Cultural Differences Amongst Social Interaction Throughout this semester, I have found myself quite interested in the multitude of topics and theories that we have discussed up to this point. From the way a child grows and changes physically, mentally, and socially, to the basic research methods that allow scientists to make these discoveries, the subject of the developing life is simply mesmerizing. There are countless factors, both major and minor, that go into the recipe of who we are as individuals and it is within this mixture of the elements of our being that I find my topic of most appeal: culture. Culture is, at least in my own opinion, what transforms the basic, generic human being into the actual “person”. If the basic functioning process of the body and mind are the core of life, then culture is its framework and it determines who we are and how we interact with the diverse world around us. Culture is properly defined as the set of ideas, behaviors, attitudes, and traditions that exist within large groups of people. Within this definition of culture, and especially in the real world, these fundamentals interact with each other to create endless combinations of cultural influence. For example, a child who grows up in an environment that emphasizes dedication to the family may have a completely different set of beliefs, attitudes, and traditions than a child who grows up in a family that does not consider the strength of family relationships to be most important. While this in itself is interesting, it is not just the interplay of the basic fundamentals of culture that I find most captivating; it is the way in which those elements shape how we interact with each other and the vast differences amongst all cultures that control our social interactions. Everything we do when interacting with each other in the real world can be traced back to a product of