CrossCultural Communication

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Cross-Cultural Communication

• Intercultural Transitions

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Types of Intercultural Transitions

• Tourist
• Sojourner
• Immigrant

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Culture Shock

• Stress and anxiety due to unfamiliar
  surroundings, leading to feelings of
  disorientation and discomfort.

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Symptoms of Culture Shock

• Homesickness
• Depression/sadness
• Dependence on others
• Irritability
• Inability to sleep/eat
• Excessive drinking

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• Hostility to others
• Extreme concerns about issues of
  sanitation/healthcare/safety etc
• Inability to work well

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Culture Shock

• Seen by some as a disease that can be treated
• Studies suggest between 30 and 60 of
  expatriates suffer from culture shock
• Seen as five stage process- the U-Curve

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Obergs popularized definition

• anxiety that results from losing all of our
  familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse
• K. Oberg (1960) Cultural shock Adjustment to new
  cultural environments. In Practical Anthropology
  7, pp. 177182.

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Adlers U-Curve
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Adlers definition

• culture shock is primarily a set of emotional
  reactions to the loss of perceptual
  reinforcements from one's own culture
• to new cultural stimuli which have little or no
  meaning, and to the misunderstanding of new and
  diverse experiences.

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Culture Shock (Adler)

• It may encompass feelings of
• Helplessness
• irritability
• and fears of being cheated, contaminated, injured
  or disregarded.
• Adler, P.S. (1975). The transitional experience
  An alternative view of culture shock. Journal of
  Humanistic Psychology 15 /4, pp. 1323.

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Five Stages of Culture Shock

• Honeymoon period
• Disintegration or hostility stage
• Reintegration stage
• Autonomy stage
• Independence stage

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Factors that Intensify the Degree of Culture Shock

• The degree of cultural difference between the
  home and new culture
• The degree of cultural immersion the individual
  experiences
• The amount of previous intercultural experience

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Reducing the Effects of Culture Shock

• By making friends in the new culture
• By minimising contact with the new culture
• By undertaking cross-cultural training before and
  during your stay in the new culture
• Through learning the language of the new culture

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Immigration

• Jandt 185 million people officially live outside
  their countries of birth
• Immigration numbers are on the increase

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Reasons for Migration

• Fleeing war or persecution as refugees
• For economic reasons
• Improvement in lifestyle
• For adventure

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Acculturation- Cultural Adaptation

• Assimilation
• Separation/Segregation
• Integration
• Marginalization

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Barriers to Adaption

• Unwillingness to become part of the new culture
• Discrimination against immigrants by people from
  the host country

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Reverse Culture Shock

• On return to your home country
• Compares the negative aspects of the home culture
  against the positive aspects of the new culture

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Reasons for Reverse Culture Shock

• The reality of the home culture may differ from
  images of the home country in the new culture
• The people and the culture of the home country
  may have changed
• People may not be patient with the returnee and
  treat them as they would have done before.
• Reverse culture shock is not easily recognisable
  at home

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Factors that Intensify the Degree of Reverse
Culture Shock

• The degree of cultural difference between the
  home and new culture
• The degree of cultural immersion the individual
  experiences
• The difference in status between the individual
  in their host and home cultures

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• The motive for returning- forced or voluntary!
• The amount of prior re-entry experience

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Effects

• Culture shock is normal and usually inevitable
• Experienced as unpleasant and negative
• But...

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Effects

• Positive effects
• learning experience
• increase of intercultural understanding
• ethnocentrism -gt ethnorelativism
• enhancement of self-efficacy

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Sources

• Adler, P.S. (1975). The transitional experience
  An alternative view of culture shock. Journal of
  Humanistic Psychology 15 /4, pp. 1323.
• Jandt, F. (1995) Intercultural Communication
  An Introduction. Thousand Oaks Sage.
• Milstein, T. (2005) Transformation abroad
  Sojourning and the perceived enhancement of
  selfefficacy. International Journal of
  Intercultural Relations, 29(2) 217-238
• Oberg, K. (1960) Cultural shock Adjustment to
  new cultural environments. In Practical
  Anthropology 7, pp. 177182.