.
When we talked you never sat back/slouched back like you were bored and tired
of the conversation, you didn't crossed your arms or legs, etc. I think little things
like that naturally trigger a person to talk more and be willing to really engage into
the conversation and I would definitely say you did very well with that because
body language is such a natural thing and the smallest of things can make the
biggest of differences.
5.Good work! Had fun conversing! Youd be surprised at how natural
conversations like these can be, I think sometimes we tend to get caught up and
worried about asking and saying the right things that we overlook how cool these
types of conversations can actually be.