Lecture 4 Understanding Cultural shock

Cultural shock

Cultural shock is a stressful transitional period when individuals move from a familiar environment into an unfamiliar one

It is comprised of:

  • Cognitive disorientation

  • Behavioural confusion

  • Intense emotions

Cultural shock is sparked by: anxiety associated with losing all familisr signs and symbols of social discourse

Oberg’s identity disorientation state

  1. A sense of identity loss and deprivation

  2. Identity strain due to the effort to make the psychological adaptation

  3. Identity rejection by members of the new culture

  4. Identity confusion, especially regarding role ambiguity & unpredictability

  5. Identity powerlessness as a result of not being able to cope with new environment

The ABC’s of Culture shock

Sojourners experience culture shock:

  • Affectively, sojourners often feel anxiety, bewilderment, confusion, disorientation, and intense desire to be elsewhere.

  • Behaviorally, they are confused as to norms and rules that guide communication appropriateness and effectiveness.

  • Cognitively, they lack competence to interpret or explain “bizarre” behaviors.

Implications of cultural shock

  • Negative:  psychosomatic problems, affective upheavals, interaction awkwardness, and cognitive exhaustion

  • Positive: if managed effectively:  sense of well-being, heightened positive self-esteem, behavioral competence in social interaction, cognitive flexibility, and enhanced optimism about self, others, and everyday surroundings

Managing Culture shock

  1. Motivational orientation

    Individuals with voluntary motivations to leave a familiar culture manage culture shock more effectively than those who do so involuntarily

     

  2. Personal expectations stress

    • Realistic expectations facilitate intercultural adaptation

    • Accuracy-based positive expectations ease adaptation stress

  3. Cultural distance

    The degree of differences in cultural values, language, verbal styles. 

    The greater the cultural distance, the more severe the culture shock, unless they expect very little cultural distance and are surprised.

  4. Sociocultural adjustment

    The ability to fit in and execute appropriate and effective interactions in a new cultural environment.

    It can include the quality or quantity of relations with a host nationals and the length of residence in host country.

  5. Psychological adjustment

    Feelings of well-being and satisfaction during cross-cultural transitions.  Two types of coping strategies:

      a.  Primary coping strategies:  behavioral actions that aim to avoid or change the intrusive incidents in the stressful environment

      b.  Secondary coping strategies:  cognitively focused; changing one’s thinking pattern to adapt to the environment

  6. Personality attributes

    Personality traits such as high tolerance for ambiguity, internal locus of control, personal flexibility and mastery can contribute to sojourners’ well-being.

The Big 5 Personality traits: 

  • CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

  • EMOTIONAL STABILITY

  • AGREEABLENESS

  • EXTRAVERSION

  • OPENNESS

Initial tips of managing culture shock

  1. Increase motivation to learn about the new culture.

  2. Keep expectations realistic, and increase familiarity with diverse facets of new culture.

  3. Increase linguistic fluency and appropriateness, and understand core values linked to specific behaviors.

  4. Work on tolerating ambiguity and other flexibility attributes.

  5. Develop close friends and acquaintanceships to manage identity stress and loneliness.

  6. Be mindful of suspending ethnocentric evaluations of interpersonal behaviors of host culture.

Culture shock adjustment model

Re-entry Culture shock

Surprising elements for Sojourners’:

  1. Identity change

  2. Nostalgic and idealized images of home culture

  3. Difficulty in reintegrating into old roles

  4. Letdown due to unexpected distance with family and friends

  5. Family and friends impatient with listening to sojourners’ stories

  6. Home culture’s demand for role conformity

  7. Absence of change in home culture, or too much change

Resocialization:

  1. Re-socialized returnees do not recognize having learned new skills. They use “fit-back-in” strategy and re-socialize themselves quietly.

  2. Alienated returnees are aware of their new skills, but have difficulty applying the new knowledge. They try to use the “distance-rejective” strategy and become onlookers in home culture.

  3. Proactive returnees are highly aware of new values and skills. They try to integrate these into the home culture.