For example, patients may indicate a need for additional space by not facing the nurse or pulling their chair back during the interview process. 2,p.57-58 Individuals learn patterns of cultural behavior through socialization, which is the process of learning the beliefs, values, and behaviors associated with being a member of the social organization. A nurse providing culturally sensitive care would assess the social organization of a patient by identifying religious values and role behaviors of other members of the family and then incorporate this information into the nursing care plan. Time perceptions vary from culture to culture and individual to individual. Nursing culture typically regards time as irreplaceable and irreversible.
Nurses tend to operate on an hour by hour time frame when scheduling patient care.
Conversely, physicians view time quite differently, measuring time by the duration of an illness or it's treatment. It is easy to see how conflicts can arise when nurses and physicians have varying perceptions of time. Just as it is important for the nurse to understand his or her own time perceptions and orientations, it is equally important for the nurse to understand the time perceptions of individuals from diverse cultures. Future-oriented cultures will delay personal pleasures until future objectives have been met. For example, the dominant middle-class American culture tends to delay buying a home and starting a family until they have completed the necessary educational preparation for their profession.