-
QUESTION
Title:
cultural intelligence and capability
Paper Details
Please see requirement from the course lecturer below
- You MUST use 4 of the following readings we have provided to you: Spencer-Oatey, Brislin, Flanja, Quappe, Russell and Taipale.
- When you refer to each reading in your essay you MUST use in-text referencing to cite the author (this has to be in accordance with APA6th referencing conventions).
- Your final page is to be a Bibliography which contains a list of all of the readings you have used and it needs to be in alphabetical order. Don’t forget the hanging indent which is a necessary part of APA6th referencing.
Assignment question
Write an essay to critically reflect on why cultural self-awareness is important to develop cultural intelligence.
You should first define the term 'cultural self-awareness' and ‘cultural intelligence’.
Discuss how and why cultural self-awareness assists people to be more culturally intelligent.
For the Why part (use readings) and the How part (use your own experiences such as aspects from your mind map).
Using at least 4 readings covered in the first 8 weeks, describe your experiences (such as one or two aspects you explored in your mind-map) that illustrate the points being made in the readings.
Structuring your critical reflection
Your critical reflection should be an example of academic writing. As a reflective essay, we expect you to write in the first person when you are recounting examples from your experience. Therefore, you will be moving between third person when you discuss the readings and first person when you describe your experiences that illustrate the points being made in the readings.
Introduction
Your essay should have an introduction that includes the following information:
Orientation - background information
Putting the assessment task into your own words
A thesis statement/topic: an initial thesis statement
introduces and anchors your argument or discussion
expresses your viewpoint or stand on the subject
An outline of the structure of your reflection – what are the different parts
Scope – this is optional. It may not be appropriate to the reflection. The scope should outline the limits of the discussion.
Body paragraphs
Your paragraphs must include a topic sentence, supporting sentences (theory and personal examples) and a concluding sentence.
Integrate references into your points wherever possible.
You should aim to have 4-6 paragraphs in the body of an essay of this length (not including the introduction or conclusion).
Conclusion
Ensure your conclusion does the following:
Restate and qualify your thesis statement from your introduction
Provide a summary of the key points covered in the body of your reflection.
Referencing
APA6th available
Readings
http://www.culturosity.com/articles/whatisculturalawareness.htm
CULTURE SHOCK IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Delia Flanja*
Abstract
People live in communities based on the things they have in common, and the means of sharing those things are through communication acts. In order to form a community or a society, it is impetuously necessary to have common goals, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge, a common understanding. Not too many of the people that go abroad take into consideration the way in which cultural differences may affect their well being. "Culture shock" is the state of discomfort experienced by the intercultural traveler, in a more or less profound way, once he or she is placed in an unfamiliar environment. This is the aspect that I will try to clarify in may paper, more precisely the importance of being aware of and learning how to cope with culture shock.
Key words: culture, interculturalism, culture shock, differences, training As nowadays the groups that enter into contact are constantly enlarging, the ways of communicating also need to develop in order to respond to the needs of those coming into contact. The communication that I am referring to is intercultural communication, which also implies an intercultural knowledge. Inside his own culture, one does not think considerably at the cultural specificity, as the interlocutors share similar sets of rules and values. But when going internationally, communication becomes difficult without having the same background. The individual must compensate for all the things that his interlocutor has learned in his life time, by trying to learn, understand, and adapt to the other's set of behavioral and conceptual rules .
The Concept of "Culture" Harry Triandis, a specialist in cross-cultural psychology, uses a definition of culture that is, at the same time, explicit and wide enough to describe the term: "Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfactions for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place."1 The term "human made" reveals the fact that culture, even if it has its historical background that has left inerasable traces, has the quality of evolving over time and adapting to different types of circumstances and needs. As A.L. Kroeber stated in one of his articles, "it is increasingly evident that no civilization is ever actually static. It always flOWS"2. And one of the circumstances nowadays is the development of that movement towards an intercultural dimension. People tend to be unaware of their own culture. They take things as they come and they do not wonder what cultural aspect influences their beliefs and their behavior. When they come into contact with a new culture, the conscience of one's own cultural belonging awakens. The bigger is the differences between cultures, the higher will be the awareness about one's own cultural specificity. The Context of Intercultural Contact Development Nowadays it seems more than natural for people from different cultures to interact. But what determines them to interact and why did interactions increase so rapidly in the last years? The mass media that introduce different cultures to different parts of the world, the purpose of economic development, the new source of 1 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994, p. 22. 2 A. L. Kroeber, "The Delimitation of Civilizations", in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14, 1953, no. 2., pp. 264-275. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 109 inspiration that the intercultural environment might represent, the increased possibility to travel abroad, the need for integration in a wider space, the tendency of correlation between the nation.al and the international context, all these constitute the background for the intercultural contact development. Besides the movement towards America, considered for a long time to be the land of all possibilities, there is a strong tendency of Europeans to move inside their own continent too, due to the EUropeanization process. Talking about Europeanization, Stephen Weatherford considers that "In a world in which national economies are becoming increasingly integrated, the vicissitudes of trade and capital flows have had dramatic impacts on domestic welfare in every advanced country."3 Treating this subject, John Borneman and Nick Fowler made a short review regarding the unity that the Europeans started 0 create inside their continent. They mentioned the European currency (the Euro), the European flag, the European newspaper, television stations and universities, the European film festival, parliament, court, law, song festival, Champions League for soccer. They also brought into discussion the concept of "unity in diversity", a concept that suggests the possibility of different countries to maintain their specificities even when being integrated to the big European "family".4 Fred Halliday, in the paper Rethinking International Relations5, considers that states are inclined to correlate more and more one with the other and to adopt sets of norms and values shared by different societies, which are being promoted by the competition among states. But, inevitably, there is a difficulty in conforming to an international pattern dictated by this competitive homogenization, by the need of overcoming the handicap caused by the difference in development among some sates. This difficulty of conforming becomes even higher if we take into 3 Stephen Wheaterford; Haruhiro Fukui, "Domestic Adjustment to International Shocks in Japan and the United States", in International Organization, Vol. 43,1989, no. 4, pp. 585-623. 4 John Borneman; Nick Fowler, "Europeanization", in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26, 1997, pp. 487-514. 5 John Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations, London: Macmillan, 1994, pp. 117- 122. 110 Delia Flanja consideration the fact that there is also a need of keeping the distinctive aspects of national cultures as well. This "unity in diversity" is a good way of perceiving intercultural communicating as well. There are some global rules of communication that one must master, but specificity and compatibility are the aspects that people corning into intercultural contact should put more emphasis on, in order to become fully comprehended, and in order to be able to receive the massage that the interlocutor intends to send. Basics of Cultural Differences Culture influences the way humans select, interpret, process, and use information. So, keeping informed about a certain culture is not enough. One must also know how to interpret that information in an appropriate way, which may be different from his first perception. The importance of this aspect is very well formulated by Harry Triandis who asked the following question: "In a world that can become extinct in a nuclear holocaust, can we afford to neglect a better understanding of the relationship of culture and social behavior?"6 The answer is obviously "no". In the century of speed, information cannot be ignored and most certainly must not be postponed. The diversity is too big to afford applying the general to the particular. These are some of the reasons that determine the appearance of such phenomena as II culture shock". For a better understanding of the term, I will make use of Kalervo Oberg's definition, a famous Canadian anthropologist, definition reproduced by Harry Triandis in Culture and Social Behavior. "Culture shock occurs when people interact with members of a very different culture and experience a loss of control. This happens when they cannot understand the behavior of the people from the other culture. Then they feel confused and develop both physical (e.g., asthma, 6 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994, p. 31. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 111 headaches) and psycho logical (e.g., depression) symptoms (Oberg, 1954, 1960)."7 Sources of Culture Shock We operate inside our culture, guided by unperceived and rarely acknowledged networks. When we are placed out of our comfort zone, the phenomenon of culture shock may occur. Culture shock is caused by unfamiliarity with the new country, difficulty or inability to speak the language, or not knowing how to behave in an unfamiliar culture. Newcomers can sometimes feel like children because they cannot understand all these new things at once. So, culture shock can have its sources in the lack of knowledge, the lack of ability to adapt, the lack of willingness to adapt, etc. One of the reasons why people cannot adapt is the preconceived ideas about the host country, which are as dangerous as the lack of knowledge. "Attributions refer to judgments or causal explanations about human behaviour. While individuals use attributions to make sense of their surrounding environments, their causal accounts are often influenced by motivational biases. One of these biases is related to the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem. Social psychological research has demonstrated that in most cases individuals attribute their successes to internal or dispositional factors and their failures to external or situational factors."B Discrimination from the representatives of the host country can only intensify the state of discomfort. It is difficult to adapt even in a friendly environment, and reticence from the host nationals is a big impediment. Also, it is very difficult to maintain one's identity in a multicultural society, while obtaining acceptance and feeling integrated in host social groups. Discrimination results in conflicts and those conflicts lead us back to stereotypes. What one must take into consideration when dealing with stereotypes is the fact that they are comparative judgments and that the 7 Ibidem, p. 239. 8 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psyclwlogy of Culture Shock, Routledge, 2001, p. 112. 112 Delia Flanja correct manner of referring to a characteristic of one culture is by comparing it to another culture. Triandis gives the example of a certain culture A, where people wash their hands around one hundred times a day and of a certain culture B where people wash their hands around seventy times a day. Of course, there are exceptions to those numbers inside those particular cultures but the average is of one hundred and of seventy times a day. Given those numbers, representatives of both cultures can be considered to be clean and attentive to hygiene, but representatives of culture A can easily consider those of culture B not to be very clean.9 In giving another example to support the idea that difficulties may occur as a result of cultural particularities I will also make use of Catherine Beaulieu's study on 23 students, from 11 countries, involved in a summer program. The focus of her study was on the perception of personal space by representatives of different cultures, and on the way this perception affects the communication process. The term of personal space was introduced by Edward Hall in 1959 and it refers to an invisible zone surrounding each individual, which allows him to feel comfortable in interactions. Though the author admits the small number of subjects involved in the survey, the results obtained are just a confirmation of what had already been concluded by other surveys in that domain and they can support the effects of cultural differences in communication. Anglo Saxons need a larger personal space, fallowed by Asians, Caucasians and Latinos. Even the body posture is different when interacting. As a result, a Latino may seem aggressive to an Asian, while his style is simply more direct.lO All the above mentioned elements may constitute sources of culture shock. But how exactly does this phenomenon affect the intercultural traveler? This aspect will be clarified by presenting its stages and its symptoms. Stages of Culture Shock Though each individual reacts differently to the cross cultural differences, Kalervo Oberg, quoted by Delia Marga in Intercultural Business 9 Harry Triandis, op.cit., p. 138. 10 Catherine Beaulieu, "Intercultural Study on Personal Space: A Case Study", in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology vol. 34, Issue 4, April 2004, pp. 794-805. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 113 Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, in his discussion regarding "culture shock", detailed four general phases of emotional reactions associated with cross-cultural sojourns. These phases are at the basis of studies in the domain of "culture shock" .11 1. The "honeymoon" stage This stage is the one experienced at the beginning of the contact, and it is characterized of euphoria, excitement, fascination, and enthusiasm. Positive attitudes predominate, and even if travelers come with a luggage of pre-conceived ideas, the thrill in front of the new and out of the ordinary predominates. Most tourists do not surpass this phase. Those that intend to stay for a longer period of time are preoccupied with getting accommodated and making connections. Similarities are regarded with comfort while dissimilarities are regarded with interest. 2. The" crisis" stage This stage is the most difficult and challenging one, as it is characterized by feelings of inadequacy, frustration, anxiety, irritation, hostility, etc. The euphoria of the exotic and out of the ordinary has passed and the traveler has to face reality. In this stage the manifestations of the "disease" culture shock starts to manifest. If this stage is surpassed, though some travelers never do, then the "healing" process can begin. 3. The "recovery" or "gradual adjustment" stage During this stage, the individual takes measures to exit the crisis stage. He begins to understand the new culture and to create· a comfort zone. The unfamiliar becomes familiar and this diminishes his states of anxiety and nervousness. His actions evolve from artificial to natural, due to crisis resolution and culture learning. Sojourners and immigrants suffer the most severe adjustment problems at the beginning stage of transition when the number of changes is very high and coping resources are very low. 11 Delia Marga (ed.), Intercultural Business Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 2004, pp. 152-154. 114 Delia Flanja 4. The "complete adjustment" or the "biculturalism" This stage reflects enjoyment and functional competence in the new environment. The "patient" has entirely recovered from his "disease". He has learned to accept things the way they are and he has embraced some of the culture particularities of the host country. He no longer feels a "fish out of water" (a metaphor which refers to taking the individual out of habitual environment that he can control and where he feels at ease). Harry Triandis states that even if an individual has the chance of getting support in the host culture, it is not equivalent to the one received from his family and friends. He also speaks about avoidance and formality as factors that come against one's adaptation.12 For those that return to the host culture, some specialists support the idea of the existence of another stage. This stage is called the "re-entry shock" and it does not necessary fallow the other four. It depends on the level that the individual has reached before returning home. "As he becomes involved once again in his home culture he is faced with the need to bring his reconstructed value system into closer juxtaposition with indigenous values; he is faced with the need to prove his sameness without discarding his newly acquired outlook."13 Gulbahar Huxur, university professor in Columbia, clearly summarizes the reasons for the re-entry shock by describing it, in an article published in 1996, as a feeling of both gain and loss. Gain of new concepts and values, of new experiences, of new perspectives, and loss of an environment that was familiar for a longer or shorter period of time, regain of what he or she has left at departure and loss of what he or she has found in the new culture.14 Lysgaard (1955), quoted by Coleen Ward et alii in The Psychology of Culture Shock proposed in his cross-cultural study a U-curve model of 12 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp.262-287. 13 Louis Cajoleas, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 29,1958, no. 4, p.212. 14 Gulbahar Huxur, Earl Mansfield, Reginald Nnazor, Hans Schuetze, Megumi Segawa, Learning Needs and Adaptation Problems of Foreign Graduate Students, 1996, pp. 3-6. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 115 adjustment during cross-cultural relocation based on his investigation of some Scandinavian students in the United States. The conclusion of his study was that there is a critical adjustment period for the intercultural sojourners. That period is considered to be from six to eighteen months of departure. This conclusion is based on the fact that students returning home after six months have managed to adjust to the needs required in that interval. After around six months, the enthusiasm of the new and the effects of the "honeymoon" stage start to fade away. So, sojourners encounter new problems in adaptation that are considered to be surpassed after eighteen months or more. As opposed to the U-curve adjustment theory, there is also a longitudinal adjustment theory. Longitudinal studies have considered the early months of transition as having the higher level of psychological distress. Still, the U-curve proposition has continued to exert strong influence on the field. 15 Lysgaard's U-curve model has been analyzed by Miriam SobreDenton and Dan Hart, in the article Mind the gap: Application-based analysis of cultural adjustment models. 16 The authors of this article analyze the advantages and disadvantages of four important cross-cultural adaptation theories. The main str~ngth of this model is in their point of view the so called "intuitive appeal" while the main disadvantage is the fact that it focuses to much on a pattern, leaving aside the uniqueness of each individual and of each experience. The second analyzed model is the Anxiety/Uncertainty Management model, introduced by William Gudykunst. What this model draws attention to is the fact that uncertainty and anxiety do not damage the process of acculturation, but contribute to the "positive acculturation". Also, it does not have the weakness of the previously presented model, as it is adapted to different individuals in different situations. In spite of that, the problem with this model derives exactly in the orientation towards this great diversity. The forty seven axioms invest this model with a great degree of complexity that can be disorienting. 15 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psychology of Culture Shock, Routledge, 2001, p. 80. 16 Miriam Sobre-Denton, Dan Hart, "Mind the gap: Application-based analysis of cultural adjustment models", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 32, Issue 6, November 2008, pp. 532-538, 539-540. 116 Delia Flanja The third model brought into discussion is the Transition model which presents adaptation as a natural process and it focuses even more on the particularity of each individual. According to Bennett, the promoter of this model, cultural adaptation training should be more sojourner oriented than pattern oriented, and this aspect is considered to be a positive one by Miriam Sobre-Denton and Dan Hart along with the perception of culture shock as a natural psychological phenomenon. The negative aspect is considered to be the difficulty of applying this model to larger groups involved in training sessions. Finally, the last model of training in cultural adaptation presented is the Stress-Adaptation-Growth model of Young Yun Kim. This model focuses more on the immersion of language and communication in the acculturation and deculturation processes that lead to assimilation. As opposed to the last two models, the disadvantage of this model is its lack of focus on the individual. The presentation of these four models was just a way of framing the theoretical aspects related to the stages of culture shock. More emphasis on the training techniques will be put later on in this article. Whether it is represented in a liner way or as a U-curve, the effects of culture shock depend very much on each individual. As Jacques Demorgon pointed out in his Dynamiques interculturelles pour ['Europe, all in all, the capacity to tolerate what is foreign finds a certain limit in each individual.!7 Having established the stages of culture shock, a clarification must be made regarding its manifestations, more precisely its symptoms. Symptoms of Culture Shock Culture shock does not manifest itself in the same way for each individual. Still, taking into consideration the frequency of some manifestations, a list of the most common symptoms may be presented to the reader. The most frequent culture shock symptoms: homesickness 17 Jacques Demorgon, Edmond-Mark Lipiansky, Brukhard Muller, Hans Nicklas, Dynamiques Interculturelles pour L'Europe, Paris: Ed. Economica, 2003, p. 114. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication excessive concern for sanitation regarding hand washing, the quality of the food or water consumed fear of physical contact with members of the other culture troubles with concentrating on certain things insomnia nightmares fatigue feelings of helplessness embarrassment anger fear of being injured, robbed or cheated 117 exaggeration of the damage caused by minor injuries or any other physical disorders stomachaches headaches alcohol or drugs abuse even more severe effects, like suicidal attempts Triandis also pointed out that the degree of manifestation of culture shock is proportional with the conceptual distance between the home culture. and the host culture. There is also a strong connection between culture shock and intercultural experience, the proportion being reversed in this case. I will end this section by presenting one of Triandis' experiences as a traveler. Though he had a rich traveling experience, the first time he went to Calcutta, India, having arrived during the night, he was surprised to see lots of corpses along the road. But what he thought to be corpses were actually people sleeping. Only later he learned that those people were not dead; it was common for people to sleep there, in order to save some of the money they gained and to help their families in the villages. His conclusion is that: "When we are able to predict what others will do, when we can act so as to get others to do what we want done, when we know how to get rewards from our environment and avoid punishments, we feel in 118 Delia Flanja control. In new cultures we are often not able to predict the behavior of others or get them to do what we want."18 Means of Coping with Culture Shock Intercultural training presupposes not only teaching the language of a certain country. Giving information about the culture of foreign countries and constantly adapting the information to the current situation is an imperative in intercultural training. As the language aspect has been brought into discussion, I would like to draw attention on what knowing the language of the culture that is going to be visited actually means. In a case study on 127 students, engaged in study motilities in France, Margaret Pitts notices that there is a difference between the levels of language that student perceive of having and the way they manage to perform in that particular language abroad. She considers this to be in many cases a first level of shock for students.19 Different academic demands, combined with an unexpected language difficulty could represent a first challenge into adaptation, and this is why even language knowledge should be adapted to particular regions and social environments. Culture training addresses especially to long term travelers like sojourners or immigrants; in the case of tourists, some general information is usually sufficient. The economic aspect should also de taken into consideration because culture training is rather expensive and this is why special emphasis should be put on long term travelers, which can benefit much more than tourists from that training. Besides the period of departure, the need for special training and the potential difficulties of psychological and socio-cultural adaptation depend on the quantity and quality of relations with the host nationals and the cultural differences between the county of origin and the host country. The international traveler is looking for support in two directions. The first direction is from the host nationals and the second one is from 18 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp. 262-263. 19 Margaret Pitts, "Identity and the role of expectations, stress, and talk in short-term student sojourner adjustment", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 33, no. 6, November 2009, pp. 450-462. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 119 family, friends, or acquaintances back horne. The support from the people back horne seems to be the most reliable source of support but it can also make the traveler's stay abroad more difficult. Keeping constant contact with people back horne can, in some cases, create difficulties in adaptation, as homesickness is intensified. So, contact with people back horne and with host nationals should be combined in such a way that the traveler can find his comfort zone. Some studies have focused on the sources of support for the sojourners and among the most used and effective ones we can find: maintaining contact with the people back horne and corning into contact with the host nationals or with other international students, visiting the new country, being openminded and optimistic, having a good knowledge of the foreign language, learning the other culture's specificity, keeping a journal, finding a comfort zone, thinking about the outcomes of that experience. Besides the general stress coping strategies, each individual should try to discover his or her own ways of feeling comfortable in the new environment and should take advantage of all the help he or she can get. There are some reactions to culture shock that, instead of diminishing its negative effects, can only increase stress and the negative attitude towards the new culture. Some intercultural travelers blame their condition on the host nationals, on the environment or on the persons that have encouraged them in their departure. Though blaming others and staying more or less isolated may seem as a proper solution to avoid responsibility, this only postpones takin~ efficient measures for making the time spent abroad as enjoyable as possible. 2 In the case of international students, active counseling can help them surpass difficulties and to benefit the most from the experience. Keeping them busy and involved could be a good method for diminishing culture shock. Community programs and group integrations may seem time consuming but it can be both relaxing and educational. "These two goals, if broadly defined, are not antagonistic. Although the student may have a specific academic goal, inevitably he will have experienced cultural unities and diversities during his sojourn abroad. Almost inevitably, he will 20 Nancy Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Begavior, second edition, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992, pp. 227-231. 120 Delia Flanja be called upon to fulfill, in addition to his professional role, upon return home, the role of a cultural interpreter."21 So, it is perfectly justifiable why adequate communication has been regarded by many· as the key component of intercultural effectiveness. Training Techniques There are several training methods in this domain and I will present some of the most efficient ones in the following paragraphs, using the study of Colleen Ward et alii22 as source of information: One of the best training methods is to bring a member of the host culture into the trainee's one. This way, he is exposed to a very realistic and genuine source of knowledge and he is kept away from experiencing the first contact shock, on foreign ground. It is, of course important to learn about the foreign culture, but having an example in front of you is much more concluding. Of course, the person selected must be one representative for his or her culture, not an out of the ordinary individual. Though it is more difficult to put in practice, short term exchange among culture members seems to be the best way of a proper comprehension. Another learning method, though more theoretical, is indeed very efficient. This method is called "the culture assimilator" and it is a programmed learning approach that consists of a set of one hundred to two hundred scenarios in which individuals from two different cultures interact. For each scenario, the trainee is given a set of explanations for the miscommunication process, and he has to choose the correct one. This technique is also useful because, instead of presenting facts, it places the trainee in the position of learning from his own assumptions. This can give him a feedback on what he already knows and on how prepared he is for a future contact. Also, having actual situations as examples makes learning more practical and attractive. 21 Cajoleas, Louis, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 29, no. 4,1958, pp. 209-212, 234. 22 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Furnham, op.cit. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 121 In the BAF A BAF A game, trainees are given a hypothetical cultural group that they have to identify with. There are two different teams, Alpha and Beta, belonging to different cultural groups. Both teams receive information regarding the culture that they must identify with. The game consists in exchanging visitors and simulating a hostsojourner situation. This way, the trainees learn in an interactive way of two cultures at the time and, also, they make an idea of what being a host means. Another interesting technique is the Barnga game. The subjects receive a set of playing cards, different for each team, and a set of rules that they have to memorize. They are not allowed to speak or write words. They can express themselves only by gestures and drawings. When the game is over, the participants discuss their experiences. The aim of Barnga is to simulate intercultural communication difficulties. In the Ecotonos game, players are divided into three teams, each representing one culture. They receive cards with rules in each culture. After discussing for a short while about their cultures, they must make up stories about their cultural development. Then they are combined in "multicultural" groups, and are given different tasks that they must accomplish together, taking into consideration the cultural background that they have been assigned. This game also gave the purpose of improving communication skills and cultural knowledge. The last technique that I will describe is "the critical incident technique". This technique presupposes the analysis of some episodes of misunderstanding or conflict arising from cultural differences between the actors. With the help of a facilitator that will explain at the end, in detail, what had happened, the trainees must discover the problem issues. It is very difficult to evaluate the efficiency of one training method or another, as it takes a lot of time to see the results and those results are very much influenced by the specificity of each individual and of each culture. Some of the methods of testing their efficiency are the feedback on return home, the individual's performance or his results, the feedback of representatives of the receiving country. "The analysis produced a three factor model of intercultural effectiveness: (1) 122 Delia Flanja ability to manage psychological stress, (2) ability to communicate effectively, and (3) ability to establish interpersonal relationships."23 "The 'shock' part of culture shock is now being discussed in terms of skills deficits (Bochner, 1986) and acculturative stress (Berry, 1994a, 1997). This, in tum, draws attention to the range of mediating and moderating variables that can either attenuate or accentuate the effects of behavioural deficits and psychosocial stressors that sojourners, immigrants and refugees may face." 24 It is important to comprehend that no method is self sufficient or completely efficient. Still, the importance of being aware of the potential difficulties reduces culture shock considerably. To support this final idea I will make use of the adaptation of Fons Trompenaars to the famous saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Referring to the Japanese people and to their solution to adapting to the changes produced by globalization around the world, he considers that the correct manner of dealing with interculturality and its challenges would be: "When in Rome, understand the behaviour of the Romans, and thus become an even more complete J apanese." 25 CONCLUSIONS The boundaries of one's country are no longer an impediment in one's development. People have the freedom of circulating more freely among countries and cultures and the changes in their needs often determine them to take advantage of that freedom. But being a good communicator in one culture does not necessary mean that one will be a good communicator in all cultures. The cultural differences may put in difficulty even the most experimented traveler, as the examples in my paper have shown. In order to surpass those difficulties, people need to embrace a new set of rules and 23 Ibidem, p. 41. 24 Ibidem, p. 40. 25 Fons Trompenaars, Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding cultural Diversity in Business, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993, p. 4. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 123 values. If they are not able to adapt, than the negative symptoms of culture shock intervene. One may experience this culture shock when he is placed out of his familiar environment, in an environment where his own norms and values are not compatible to those of others. Nowadays, the international travelers have the advantage of being quite numerous. As a result, it is easier for them to integrate in a new environment if they find people placed in a similar situation. Lately, the economic implications of intercultural contact have led to the tendency towards training also the host nationals for the intercultural encounter. The manner in which this training should be made and the proper model to be chosen is as challenging as in the case of pre-departure training. What we should keep in mind is that there is no correct or incorrect way of perceiving things and of communicating; there is just a different way of doing those things. In order to improve our life, we must adapt our behaviors and our needs to the environment that we inhabit. As the environment is constantly enlarging, intercultural training is an imperative in any communication act. Bibliography: 1. Adler, Nancy (1992), International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, second edition, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company 2. Beaulieu, Catherine (2004), "Intercultural Study on Personal Space: A Case Study", in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 34, Issue 4, April 2004, Pages: 794-805, [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/ fulltext], 27.10.2009 3. Borneman, John; Fowler, Nick (1997), "Europeanization", in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26, p. 487-514. 4. Cajoleas, Louis (1958), "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 209-212, 234. 5. Demorgon, Jacques; Lipiansky, Edmond-Mark; Miiller, Brukhard; Nicklas, Hans (2003), Dynamiques Interculturelles pour L'Europe, Paris: Ed. Economica. 124 Delia Flanja 6. Halliday, John COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
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STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABE$-BOLYAI, STUDIA EUROPAEA, LIV, 4,2009
CULTURE SHOCK IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Delia Flanja*
Abstract
People live in communities based on the things they have in common, and the
means of sharing those things are through communication acts. In order to form a
community or a society, it is impetuously necessary to have common goals, beliefs,
aspirations, knowledge, a common understanding.
Not too many of the people that go abroad take into consideration the way in which
cultural differences may affect their well being. "Culture shock" is the state of
discomfort experienced by the intercultural traveler, in a more or less profound
way, once he or she is placed in an unfamiliar environment. This is the aspect that I
will try to clarify in may paper, more precisely the importance of being aware of
and learning how to cope with culture shock.
Key words: culture, interculturalism, culture shock, differences, training
As nowadays the groups that enter into contact are constantly
enlarging, the ways of communicating also need to develop in order to
respond to the needs of those coming into contact. The communication that
I am referring to is intercultural communication, which also implies an
intercultural knowledge. Inside his own culture, one does not think
considerably at the cultural specificity, as the interlocutors share similar
sets of rules and values. But when going internationally, communication
becomes difficult without having the same background. The individual
must compensate for all the things that his interlocutor has learned in his
life time, by trying to learn, understand, and adapt to the other's set of
behavioral and conceptual rules .
- Delia Flanja is a Ph.D. candidate in philology at the Faculty of European Studies, Babe~
Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. E-mail: [email protected]
108 Delia Flanja
The Concept of "Culture"
Harry Triandis, a specialist in cross-cultural psychology, uses a definition
of culture that is, at the same time, explicit and wide enough to describe
the term:
"Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that
in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in
satisfactions for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became
shared among those who could communicate with each other because
they had a common language and they lived in the same time and
place."1
The term "human made" reveals the fact that culture, even if it has its
historical background that has left inerasable traces, has the quality of
evolving over time and adapting to different types of circumstances and
needs. As A.L. Kroeber stated in one of his articles, "it is increasingly
evident that no civilization is ever actually static. It always flOWS"2. And
one of the circumstances nowadays is the development of that movement
towards an intercultural dimension.
People tend to be unaware of their own culture. They take things as
they come and they do not wonder what cultural aspect influences their
beliefs and their behavior. When they come into contact with a new
culture, the conscience of one's own cultural belonging awakens. The
bigger is the differences between cultures, the higher will be the awareness
about one's own cultural specificity.
The Context of Intercultural Contact Development
Nowadays it seems more than natural for people from different cultures to
interact. But what determines them to interact and why did interactions
increase so rapidly in the last years?
The mass media that introduce different cultures to different parts
of the world, the purpose of economic development, the new source of
1 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994, p. 22.
2 A. L. Kroeber, "The Delimitation of Civilizations", in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14,
1953, no. 2., pp. 264-275.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 109
inspiration that the intercultural environment might represent, the
increased possibility to travel abroad, the need for integration in a wider
space, the tendency of correlation between the nation.al and the
international context, all these constitute the background for the
intercultural contact development.
Besides the movement towards America, considered for a long time to
be the land of all possibilities, there is a strong tendency of Europeans to
move inside their own continent too, due to the EUropeanization process.
Talking about Europeanization, Stephen Weatherford considers that
"In a world in which national economies are becoming increasingly
integrated, the vicissitudes of trade and capital flows have had dramatic
impacts on domestic welfare in every advanced country."3
Treating this subject, John Borneman and Nick Fowler made a short
review regarding the unity that the Europeans started 0 create inside their
continent. They mentioned the European currency (the Euro), the
European flag, the European newspaper, television stations and
universities, the European film festival, parliament, court, law, song
festival, Champions League for soccer. They also brought into discussion
the concept of "unity in diversity", a concept that suggests the possibility
of different countries to maintain their specificities even when being
integrated to the big European "family".4
Fred Halliday, in the paper Rethinking International Relations5,
considers that states are inclined to correlate more and more one with the
other and to adopt sets of norms and values shared by different societies,
which are being promoted by the competition among states. But,
inevitably, there is a difficulty in conforming to an international pattern
dictated by this competitive homogenization, by the need of overcoming
the handicap caused by the difference in development among some sates.
This difficulty of conforming becomes even higher if we take into
3 Stephen Wheaterford; Haruhiro Fukui, "Domestic Adjustment to International Shocks in
Japan and the United States", in International Organization, Vol. 43,1989, no. 4, pp. 585-623.
4 John Borneman; Nick Fowler, "Europeanization", in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26,
1997, pp. 487-514.
5 John Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations, London: Macmillan, 1994, pp. 117-
110 Delia Flanja
consideration the fact that there is also a need of keeping the distinctive
aspects of national cultures as well.
This "unity in diversity" is a good way of perceiving intercultural
communicating as well. There are some global rules of communication
that one must master, but specificity and compatibility are the aspects
that people corning into intercultural contact should put more emphasis
on, in order to become fully comprehended, and in order to be able to
receive the massage that the interlocutor intends to send.
Basics of Cultural Differences
Culture influences the way humans select, interpret, process, and use
information. So, keeping informed about a certain culture is not enough.
One must also know how to interpret that information in an appropriate
way, which may be different from his first perception. The importance of
this aspect is very well formulated by Harry Triandis who asked the
following question:
"In a world that can become extinct in a nuclear holocaust, can we afford
to neglect a better understanding of the relationship of culture and social
behavior?"6
The answer is obviously "no". In the century of speed, information cannot
be ignored and most certainly must not be postponed. The diversity is too
big to afford applying the general to the particular.
These are some of the reasons that determine the appearance of
such phenomena as II culture shock". For a better understanding of the
term, I will make use of Kalervo Oberg's definition, a famous Canadian
anthropologist, definition reproduced by Harry Triandis in Culture and
Social Behavior.
"Culture shock occurs when people interact with members of a very
different culture and experience a loss of control. This happens when they
cannot understand the behavior of the people from the other culture.
Then they feel confused and develop both physical (e.g., asthma,
6 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994, p. 31.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 111
headaches) and psycho logical (e.g., depression) symptoms (Oberg, 1954,
1960)."7
Sources of Culture Shock
We operate inside our culture, guided by unperceived and rarely
acknowledged networks. When we are placed out of our comfort zone, the
phenomenon of culture shock may occur. Culture shock is caused by
unfamiliarity with the new country, difficulty or inability to speak the
language, or not knowing how to behave in an unfamiliar culture.
Newcomers can sometimes feel like children because they cannot
understand all these new things at once.
So, culture shock can have its sources in the lack of knowledge, the
lack of ability to adapt, the lack of willingness to adapt, etc. One of the
reasons why people cannot adapt is the preconceived ideas about the host
country, which are as dangerous as the lack of knowledge.
"Attributions refer to judgments or causal explanations about human
behaviour. While individuals use attributions to make sense of their surrounding
environments, their causal accounts are often influenced by motivational
biases. One of these biases is related to the need to maintain and
enhance self-esteem. Social psychological research has demonstrated that in
most cases individuals attribute their successes to internal or dispositional
factors and their failures to external or situational factors."B
Discrimination from the representatives of the host country can only
intensify the state of discomfort. It is difficult to adapt even in a friendly
environment, and reticence from the host nationals is a big impediment.
Also, it is very difficult to maintain one's identity in a multicultural society,
while obtaining acceptance and feeling integrated in host social groups.
Discrimination results in conflicts and those conflicts lead us back to
stereotypes.
What one must take into consideration when dealing with
stereotypes is the fact that they are comparative judgments and that the
7 Ibidem, p. 239.
8 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psyclwlogy of Culture Shock,
Routledge, 2001, p. 112.
112 Delia Flanja
correct manner of referring to a characteristic of one culture is by
comparing it to another culture. Triandis gives the example of a certain
culture A, where people wash their hands around one hundred times a day
and of a certain culture B where people wash their hands around seventy
times a day. Of course, there are exceptions to those numbers inside those
particular cultures but the average is of one hundred and of seventy times a
day. Given those numbers, representatives of both cultures can be
considered to be clean and attentive to hygiene, but representatives of
culture A can easily consider those of culture B not to be very clean.9
In giving another example to support the idea that difficulties may
occur as a result of cultural particularities I will also make use of Catherine
Beaulieu's study on 23 students, from 11 countries, involved in a summer
program. The focus of her study was on the perception of personal space
by representatives of different cultures, and on the way this perception
affects the communication process. The term of personal space was
introduced by Edward Hall in 1959 and it refers to an invisible zone
surrounding each individual, which allows him to feel comfortable in
interactions. Though the author admits the small number of subjects
involved in the survey, the results obtained are just a confirmation of what
had already been concluded by other surveys in that domain and they can
support the effects of cultural differences in communication. Anglo Saxons
need a larger personal space, fallowed by Asians, Caucasians and Latinos.
Even the body posture is different when interacting. As a result, a Latino
may seem aggressive to an Asian, while his style is simply more direct.lO
All the above mentioned elements may constitute sources of culture
shock. But how exactly does this phenomenon affect the intercultural
traveler? This aspect will be clarified by presenting its stages and its
symptoms.
Stages of Culture Shock
Though each individual reacts differently to the cross cultural
differences, Kalervo Oberg, quoted by Delia Marga in Intercultural Business
9 Harry Triandis, op.cit., p. 138.
10 Catherine Beaulieu, "Intercultural Study on Personal Space: A Case Study", in the Journal
of Applied Social Psychology vol. 34, Issue 4, April 2004, pp. 794-805.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 113
Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, in his discussion
regarding "culture shock", detailed four general phases of emotional
reactions associated with cross-cultural sojourns. These phases are at the basis
of studies in the domain of "culture shock" .11
- The "honeymoon" stage
This stage is the one experienced at the beginning of the contact,
and it is characterized of euphoria, excitement, fascination, and enthusiasm.
Positive attitudes predominate, and even if travelers come with a luggage of
pre-conceived ideas, the thrill in front of the new and out of the ordinary
predominates. Most tourists do not surpass this phase. Those that intend to
stay for a longer period of time are preoccupied with getting accommodated
and making connections. Similarities are regarded with comfort while
dissimilarities are regarded with interest.
- The" crisis" stage
This stage is the most difficult and challenging one, as it is
characterized by feelings of inadequacy, frustration, anxiety, irritation,
hostility, etc. The euphoria of the exotic and out of the ordinary has passed
and the traveler has to face reality. In this stage the manifestations of the
"disease" culture shock starts to manifest. If this stage is surpassed, though
some travelers never do, then the "healing" process can begin.
- The "recovery" or "gradual adjustment" stage
During this stage, the individual takes measures to exit the crisis stage.
He begins to understand the new culture and to create· a comfort zone. The
unfamiliar becomes familiar and this diminishes his states of anxiety and
nervousness. His actions evolve from artificial to natural, due to crisis
resolution and culture learning. Sojourners and immigrants suffer the most
severe adjustment problems at the beginning stage of transition when the
number of changes is very high and coping resources are very low.
11 Delia Marga (ed.), Intercultural Business Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A
reader, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 2004, pp. 152-154.
114 Delia Flanja
- The "complete adjustment" or the "biculturalism"
This stage reflects enjoyment and functional competence in the new
environment. The "patient" has entirely recovered from his "disease". He has
learned to accept things the way they are and he has embraced some of the
culture particularities of the host country. He no longer feels a "fish out of
water" (a metaphor which refers to taking the individual out of habitual
environment that he can control and where he feels at ease). Harry
Triandis states that even if an individual has the chance of getting support
in the host culture, it is not equivalent to the one received from his family
and friends. He also speaks about avoidance and formality as factors that
come against one's adaptation.12
For those that return to the host culture, some specialists support the
idea of the existence of another stage. This stage is called the "re-entry shock"
and it does not necessary fallow the other four. It depends on the level that the
individual has reached before returning home.
"As he becomes involved once again in his home culture he
is faced with the need to bring his reconstructed value system
into closer juxtaposition with indigenous values; he is faced with
the need to prove his sameness without discarding his newly
acquired outlook."13
Gulbahar Huxur, university professor in Columbia, clearly
summarizes the reasons for the re-entry shock by describing it, in an article
published in 1996, as a feeling of both gain and loss. Gain of new concepts
and values, of new experiences, of new perspectives, and loss of an
environment that was familiar for a longer or shorter period of time, regain
of what he or she has left at departure and loss of what he or she has found
in the new culture.14
Lysgaard (1955), quoted by Coleen Ward et alii in The Psychology of
Culture Shock proposed in his cross-cultural study a U-curve model of
12 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp.262-287.
13 Louis Cajoleas, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol.
29,1958, no. 4, p.212.
14 Gulbahar Huxur, Earl Mansfield, Reginald Nnazor, Hans Schuetze, Megumi Segawa,
Learning Needs and Adaptation Problems of Foreign Graduate Students, 1996, pp. 3-6.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 115
adjustment during cross-cultural relocation based on his investigation of some
Scandinavian students in the United States. The conclusion of his study was
that there is a critical adjustment period for the intercultural sojourners. That
period is considered to be from six to eighteen months of departure. This
conclusion is based on the fact that students returning home after six months
have managed to adjust to the needs required in that interval. After around six
months, the enthusiasm of the new and the effects of the "honeymoon" stage
start to fade away. So, sojourners encounter new problems in adaptation that
are considered to be surpassed after eighteen months or more. As opposed to
the U-curve adjustment theory, there is also a longitudinal adjustment theory.
Longitudinal studies have considered the early months of transition as having
the higher level of psychological distress. Still, the U-curve proposition has
continued to exert strong influence on the field. 15
Lysgaard's U-curve model has been analyzed by Miriam SobreDenton
and Dan Hart, in the article Mind the gap: Application-based
analysis of cultural adjustment models. 16 The authors of this article analyze
the advantages and disadvantages of four important cross-cultural
adaptation theories. The main str~ngth of this model is in their point of
view the so called "intuitive appeal" while the main disadvantage is the
fact that it focuses to much on a pattern, leaving aside the uniqueness of
each individual and of each experience.
The second analyzed model is the Anxiety/Uncertainty Management
model, introduced by William Gudykunst. What this model draws attention to
is the fact that uncertainty and anxiety do not damage the process of
acculturation, but contribute to the "positive acculturation". Also, it does not
have the weakness of the previously presented model, as it is adapted to
different individuals in different situations. In spite of that, the problem with
this model derives exactly in the orientation towards this great diversity. The
forty seven axioms invest this model with a great degree of complexity that
can be disorienting.
15 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psychology of Culture Shock,
Routledge, 2001, p. 80.
16 Miriam Sobre-Denton, Dan Hart, "Mind the gap: Application-based analysis of cultural
adjustment models", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 32, Issue 6,
November 2008, pp. 532-538, 539-540.
116 Delia Flanja
The third model brought into discussion is the Transition model which
presents adaptation as a natural process and it focuses even more on the
particularity of each individual. According to Bennett, the promoter of this
model, cultural adaptation training should be more sojourner oriented than
pattern oriented, and this aspect is considered to be a positive one by Miriam
Sobre-Denton and Dan Hart along with the perception of culture shock
as a natural psychological phenomenon. The negative aspect is
considered to be the difficulty of applying this model to larger groups
involved in training sessions.
Finally, the last model of training in cultural adaptation presented
is the Stress-Adaptation-Growth model of Young Yun Kim. This model
focuses more on the immersion of language and communication in the
acculturation and deculturation processes that lead to assimilation. As
opposed to the last two models, the disadvantage of this model is its lack
of focus on the individual.
The presentation of these four models was just a way of framing the
theoretical aspects related to the stages of culture shock. More emphasis on the
training techniques will be put later on in this article. Whether it is represented
in a liner way or as a U-curve, the effects of culture shock depend very much on
each individual. As Jacques Demorgon pointed out in his Dynamiques
interculturelles pour ['Europe, all in all, the capacity to tolerate what is
foreign finds a certain limit in each individual.!7 Having established the
stages of culture shock, a clarification must be made regarding its
manifestations, more precisely its symptoms.
Symptoms of Culture Shock
Culture shock does not manifest itself in the same way for each
individual. Still, taking into consideration the frequency of some
manifestations, a list of the most common symptoms may be presented to
the reader.
The most frequent culture shock symptoms:
homesickness
17 Jacques Demorgon, Edmond-Mark Lipiansky, Brukhard Muller, Hans Nicklas,
Dynamiques Interculturelles pour L'Europe, Paris: Ed. Economica, 2003, p. 114.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication
excessive concern for sanitation regarding hand washing, the
quality of the food or water consumed
fear of physical contact with members of the other culture
troubles with concentrating on certain things
insomnia
nightmares
fatigue
feelings of helplessness
embarrassment
anger
fear of being injured, robbed or cheated
117
exaggeration of the damage caused by minor injuries or any other
physical disorders
stomachaches
headaches
alcohol or drugs abuse
even more severe effects, like suicidal attempts
Triandis also pointed out that the degree of manifestation of
culture shock is proportional with the conceptual distance between the
home culture. and the host culture. There is also a strong connection
between culture shock and intercultural experience, the proportion being
reversed in this case.
I will end this section by presenting one of Triandis' experiences
as a traveler. Though he had a rich traveling experience, the first time he
went to Calcutta, India, having arrived during the night, he was
surprised to see lots of corpses along the road. But what he thought to be
corpses were actually people sleeping. Only later he learned that those
people were not dead; it was common for people to sleep there, in order
to save some of the money they gained and to help their families in the
villages. His conclusion is that:
"When we are able to predict what others will do, when we can act so as
to get others to do what we want done, when we know how to get
rewards from our environment and avoid punishments, we feel in
118 Delia Flanja
control. In new cultures we are often not able to predict the behavior of
others or get them to do what we want."18
Means of Coping with Culture Shock
Intercultural training presupposes not only teaching the language of
a certain country. Giving information about the culture of foreign countries
and constantly adapting the information to the current situation is an
imperative in intercultural training.
As the language aspect has been brought into discussion, I would
like to draw attention on what knowing the language of the culture that is
going to be visited actually means. In a case study on 127 students, engaged
in study motilities in France, Margaret Pitts notices that there is a difference
between the levels of language that student perceive of having and the way
they manage to perform in that particular language abroad. She considers
this to be in many cases a first level of shock for students.19 Different
academic demands, combined with an unexpected language difficulty
could represent a first challenge into adaptation, and this is why even
language knowledge should be adapted to particular regions and social
environments.
Culture training addresses especially to long term travelers like
sojourners or immigrants; in the case of tourists, some general information
is usually sufficient. The economic aspect should also de taken into
consideration because culture training is rather expensive and this is why
special emphasis should be put on long term travelers, which can benefit
much more than tourists from that training. Besides the period of
departure, the need for special training and the potential difficulties of
psychological and socio-cultural adaptation depend on the quantity and
quality of relations with the host nationals and the cultural differences
between the county of origin and the host country.
The international traveler is looking for support in two directions.
The first direction is from the host nationals and the second one is from
18 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp. 262-263.
19 Margaret Pitts, "Identity and the role of expectations, stress, and talk in short-term student
sojourner adjustment", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 33, no. 6,
November 2009, pp. 450-462.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 119
family, friends, or acquaintances back horne. The support from the people
back horne seems to be the most reliable source of support but it can also
make the traveler's stay abroad more difficult. Keeping constant contact with
people back horne can, in some cases, create difficulties in adaptation, as
homesickness is intensified. So, contact with people back horne and with host
nationals should be combined in such a way that the traveler can find his
comfort zone.
Some studies have focused on the sources of support for the sojourners
and among the most used and effective ones we can find: maintaining contact
with the people back horne and corning into contact with the host nationals or
with other international students, visiting the new country, being openminded
and optimistic, having a good knowledge of the foreign language,
learning the other culture's specificity, keeping a journal, finding a comfort
zone, thinking about the outcomes of that experience. Besides the general
stress coping strategies, each individual should try to discover his or her own
ways of feeling comfortable in the new environment and should take
advantage of all the help he or she can get.
There are some reactions to culture shock that, instead of diminishing
its negative effects, can only increase stress and the negative attitude towards
the new culture. Some intercultural travelers blame their condition on the host
nationals, on the environment or on the persons that have encouraged them in
their departure. Though blaming others and staying more or less isolated may
seem as a proper solution to avoid responsibility, this only postpones takin~
efficient measures for making the time spent abroad as enjoyable as possible. 2
In the case of international students, active counseling can help
them surpass difficulties and to benefit the most from the experience.
Keeping them busy and involved could be a good method for
diminishing culture shock. Community programs and group
integrations may seem time consuming but it can be both relaxing and
educational.
"These two goals, if broadly defined, are not antagonistic.
Although the student may have a specific academic goal,
inevitably he will have experienced cultural unities and
diversities during his sojourn abroad. Almost inevitably, he will
20 Nancy Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Begavior, second edition, Belmont:
Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992, pp. 227-231.
120 Delia Flanja
be called upon to fulfill, in addition to his professional role, upon
return home, the role of a cultural interpreter."21
So, it is perfectly justifiable why adequate communication has
been regarded by many· as the key component of intercultural
effectiveness.
Training Techniques
There are several training methods in this domain and I will
present some of the most efficient ones in the following paragraphs,
using the study of Colleen Ward et alii22 as source of information:
One of the best training methods is to bring a member of the host
culture into the trainee's one. This way, he is exposed to a very realistic
and genuine source of knowledge and he is kept away from
experiencing the first contact shock, on foreign ground. It is, of course
important to learn about the foreign culture, but having an example in
front of you is much more concluding. Of course, the person selected
must be one representative for his or her culture, not an out of the
ordinary individual. Though it is more difficult to put in practice, short
term exchange among culture members seems to be the best way of a
proper comprehension.
Another learning method, though more theoretical, is indeed
very efficient. This method is called "the culture assimilator" and it is a
programmed learning approach that consists of a set of one hundred to two
hundred scenarios in which individuals from two different cultures
interact. For each scenario, the trainee is given a set of explanations for the
miscommunication process, and he has to choose the correct one. This
technique is also useful because, instead of presenting facts, it places the
trainee in the position of learning from his own assumptions. This can
give him a feedback on what he already knows and on how prepared he
is for a future contact. Also, having actual situations as examples makes
learning more practical and attractive.
21 Cajoleas, Louis, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol.
29, no. 4,1958, pp. 209-212, 234.
22 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Furnham, op.cit.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 121
In the BAF A BAF A game, trainees are given a hypothetical
cultural group that they have to identify with. There are two different
teams, Alpha and Beta, belonging to different cultural groups. Both
teams receive information regarding the culture that they must identify
with. The game consists in exchanging visitors and simulating a hostsojourner
situation. This way, the trainees learn in an interactive way of
two cultures at the time and, also, they make an idea of what being a
host means.
Another interesting technique is the Barnga game. The subjects
receive a set of playing cards, different for each team, and a set of rules
that they have to memorize. They are not allowed to speak or write words.
They can express themselves only by gestures and drawings. When the
game is over, the participants discuss their experiences. The aim of
Barnga is to simulate intercultural communication difficulties.
In the Ecotonos game, players are divided into three teams, each
representing one culture. They receive cards with rules in each culture.
After discussing for a short while about their cultures, they must make
up stories about their cultural development. Then they are combined in
"multicultural" groups, and are given different tasks that they must
accomplish together, taking into consideration the cultural background
that they have been assigned. This game also gave the purpose of
improving communication skills and cultural knowledge.
The last technique that I will describe is "the critical incident
technique". This technique presupposes the analysis of some episodes of
misunderstanding or conflict arising from cultural differences between
the actors. With the help of a facilitator that will explain at the end, in
detail, what had happened, the trainees must discover the problem
issues.
It is very difficult to evaluate the efficiency of one training
method or another, as it takes a lot of time to see the results and those
results are very much influenced by the specificity of each individual
and of each culture. Some of the methods of testing their efficiency are
the feedback on return home, the individual's performance or his
results, the feedback of representatives of the receiving country. "The
analysis produced a three factor model of intercultural effectiveness: (1)
122 Delia Flanja
ability to manage psychological stress, (2) ability to communicate
effectively, and (3) ability to establish interpersonal relationships."23
"The 'shock' part of culture shock is now being discussed in terms
of skills deficits (Bochner, 1986) and acculturative stress (Berry,
1994a, 1997). This, in tum, draws attention to the range of
mediating and moderating variables that can either attenuate or
accentuate the effects of behavioural deficits and psychosocial
stressors that sojourners, immigrants and refugees may face." 24
It is important to comprehend that no method is self sufficient or
completely efficient. Still, the importance of being aware of the potential
difficulties reduces culture shock considerably. To support this final idea
I will make use of the adaptation of Fons Trompenaars to the famous
saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Referring to the Japanese
people and to their solution to adapting to the changes produced by
globalization around the world, he considers that the correct manner of
dealing with interculturality and its challenges would be: "When in
Rome, understand the behaviour of the Romans, and thus become an
even more complete J apanese." 25
CONCLUSIONS
The boundaries of one's country are no longer an impediment in
one's development. People have the freedom of circulating more freely
among countries and cultures and the changes in their needs often
determine them to take advantage of that freedom. But being a good
communicator in one culture does not necessary mean that one will be a
good communicator in all cultures.
The cultural differences may put in difficulty even the most
experimented traveler, as the examples in my paper have shown. In order
to surpass those difficulties, people need to embrace a new set of rules and
23 Ibidem, p. 41.
24 Ibidem, p. 40.
25 Fons Trompenaars, Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding cultural Diversity in Business,
London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993, p. 4.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 123
values. If they are not able to adapt, than the negative symptoms of culture
shock intervene. One may experience this culture shock when he is placed
out of his familiar environment, in an environment where his own norms
and values are not compatible to those of others.
Nowadays, the international travelers have the advantage of being
quite numerous. As a result, it is easier for them to integrate in a new
environment if they find people placed in a similar situation. Lately, the
economic implications of intercultural contact have led to the tendency
towards training also the host nationals for the intercultural encounter. The
manner in which this training should be made and the proper model to be
chosen is as challenging as in the case of pre-departure training.
What we should keep in mind is that there is no correct or incorrect
way of perceiving things and of communicating; there is just a different
way of doing those things. In order to improve our life, we must adapt our
behaviors and our needs to the environment that we inhabit. As the
environment is constantly enlarging, intercultural training is an imperative
in any communication act.
Bibliography:
- Adler, Nancy (1992), International Dimensions of Organizational
Behavior, second edition, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company
- Beaulieu, Catherine (2004), "Intercultural Study on Personal Space:
A Case Study", in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 34,
Issue 4, April 2004, Pages: 794-805,
[http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/ fulltext], 27.10.2009
- Borneman, John; Fowler, Nick (1997), "Europeanization", in Annual
Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26, p. 487-514.
- Cajoleas, Louis (1958), "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The
Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 209-212, 234.
- Demorgon, Jacques; Lipiansky, Edmond-Mark; Miiller, Brukhard;
Nicklas, Hans (2003), Dynamiques Interculturelles pour L'Europe,
Paris: Ed. Economica.
124 Delia Flanja
- Halliday, John Fred (1994), Rethinking International Relations,
London: Macmillan.
- Huxur, Gulbahar; Mansfield, Earl; Nnazor, Reginald; Schuetze,
Hans; Segawa, Megumi (1996), "Learning Needs and Adaptation
Problems of Foreign Graduate Students", in CSSHE Professional File,
No. 15., pp. 1-18, [www.eric.ed.gov]. 2 February 2008.
- Kroeber, A.L. (1953), "The Delimitation of Civilizations", in Journal of
the History of Ideas, Vol. 14, no. 2., pp. 264-275.
- Marga, Delia, (ed.) (2004), Intercultural Business Communication.
Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj
University Press.
- Pitts, Margaret (2009), "Identity and the role of expectations, stress,
and talk in short-term student sojourner adjustment", in the
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Vol. 33, No.6,
November 2009, pp. 450-462, [www.elsevier.com/locate/ijintrel]. 27
October 2009.
- Pop, Dana (1996), "International Negotiations and Culture Shock",
Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Studia Europaea, XLI, pp. 159-166.
- Sobre-Denton, Miriam; Hart, Dan (2008), "Mind the gap:
Application-based analysis of cultural adjustment models", in the
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 32, Issue 6,
November 2008, pp. 538-532, [www.elsevier.com/locate/ijintrel]. 27
October 2009.
- Triandis, Harry (1994), Culture and Social Behavior, New York:
McGraw-Hill, Inc.
- Trompenaars, Fons (1993), Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding
cultural Diversity in Business, London, Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
- Ward, Coleen; Bochner, Stephen; Fumham, Adrian (2001), The
Psychology of Culture Shock, USA/Canada: Routledge.
- Wheaterford, Stephen; Fukui, Haruhiro (1989), "Domestic
Adjustment to International Shocks in Japan and the United States",
in International Organization, Vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 585-623. Fred (1994), Rethinking International Relations, London: Macmillan. 7. Huxur, Gulbahar; Mansfield, Earl; Nnazor, Reginald; Schuetze, Hans; Segawa, Megumi (1996), "Learning Needs and Adaptation Problems of Foreign Graduate Students", in CSSHE Professional File, No. 15., pp. 1-18, [www.eric.ed.gov]. 2 February 2008. 8. Kroeber, A.L. (1953), "The Delimitation of Civilizations", in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14, no. 2., pp. 264-275. 9. Marga, Delia, (ed.) (2004), Intercultural Business Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press. 10. Pitts, Margaret (2009), "Identity and the role of expectations, stress, and talk in short-term student sojourner adjustment", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Vol. 33, No.6, November 2009, pp. 450-462, [www.elsevier.com/locate/ijintrel]. 27 October 2009. 11. Pop, Dana (1996), "International Negotiations and Culture Shock", Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Studia Europaea, XLI, pp. 159-166. 12. Sobre-Denton, Miriam; Hart, Dan (2008), "Mind the gap: Application-based analysis of cultural adjustment models", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 32, Issue 6, November 2008, pp. 538-532, [www.elsevier.com/locate/ijintrel]. 27 October 2009. 13. Triandis, Harry (1994), Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. 14. Trompenaars, Fons (1993), Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding cultural Diversity in Business, London, Nicholas Brealey Publishing. 15. Ward, Coleen; Bochner, Stephen; Fumham, Adrian (2001), The Psychology of Culture Shock, USA/Canada: Routledge. 16. Wheaterford, Stephen; Fukui, Haruhiro (1989), "Domestic Adjustment to International Shocks in Japan and the United States", in International Organization, Vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 585-623.
| Subject | Essay Writing | Pages | 58 | Style | APA |
|---|
Answer
Paper Details
Please see requirement from the course lecturer below
- You MUST use 4 of the following readings we have provided to you: Spencer-Oatey, Brislin, Flanja, Quappe, Russell and Taipale.
- When you refer to each reading in your essay you MUST use in-text referencing to cite the author (this has to be in accordance with APA6th referencing conventions).
- Your final page is to be a Bibliography which contains a list of all of the readings you have used and it needs to be in alphabetical order. Don’t forget the hanging indent which is a necessary part of APA6th referencing.
Assignment question
Write an essay to critically reflect on why cultural self-awareness is important to develop cultural intelligence.
You should first define the term 'cultural self-awareness' and ‘cultural intelligence’.
Discuss how and why cultural self-awareness assists people to be more culturally intelligent.
For the Why part (use readings) and the How part (use your own experiences such as aspects from your mind map).
Using at least 4 readings covered in the first 8 weeks, describe your experiences (such as one or two aspects you explored in your mind-map) that illustrate the points being made in the readings.
Structuring your critical reflection
Your critical reflection should be an example of academic writing. As a reflective essay, we expect you to write in the first person when you are recounting examples from your experience. Therefore, you will be moving between third person when you discuss the readings and first person when you describe your experiences that illustrate the points being made in the readings.
Introduction
Your essay should have an introduction that includes the following information:
Orientation - background information
Putting the assessment task into your own words
A thesis statement/topic: an initial thesis statement
introduces and anchors your argument or discussion
expresses your viewpoint or stand on the subject
An outline of the structure of your reflection – what are the different parts
Scope – this is optional. It may not be appropriate to the reflection. The scope should outline the limits of the discussion.
Body paragraphs
Your paragraphs must include a topic sentence, supporting sentences (theory and personal examples) and a concluding sentence.
Integrate references into your points wherever possible.
You should aim to have 4-6 paragraphs in the body of an essay of this length (not including the introduction or conclusion).
Conclusion
Ensure your conclusion does the following:
Restate and qualify your thesis statement from your introduction
Provide a summary of the key points covered in the body of your reflection.
Referencing
APA6th available
Readings
http://www.culturosity.com/articles/whatisculturalawareness.htm
CULTURE SHOCK IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Delia Flanja*
Abstract
People live in communities based on the things they have in common, and the means of sharing those things are through communication acts. In order to form a community or a society, it is impetuously necessary to have common goals, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge, a common understanding. Not too many of the people that go abroad take into consideration the way in which cultural differences may affect their well being. "Culture shock" is the state of discomfort experienced by the intercultural traveler, in a more or less profound way, once he or she is placed in an unfamiliar environment. This is the aspect that I will try to clarify in may paper, more precisely the importance of being aware of and learning how to cope with culture shock.
Key words: culture, interculturalism, culture shock, differences, training As nowadays the groups that enter into contact are constantly enlarging, the ways of communicating also need to develop in order to respond to the needs of those coming into contact. The communication that I am referring to is intercultural communication, which also implies an intercultural knowledge. Inside his own culture, one does not think considerably at the cultural specificity, as the interlocutors share similar sets of rules and values. But when going internationally, communication becomes difficult without having the same background. The individual must compensate for all the things that his interlocutor has learned in his life time, by trying to learn, understand, and adapt to the other's set of behavioral and conceptual rules .
The Concept of "Culture" Harry Triandis, a specialist in cross-cultural psychology, uses a definition of culture that is, at the same time, explicit and wide enough to describe the term: "Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfactions for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place."1 The term "human made" reveals the fact that culture, even if it has its historical background that has left inerasable traces, has the quality of evolving over time and adapting to different types of circumstances and needs. As A.L. Kroeber stated in one of his articles, "it is increasingly evident that no civilization is ever actually static. It always flOWS"2. And one of the circumstances nowadays is the development of that movement towards an intercultural dimension. People tend to be unaware of their own culture. They take things as they come and they do not wonder what cultural aspect influences their beliefs and their behavior. When they come into contact with a new culture, the conscience of one's own cultural belonging awakens. The bigger is the differences between cultures, the higher will be the awareness about one's own cultural specificity. The Context of Intercultural Contact Development Nowadays it seems more than natural for people from different cultures to interact. But what determines them to interact and why did interactions increase so rapidly in the last years? The mass media that introduce different cultures to different parts of the world, the purpose of economic development, the new source of 1 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994, p. 22. 2 A. L. Kroeber, "The Delimitation of Civilizations", in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14, 1953, no. 2., pp. 264-275. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 109 inspiration that the intercultural environment might represent, the increased possibility to travel abroad, the need for integration in a wider space, the tendency of correlation between the nation.al and the international context, all these constitute the background for the intercultural contact development. Besides the movement towards America, considered for a long time to be the land of all possibilities, there is a strong tendency of Europeans to move inside their own continent too, due to the EUropeanization process. Talking about Europeanization, Stephen Weatherford considers that "In a world in which national economies are becoming increasingly integrated, the vicissitudes of trade and capital flows have had dramatic impacts on domestic welfare in every advanced country."3 Treating this subject, John Borneman and Nick Fowler made a short review regarding the unity that the Europeans started 0 create inside their continent. They mentioned the European currency (the Euro), the European flag, the European newspaper, television stations and universities, the European film festival, parliament, court, law, song festival, Champions League for soccer. They also brought into discussion the concept of "unity in diversity", a concept that suggests the possibility of different countries to maintain their specificities even when being integrated to the big European "family".4 Fred Halliday, in the paper Rethinking International Relations5, considers that states are inclined to correlate more and more one with the other and to adopt sets of norms and values shared by different societies, which are being promoted by the competition among states. But, inevitably, there is a difficulty in conforming to an international pattern dictated by this competitive homogenization, by the need of overcoming the handicap caused by the difference in development among some sates. This difficulty of conforming becomes even higher if we take into 3 Stephen Wheaterford; Haruhiro Fukui, "Domestic Adjustment to International Shocks in Japan and the United States", in International Organization, Vol. 43,1989, no. 4, pp. 585-623. 4 John Borneman; Nick Fowler, "Europeanization", in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26, 1997, pp. 487-514. 5 John Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations, London: Macmillan, 1994, pp. 117- 122. 110 Delia Flanja consideration the fact that there is also a need of keeping the distinctive aspects of national cultures as well. This "unity in diversity" is a good way of perceiving intercultural communicating as well. There are some global rules of communication that one must master, but specificity and compatibility are the aspects that people corning into intercultural contact should put more emphasis on, in order to become fully comprehended, and in order to be able to receive the massage that the interlocutor intends to send. Basics of Cultural Differences Culture influences the way humans select, interpret, process, and use information. So, keeping informed about a certain culture is not enough. One must also know how to interpret that information in an appropriate way, which may be different from his first perception. The importance of this aspect is very well formulated by Harry Triandis who asked the following question: "In a world that can become extinct in a nuclear holocaust, can we afford to neglect a better understanding of the relationship of culture and social behavior?"6 The answer is obviously "no". In the century of speed, information cannot be ignored and most certainly must not be postponed. The diversity is too big to afford applying the general to the particular. These are some of the reasons that determine the appearance of such phenomena as II culture shock". For a better understanding of the term, I will make use of Kalervo Oberg's definition, a famous Canadian anthropologist, definition reproduced by Harry Triandis in Culture and Social Behavior. "Culture shock occurs when people interact with members of a very different culture and experience a loss of control. This happens when they cannot understand the behavior of the people from the other culture. Then they feel confused and develop both physical (e.g., asthma, 6 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994, p. 31. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 111 headaches) and psycho logical (e.g., depression) symptoms (Oberg, 1954, 1960)."7 Sources of Culture Shock We operate inside our culture, guided by unperceived and rarely acknowledged networks. When we are placed out of our comfort zone, the phenomenon of culture shock may occur. Culture shock is caused by unfamiliarity with the new country, difficulty or inability to speak the language, or not knowing how to behave in an unfamiliar culture. Newcomers can sometimes feel like children because they cannot understand all these new things at once. So, culture shock can have its sources in the lack of knowledge, the lack of ability to adapt, the lack of willingness to adapt, etc. One of the reasons why people cannot adapt is the preconceived ideas about the host country, which are as dangerous as the lack of knowledge. "Attributions refer to judgments or causal explanations about human behaviour. While individuals use attributions to make sense of their surrounding environments, their causal accounts are often influenced by motivational biases. One of these biases is related to the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem. Social psychological research has demonstrated that in most cases individuals attribute their successes to internal or dispositional factors and their failures to external or situational factors."B Discrimination from the representatives of the host country can only intensify the state of discomfort. It is difficult to adapt even in a friendly environment, and reticence from the host nationals is a big impediment. Also, it is very difficult to maintain one's identity in a multicultural society, while obtaining acceptance and feeling integrated in host social groups. Discrimination results in conflicts and those conflicts lead us back to stereotypes. What one must take into consideration when dealing with stereotypes is the fact that they are comparative judgments and that the 7 Ibidem, p. 239. 8 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psyclwlogy of Culture Shock, Routledge, 2001, p. 112. 112 Delia Flanja correct manner of referring to a characteristic of one culture is by comparing it to another culture. Triandis gives the example of a certain culture A, where people wash their hands around one hundred times a day and of a certain culture B where people wash their hands around seventy times a day. Of course, there are exceptions to those numbers inside those particular cultures but the average is of one hundred and of seventy times a day. Given those numbers, representatives of both cultures can be considered to be clean and attentive to hygiene, but representatives of culture A can easily consider those of culture B not to be very clean.9 In giving another example to support the idea that difficulties may occur as a result of cultural particularities I will also make use of Catherine Beaulieu's study on 23 students, from 11 countries, involved in a summer program. The focus of her study was on the perception of personal space by representatives of different cultures, and on the way this perception affects the communication process. The term of personal space was introduced by Edward Hall in 1959 and it refers to an invisible zone surrounding each individual, which allows him to feel comfortable in interactions. Though the author admits the small number of subjects involved in the survey, the results obtained are just a confirmation of what had already been concluded by other surveys in that domain and they can support the effects of cultural differences in communication. Anglo Saxons need a larger personal space, fallowed by Asians, Caucasians and Latinos. Even the body posture is different when interacting. As a result, a Latino may seem aggressive to an Asian, while his style is simply more direct.lO All the above mentioned elements may constitute sources of culture shock. But how exactly does this phenomenon affect the intercultural traveler? This aspect will be clarified by presenting its stages and its symptoms. Stages of Culture Shock Though each individual reacts differently to the cross cultural differences, Kalervo Oberg, quoted by Delia Marga in Intercultural Business 9 Harry Triandis, op.cit., p. 138. 10 Catherine Beaulieu, "Intercultural Study on Personal Space: A Case Study", in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology vol. 34, Issue 4, April 2004, pp. 794-805. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 113 Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, in his discussion regarding "culture shock", detailed four general phases of emotional reactions associated with cross-cultural sojourns. These phases are at the basis of studies in the domain of "culture shock" .11 1. The "honeymoon" stage This stage is the one experienced at the beginning of the contact, and it is characterized of euphoria, excitement, fascination, and enthusiasm. Positive attitudes predominate, and even if travelers come with a luggage of pre-conceived ideas, the thrill in front of the new and out of the ordinary predominates. Most tourists do not surpass this phase. Those that intend to stay for a longer period of time are preoccupied with getting accommodated and making connections. Similarities are regarded with comfort while dissimilarities are regarded with interest. 2. The" crisis" stage This stage is the most difficult and challenging one, as it is characterized by feelings of inadequacy, frustration, anxiety, irritation, hostility, etc. The euphoria of the exotic and out of the ordinary has passed and the traveler has to face reality. In this stage the manifestations of the "disease" culture shock starts to manifest. If this stage is surpassed, though some travelers never do, then the "healing" process can begin. 3. The "recovery" or "gradual adjustment" stage During this stage, the individual takes measures to exit the crisis stage. He begins to understand the new culture and to create· a comfort zone. The unfamiliar becomes familiar and this diminishes his states of anxiety and nervousness. His actions evolve from artificial to natural, due to crisis resolution and culture learning. Sojourners and immigrants suffer the most severe adjustment problems at the beginning stage of transition when the number of changes is very high and coping resources are very low. 11 Delia Marga (ed.), Intercultural Business Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 2004, pp. 152-154. 114 Delia Flanja 4. The "complete adjustment" or the "biculturalism" This stage reflects enjoyment and functional competence in the new environment. The "patient" has entirely recovered from his "disease". He has learned to accept things the way they are and he has embraced some of the culture particularities of the host country. He no longer feels a "fish out of water" (a metaphor which refers to taking the individual out of habitual environment that he can control and where he feels at ease). Harry Triandis states that even if an individual has the chance of getting support in the host culture, it is not equivalent to the one received from his family and friends. He also speaks about avoidance and formality as factors that come against one's adaptation.12 For those that return to the host culture, some specialists support the idea of the existence of another stage. This stage is called the "re-entry shock" and it does not necessary fallow the other four. It depends on the level that the individual has reached before returning home. "As he becomes involved once again in his home culture he is faced with the need to bring his reconstructed value system into closer juxtaposition with indigenous values; he is faced with the need to prove his sameness without discarding his newly acquired outlook."13 Gulbahar Huxur, university professor in Columbia, clearly summarizes the reasons for the re-entry shock by describing it, in an article published in 1996, as a feeling of both gain and loss. Gain of new concepts and values, of new experiences, of new perspectives, and loss of an environment that was familiar for a longer or shorter period of time, regain of what he or she has left at departure and loss of what he or she has found in the new culture.14 Lysgaard (1955), quoted by Coleen Ward et alii in The Psychology of Culture Shock proposed in his cross-cultural study a U-curve model of 12 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp.262-287. 13 Louis Cajoleas, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 29,1958, no. 4, p.212. 14 Gulbahar Huxur, Earl Mansfield, Reginald Nnazor, Hans Schuetze, Megumi Segawa, Learning Needs and Adaptation Problems of Foreign Graduate Students, 1996, pp. 3-6. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 115 adjustment during cross-cultural relocation based on his investigation of some Scandinavian students in the United States. The conclusion of his study was that there is a critical adjustment period for the intercultural sojourners. That period is considered to be from six to eighteen months of departure. This conclusion is based on the fact that students returning home after six months have managed to adjust to the needs required in that interval. After around six months, the enthusiasm of the new and the effects of the "honeymoon" stage start to fade away. So, sojourners encounter new problems in adaptation that are considered to be surpassed after eighteen months or more. As opposed to the U-curve adjustment theory, there is also a longitudinal adjustment theory. Longitudinal studies have considered the early months of transition as having the higher level of psychological distress. Still, the U-curve proposition has continued to exert strong influence on the field. 15 Lysgaard's U-curve model has been analyzed by Miriam SobreDenton and Dan Hart, in the article Mind the gap: Application-based analysis of cultural adjustment models. 16 The authors of this article analyze the advantages and disadvantages of four important cross-cultural adaptation theories. The main str~ngth of this model is in their point of view the so called "intuitive appeal" while the main disadvantage is the fact that it focuses to much on a pattern, leaving aside the uniqueness of each individual and of each experience. The second analyzed model is the Anxiety/Uncertainty Management model, introduced by William Gudykunst. What this model draws attention to is the fact that uncertainty and anxiety do not damage the process of acculturation, but contribute to the "positive acculturation". Also, it does not have the weakness of the previously presented model, as it is adapted to different individuals in different situations. In spite of that, the problem with this model derives exactly in the orientation towards this great diversity. The forty seven axioms invest this model with a great degree of complexity that can be disorienting. 15 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psychology of Culture Shock, Routledge, 2001, p. 80. 16 Miriam Sobre-Denton, Dan Hart, "Mind the gap: Application-based analysis of cultural adjustment models", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 32, Issue 6, November 2008, pp. 532-538, 539-540. 116 Delia Flanja The third model brought into discussion is the Transition model which presents adaptation as a natural process and it focuses even more on the particularity of each individual. According to Bennett, the promoter of this model, cultural adaptation training should be more sojourner oriented than pattern oriented, and this aspect is considered to be a positive one by Miriam Sobre-Denton and Dan Hart along with the perception of culture shock as a natural psychological phenomenon. The negative aspect is considered to be the difficulty of applying this model to larger groups involved in training sessions. Finally, the last model of training in cultural adaptation presented is the Stress-Adaptation-Growth model of Young Yun Kim. This model focuses more on the immersion of language and communication in the acculturation and deculturation processes that lead to assimilation. As opposed to the last two models, the disadvantage of this model is its lack of focus on the individual. The presentation of these four models was just a way of framing the theoretical aspects related to the stages of culture shock. More emphasis on the training techniques will be put later on in this article. Whether it is represented in a liner way or as a U-curve, the effects of culture shock depend very much on each individual. As Jacques Demorgon pointed out in his Dynamiques interculturelles pour ['Europe, all in all, the capacity to tolerate what is foreign finds a certain limit in each individual.!7 Having established the stages of culture shock, a clarification must be made regarding its manifestations, more precisely its symptoms. Symptoms of Culture Shock Culture shock does not manifest itself in the same way for each individual. Still, taking into consideration the frequency of some manifestations, a list of the most common symptoms may be presented to the reader. The most frequent culture shock symptoms: homesickness 17 Jacques Demorgon, Edmond-Mark Lipiansky, Brukhard Muller, Hans Nicklas, Dynamiques Interculturelles pour L'Europe, Paris: Ed. Economica, 2003, p. 114. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication excessive concern for sanitation regarding hand washing, the quality of the food or water consumed fear of physical contact with members of the other culture troubles with concentrating on certain things insomnia nightmares fatigue feelings of helplessness embarrassment anger fear of being injured, robbed or cheated 117 exaggeration of the damage caused by minor injuries or any other physical disorders stomachaches headaches alcohol or drugs abuse even more severe effects, like suicidal attempts Triandis also pointed out that the degree of manifestation of culture shock is proportional with the conceptual distance between the home culture. and the host culture. There is also a strong connection between culture shock and intercultural experience, the proportion being reversed in this case. I will end this section by presenting one of Triandis' experiences as a traveler. Though he had a rich traveling experience, the first time he went to Calcutta, India, having arrived during the night, he was surprised to see lots of corpses along the road. But what he thought to be corpses were actually people sleeping. Only later he learned that those people were not dead; it was common for people to sleep there, in order to save some of the money they gained and to help their families in the villages. His conclusion is that: "When we are able to predict what others will do, when we can act so as to get others to do what we want done, when we know how to get rewards from our environment and avoid punishments, we feel in 118 Delia Flanja control. In new cultures we are often not able to predict the behavior of others or get them to do what we want."18 Means of Coping with Culture Shock Intercultural training presupposes not only teaching the language of a certain country. Giving information about the culture of foreign countries and constantly adapting the information to the current situation is an imperative in intercultural training. As the language aspect has been brought into discussion, I would like to draw attention on what knowing the language of the culture that is going to be visited actually means. In a case study on 127 students, engaged in study motilities in France, Margaret Pitts notices that there is a difference between the levels of language that student perceive of having and the way they manage to perform in that particular language abroad. She considers this to be in many cases a first level of shock for students.19 Different academic demands, combined with an unexpected language difficulty could represent a first challenge into adaptation, and this is why even language knowledge should be adapted to particular regions and social environments. Culture training addresses especially to long term travelers like sojourners or immigrants; in the case of tourists, some general information is usually sufficient. The economic aspect should also de taken into consideration because culture training is rather expensive and this is why special emphasis should be put on long term travelers, which can benefit much more than tourists from that training. Besides the period of departure, the need for special training and the potential difficulties of psychological and socio-cultural adaptation depend on the quantity and quality of relations with the host nationals and the cultural differences between the county of origin and the host country. The international traveler is looking for support in two directions. The first direction is from the host nationals and the second one is from 18 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp. 262-263. 19 Margaret Pitts, "Identity and the role of expectations, stress, and talk in short-term student sojourner adjustment", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 33, no. 6, November 2009, pp. 450-462. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 119 family, friends, or acquaintances back horne. The support from the people back horne seems to be the most reliable source of support but it can also make the traveler's stay abroad more difficult. Keeping constant contact with people back horne can, in some cases, create difficulties in adaptation, as homesickness is intensified. So, contact with people back horne and with host nationals should be combined in such a way that the traveler can find his comfort zone. Some studies have focused on the sources of support for the sojourners and among the most used and effective ones we can find: maintaining contact with the people back horne and corning into contact with the host nationals or with other international students, visiting the new country, being openminded and optimistic, having a good knowledge of the foreign language, learning the other culture's specificity, keeping a journal, finding a comfort zone, thinking about the outcomes of that experience. Besides the general stress coping strategies, each individual should try to discover his or her own ways of feeling comfortable in the new environment and should take advantage of all the help he or she can get. There are some reactions to culture shock that, instead of diminishing its negative effects, can only increase stress and the negative attitude towards the new culture. Some intercultural travelers blame their condition on the host nationals, on the environment or on the persons that have encouraged them in their departure. Though blaming others and staying more or less isolated may seem as a proper solution to avoid responsibility, this only postpones takin~ efficient measures for making the time spent abroad as enjoyable as possible. 2 In the case of international students, active counseling can help them surpass difficulties and to benefit the most from the experience. Keeping them busy and involved could be a good method for diminishing culture shock. Community programs and group integrations may seem time consuming but it can be both relaxing and educational. "These two goals, if broadly defined, are not antagonistic. Although the student may have a specific academic goal, inevitably he will have experienced cultural unities and diversities during his sojourn abroad. Almost inevitably, he will 20 Nancy Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Begavior, second edition, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992, pp. 227-231. 120 Delia Flanja be called upon to fulfill, in addition to his professional role, upon return home, the role of a cultural interpreter."21 So, it is perfectly justifiable why adequate communication has been regarded by many· as the key component of intercultural effectiveness. Training Techniques There are several training methods in this domain and I will present some of the most efficient ones in the following paragraphs, using the study of Colleen Ward et alii22 as source of information: One of the best training methods is to bring a member of the host culture into the trainee's one. This way, he is exposed to a very realistic and genuine source of knowledge and he is kept away from experiencing the first contact shock, on foreign ground. It is, of course important to learn about the foreign culture, but having an example in front of you is much more concluding. Of course, the person selected must be one representative for his or her culture, not an out of the ordinary individual. Though it is more difficult to put in practice, short term exchange among culture members seems to be the best way of a proper comprehension. Another learning method, though more theoretical, is indeed very efficient. This method is called "the culture assimilator" and it is a programmed learning approach that consists of a set of one hundred to two hundred scenarios in which individuals from two different cultures interact. For each scenario, the trainee is given a set of explanations for the miscommunication process, and he has to choose the correct one. This technique is also useful because, instead of presenting facts, it places the trainee in the position of learning from his own assumptions. This can give him a feedback on what he already knows and on how prepared he is for a future contact. Also, having actual situations as examples makes learning more practical and attractive. 21 Cajoleas, Louis, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 29, no. 4,1958, pp. 209-212, 234. 22 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Furnham, op.cit. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 121 In the BAF A BAF A game, trainees are given a hypothetical cultural group that they have to identify with. There are two different teams, Alpha and Beta, belonging to different cultural groups. Both teams receive information regarding the culture that they must identify with. The game consists in exchanging visitors and simulating a hostsojourner situation. This way, the trainees learn in an interactive way of two cultures at the time and, also, they make an idea of what being a host means. Another interesting technique is the Barnga game. The subjects receive a set of playing cards, different for each team, and a set of rules that they have to memorize. They are not allowed to speak or write words. They can express themselves only by gestures and drawings. When the game is over, the participants discuss their experiences. The aim of Barnga is to simulate intercultural communication difficulties. In the Ecotonos game, players are divided into three teams, each representing one culture. They receive cards with rules in each culture. After discussing for a short while about their cultures, they must make up stories about their cultural development. Then they are combined in "multicultural" groups, and are given different tasks that they must accomplish together, taking into consideration the cultural background that they have been assigned. This game also gave the purpose of improving communication skills and cultural knowledge. The last technique that I will describe is "the critical incident technique". This technique presupposes the analysis of some episodes of misunderstanding or conflict arising from cultural differences between the actors. With the help of a facilitator that will explain at the end, in detail, what had happened, the trainees must discover the problem issues. It is very difficult to evaluate the efficiency of one training method or another, as it takes a lot of time to see the results and those results are very much influenced by the specificity of each individual and of each culture. Some of the methods of testing their efficiency are the feedback on return home, the individual's performance or his results, the feedback of representatives of the receiving country. "The analysis produced a three factor model of intercultural effectiveness: (1) 122 Delia Flanja ability to manage psychological stress, (2) ability to communicate effectively, and (3) ability to establish interpersonal relationships."23 "The 'shock' part of culture shock is now being discussed in terms of skills deficits (Bochner, 1986) and acculturative stress (Berry, 1994a, 1997). This, in tum, draws attention to the range of mediating and moderating variables that can either attenuate or accentuate the effects of behavioural deficits and psychosocial stressors that sojourners, immigrants and refugees may face." 24 It is important to comprehend that no method is self sufficient or completely efficient. Still, the importance of being aware of the potential difficulties reduces culture shock considerably. To support this final idea I will make use of the adaptation of Fons Trompenaars to the famous saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Referring to the Japanese people and to their solution to adapting to the changes produced by globalization around the world, he considers that the correct manner of dealing with interculturality and its challenges would be: "When in Rome, understand the behaviour of the Romans, and thus become an even more complete J apanese." 25 CONCLUSIONS The boundaries of one's country are no longer an impediment in one's development. People have the freedom of circulating more freely among countries and cultures and the changes in their needs often determine them to take advantage of that freedom. But being a good communicator in one culture does not necessary mean that one will be a good communicator in all cultures. The cultural differences may put in difficulty even the most experimented traveler, as the examples in my paper have shown. In order to surpass those difficulties, people need to embrace a new set of rules and 23 Ibidem, p. 41. 24 Ibidem, p. 40. 25 Fons Trompenaars, Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding cultural Diversity in Business, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993, p. 4. Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 123 values. If they are not able to adapt, than the negative symptoms of culture shock intervene. One may experience this culture shock when he is placed out of his familiar environment, in an environment where his own norms and values are not compatible to those of others. Nowadays, the international travelers have the advantage of being quite numerous. As a result, it is easier for them to integrate in a new environment if they find people placed in a similar situation. Lately, the economic implications of intercultural contact have led to the tendency towards training also the host nationals for the intercultural encounter. The manner in which this training should be made and the proper model to be chosen is as challenging as in the case of pre-departure training. What we should keep in mind is that there is no correct or incorrect way of perceiving things and of communicating; there is just a different way of doing those things. In order to improve our life, we must adapt our behaviors and our needs to the environment that we inhabit. As the environment is constantly enlarging, intercultural training is an imperative in any communication act. Bibliography: 1. Adler, Nancy (1992), International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, second edition, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company 2. Beaulieu, Catherine (2004), "Intercultural Study on Personal Space: A Case Study", in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 34, Issue 4, April 2004, Pages: 794-805, [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/ fulltext], 27.10.2009 3. Borneman, John; Fowler, Nick (1997), "Europeanization", in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26, p. 487-514. 4. Cajoleas, Louis (1958), "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 209-212, 234. 5. Demorgon, Jacques; Lipiansky, Edmond-Mark; Miiller, Brukhard; Nicklas, Hans (2003), Dynamiques Interculturelles pour L'Europe, Paris: Ed. Economica. 124 Delia Flanja 6. Halliday, John COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
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STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABE$-BOLYAI, STUDIA EUROPAEA, LIV, 4,2009
CULTURE SHOCK IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Delia Flanja*
Abstract
People live in communities based on the things they have in common, and the
means of sharing those things are through communication acts. In order to form a
community or a society, it is impetuously necessary to have common goals, beliefs,
aspirations, knowledge, a common understanding.
Not too many of the people that go abroad take into consideration the way in which
cultural differences may affect their well being. "Culture shock" is the state of
discomfort experienced by the intercultural traveler, in a more or less profound
way, once he or she is placed in an unfamiliar environment. This is the aspect that I
will try to clarify in may paper, more precisely the importance of being aware of
and learning how to cope with culture shock.
Key words: culture, interculturalism, culture shock, differences, training
As nowadays the groups that enter into contact are constantly
enlarging, the ways of communicating also need to develop in order to
respond to the needs of those coming into contact. The communication that
I am referring to is intercultural communication, which also implies an
intercultural knowledge. Inside his own culture, one does not think
considerably at the cultural specificity, as the interlocutors share similar
sets of rules and values. But when going internationally, communication
becomes difficult without having the same background. The individual
must compensate for all the things that his interlocutor has learned in his
life time, by trying to learn, understand, and adapt to the other's set of
behavioral and conceptual rules .
- Delia Flanja is a Ph.D. candidate in philology at the Faculty of European Studies, Babe~
Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. E-mail: [email protected]
108 Delia Flanja
The Concept of "Culture"
Harry Triandis, a specialist in cross-cultural psychology, uses a definition
of culture that is, at the same time, explicit and wide enough to describe
the term:
"Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that
in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in
satisfactions for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became
shared among those who could communicate with each other because
they had a common language and they lived in the same time and
place."1
The term "human made" reveals the fact that culture, even if it has its
historical background that has left inerasable traces, has the quality of
evolving over time and adapting to different types of circumstances and
needs. As A.L. Kroeber stated in one of his articles, "it is increasingly
evident that no civilization is ever actually static. It always flOWS"2. And
one of the circumstances nowadays is the development of that movement
towards an intercultural dimension.
People tend to be unaware of their own culture. They take things as
they come and they do not wonder what cultural aspect influences their
beliefs and their behavior. When they come into contact with a new
culture, the conscience of one's own cultural belonging awakens. The
bigger is the differences between cultures, the higher will be the awareness
about one's own cultural specificity.
The Context of Intercultural Contact Development
Nowadays it seems more than natural for people from different cultures to
interact. But what determines them to interact and why did interactions
increase so rapidly in the last years?
The mass media that introduce different cultures to different parts
of the world, the purpose of economic development, the new source of
1 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994, p. 22.
2 A. L. Kroeber, "The Delimitation of Civilizations", in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14,
1953, no. 2., pp. 264-275.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 109
inspiration that the intercultural environment might represent, the
increased possibility to travel abroad, the need for integration in a wider
space, the tendency of correlation between the nation.al and the
international context, all these constitute the background for the
intercultural contact development.
Besides the movement towards America, considered for a long time to
be the land of all possibilities, there is a strong tendency of Europeans to
move inside their own continent too, due to the EUropeanization process.
Talking about Europeanization, Stephen Weatherford considers that
"In a world in which national economies are becoming increasingly
integrated, the vicissitudes of trade and capital flows have had dramatic
impacts on domestic welfare in every advanced country."3
Treating this subject, John Borneman and Nick Fowler made a short
review regarding the unity that the Europeans started 0 create inside their
continent. They mentioned the European currency (the Euro), the
European flag, the European newspaper, television stations and
universities, the European film festival, parliament, court, law, song
festival, Champions League for soccer. They also brought into discussion
the concept of "unity in diversity", a concept that suggests the possibility
of different countries to maintain their specificities even when being
integrated to the big European "family".4
Fred Halliday, in the paper Rethinking International Relations5,
considers that states are inclined to correlate more and more one with the
other and to adopt sets of norms and values shared by different societies,
which are being promoted by the competition among states. But,
inevitably, there is a difficulty in conforming to an international pattern
dictated by this competitive homogenization, by the need of overcoming
the handicap caused by the difference in development among some sates.
This difficulty of conforming becomes even higher if we take into
3 Stephen Wheaterford; Haruhiro Fukui, "Domestic Adjustment to International Shocks in
Japan and the United States", in International Organization, Vol. 43,1989, no. 4, pp. 585-623.
4 John Borneman; Nick Fowler, "Europeanization", in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26,
1997, pp. 487-514.
5 John Fred Halliday, Rethinking International Relations, London: Macmillan, 1994, pp. 117-
110 Delia Flanja
consideration the fact that there is also a need of keeping the distinctive
aspects of national cultures as well.
This "unity in diversity" is a good way of perceiving intercultural
communicating as well. There are some global rules of communication
that one must master, but specificity and compatibility are the aspects
that people corning into intercultural contact should put more emphasis
on, in order to become fully comprehended, and in order to be able to
receive the massage that the interlocutor intends to send.
Basics of Cultural Differences
Culture influences the way humans select, interpret, process, and use
information. So, keeping informed about a certain culture is not enough.
One must also know how to interpret that information in an appropriate
way, which may be different from his first perception. The importance of
this aspect is very well formulated by Harry Triandis who asked the
following question:
"In a world that can become extinct in a nuclear holocaust, can we afford
to neglect a better understanding of the relationship of culture and social
behavior?"6
The answer is obviously "no". In the century of speed, information cannot
be ignored and most certainly must not be postponed. The diversity is too
big to afford applying the general to the particular.
These are some of the reasons that determine the appearance of
such phenomena as II culture shock". For a better understanding of the
term, I will make use of Kalervo Oberg's definition, a famous Canadian
anthropologist, definition reproduced by Harry Triandis in Culture and
Social Behavior.
"Culture shock occurs when people interact with members of a very
different culture and experience a loss of control. This happens when they
cannot understand the behavior of the people from the other culture.
Then they feel confused and develop both physical (e.g., asthma,
6 Harry Triandis, Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994, p. 31.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 111
headaches) and psycho logical (e.g., depression) symptoms (Oberg, 1954,
1960)."7
Sources of Culture Shock
We operate inside our culture, guided by unperceived and rarely
acknowledged networks. When we are placed out of our comfort zone, the
phenomenon of culture shock may occur. Culture shock is caused by
unfamiliarity with the new country, difficulty or inability to speak the
language, or not knowing how to behave in an unfamiliar culture.
Newcomers can sometimes feel like children because they cannot
understand all these new things at once.
So, culture shock can have its sources in the lack of knowledge, the
lack of ability to adapt, the lack of willingness to adapt, etc. One of the
reasons why people cannot adapt is the preconceived ideas about the host
country, which are as dangerous as the lack of knowledge.
"Attributions refer to judgments or causal explanations about human
behaviour. While individuals use attributions to make sense of their surrounding
environments, their causal accounts are often influenced by motivational
biases. One of these biases is related to the need to maintain and
enhance self-esteem. Social psychological research has demonstrated that in
most cases individuals attribute their successes to internal or dispositional
factors and their failures to external or situational factors."B
Discrimination from the representatives of the host country can only
intensify the state of discomfort. It is difficult to adapt even in a friendly
environment, and reticence from the host nationals is a big impediment.
Also, it is very difficult to maintain one's identity in a multicultural society,
while obtaining acceptance and feeling integrated in host social groups.
Discrimination results in conflicts and those conflicts lead us back to
stereotypes.
What one must take into consideration when dealing with
stereotypes is the fact that they are comparative judgments and that the
7 Ibidem, p. 239.
8 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psyclwlogy of Culture Shock,
Routledge, 2001, p. 112.
112 Delia Flanja
correct manner of referring to a characteristic of one culture is by
comparing it to another culture. Triandis gives the example of a certain
culture A, where people wash their hands around one hundred times a day
and of a certain culture B where people wash their hands around seventy
times a day. Of course, there are exceptions to those numbers inside those
particular cultures but the average is of one hundred and of seventy times a
day. Given those numbers, representatives of both cultures can be
considered to be clean and attentive to hygiene, but representatives of
culture A can easily consider those of culture B not to be very clean.9
In giving another example to support the idea that difficulties may
occur as a result of cultural particularities I will also make use of Catherine
Beaulieu's study on 23 students, from 11 countries, involved in a summer
program. The focus of her study was on the perception of personal space
by representatives of different cultures, and on the way this perception
affects the communication process. The term of personal space was
introduced by Edward Hall in 1959 and it refers to an invisible zone
surrounding each individual, which allows him to feel comfortable in
interactions. Though the author admits the small number of subjects
involved in the survey, the results obtained are just a confirmation of what
had already been concluded by other surveys in that domain and they can
support the effects of cultural differences in communication. Anglo Saxons
need a larger personal space, fallowed by Asians, Caucasians and Latinos.
Even the body posture is different when interacting. As a result, a Latino
may seem aggressive to an Asian, while his style is simply more direct.lO
All the above mentioned elements may constitute sources of culture
shock. But how exactly does this phenomenon affect the intercultural
traveler? This aspect will be clarified by presenting its stages and its
symptoms.
Stages of Culture Shock
Though each individual reacts differently to the cross cultural
differences, Kalervo Oberg, quoted by Delia Marga in Intercultural Business
9 Harry Triandis, op.cit., p. 138.
10 Catherine Beaulieu, "Intercultural Study on Personal Space: A Case Study", in the Journal
of Applied Social Psychology vol. 34, Issue 4, April 2004, pp. 794-805.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 113
Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A reader, in his discussion
regarding "culture shock", detailed four general phases of emotional
reactions associated with cross-cultural sojourns. These phases are at the basis
of studies in the domain of "culture shock" .11
- The "honeymoon" stage
This stage is the one experienced at the beginning of the contact,
and it is characterized of euphoria, excitement, fascination, and enthusiasm.
Positive attitudes predominate, and even if travelers come with a luggage of
pre-conceived ideas, the thrill in front of the new and out of the ordinary
predominates. Most tourists do not surpass this phase. Those that intend to
stay for a longer period of time are preoccupied with getting accommodated
and making connections. Similarities are regarded with comfort while
dissimilarities are regarded with interest.
- The" crisis" stage
This stage is the most difficult and challenging one, as it is
characterized by feelings of inadequacy, frustration, anxiety, irritation,
hostility, etc. The euphoria of the exotic and out of the ordinary has passed
and the traveler has to face reality. In this stage the manifestations of the
"disease" culture shock starts to manifest. If this stage is surpassed, though
some travelers never do, then the "healing" process can begin.
- The "recovery" or "gradual adjustment" stage
During this stage, the individual takes measures to exit the crisis stage.
He begins to understand the new culture and to create· a comfort zone. The
unfamiliar becomes familiar and this diminishes his states of anxiety and
nervousness. His actions evolve from artificial to natural, due to crisis
resolution and culture learning. Sojourners and immigrants suffer the most
severe adjustment problems at the beginning stage of transition when the
number of changes is very high and coping resources are very low.
11 Delia Marga (ed.), Intercultural Business Communication. Professional Discourse Analysis. A
reader, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 2004, pp. 152-154.
114 Delia Flanja
- The "complete adjustment" or the "biculturalism"
This stage reflects enjoyment and functional competence in the new
environment. The "patient" has entirely recovered from his "disease". He has
learned to accept things the way they are and he has embraced some of the
culture particularities of the host country. He no longer feels a "fish out of
water" (a metaphor which refers to taking the individual out of habitual
environment that he can control and where he feels at ease). Harry
Triandis states that even if an individual has the chance of getting support
in the host culture, it is not equivalent to the one received from his family
and friends. He also speaks about avoidance and formality as factors that
come against one's adaptation.12
For those that return to the host culture, some specialists support the
idea of the existence of another stage. This stage is called the "re-entry shock"
and it does not necessary fallow the other four. It depends on the level that the
individual has reached before returning home.
"As he becomes involved once again in his home culture he
is faced with the need to bring his reconstructed value system
into closer juxtaposition with indigenous values; he is faced with
the need to prove his sameness without discarding his newly
acquired outlook."13
Gulbahar Huxur, university professor in Columbia, clearly
summarizes the reasons for the re-entry shock by describing it, in an article
published in 1996, as a feeling of both gain and loss. Gain of new concepts
and values, of new experiences, of new perspectives, and loss of an
environment that was familiar for a longer or shorter period of time, regain
of what he or she has left at departure and loss of what he or she has found
in the new culture.14
Lysgaard (1955), quoted by Coleen Ward et alii in The Psychology of
Culture Shock proposed in his cross-cultural study a U-curve model of
12 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp.262-287.
13 Louis Cajoleas, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol.
29,1958, no. 4, p.212.
14 Gulbahar Huxur, Earl Mansfield, Reginald Nnazor, Hans Schuetze, Megumi Segawa,
Learning Needs and Adaptation Problems of Foreign Graduate Students, 1996, pp. 3-6.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 115
adjustment during cross-cultural relocation based on his investigation of some
Scandinavian students in the United States. The conclusion of his study was
that there is a critical adjustment period for the intercultural sojourners. That
period is considered to be from six to eighteen months of departure. This
conclusion is based on the fact that students returning home after six months
have managed to adjust to the needs required in that interval. After around six
months, the enthusiasm of the new and the effects of the "honeymoon" stage
start to fade away. So, sojourners encounter new problems in adaptation that
are considered to be surpassed after eighteen months or more. As opposed to
the U-curve adjustment theory, there is also a longitudinal adjustment theory.
Longitudinal studies have considered the early months of transition as having
the higher level of psychological distress. Still, the U-curve proposition has
continued to exert strong influence on the field. 15
Lysgaard's U-curve model has been analyzed by Miriam SobreDenton
and Dan Hart, in the article Mind the gap: Application-based
analysis of cultural adjustment models. 16 The authors of this article analyze
the advantages and disadvantages of four important cross-cultural
adaptation theories. The main str~ngth of this model is in their point of
view the so called "intuitive appeal" while the main disadvantage is the
fact that it focuses to much on a pattern, leaving aside the uniqueness of
each individual and of each experience.
The second analyzed model is the Anxiety/Uncertainty Management
model, introduced by William Gudykunst. What this model draws attention to
is the fact that uncertainty and anxiety do not damage the process of
acculturation, but contribute to the "positive acculturation". Also, it does not
have the weakness of the previously presented model, as it is adapted to
different individuals in different situations. In spite of that, the problem with
this model derives exactly in the orientation towards this great diversity. The
forty seven axioms invest this model with a great degree of complexity that
can be disorienting.
15 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Fumham, The Psychology of Culture Shock,
Routledge, 2001, p. 80.
16 Miriam Sobre-Denton, Dan Hart, "Mind the gap: Application-based analysis of cultural
adjustment models", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 32, Issue 6,
November 2008, pp. 532-538, 539-540.
116 Delia Flanja
The third model brought into discussion is the Transition model which
presents adaptation as a natural process and it focuses even more on the
particularity of each individual. According to Bennett, the promoter of this
model, cultural adaptation training should be more sojourner oriented than
pattern oriented, and this aspect is considered to be a positive one by Miriam
Sobre-Denton and Dan Hart along with the perception of culture shock
as a natural psychological phenomenon. The negative aspect is
considered to be the difficulty of applying this model to larger groups
involved in training sessions.
Finally, the last model of training in cultural adaptation presented
is the Stress-Adaptation-Growth model of Young Yun Kim. This model
focuses more on the immersion of language and communication in the
acculturation and deculturation processes that lead to assimilation. As
opposed to the last two models, the disadvantage of this model is its lack
of focus on the individual.
The presentation of these four models was just a way of framing the
theoretical aspects related to the stages of culture shock. More emphasis on the
training techniques will be put later on in this article. Whether it is represented
in a liner way or as a U-curve, the effects of culture shock depend very much on
each individual. As Jacques Demorgon pointed out in his Dynamiques
interculturelles pour ['Europe, all in all, the capacity to tolerate what is
foreign finds a certain limit in each individual.!7 Having established the
stages of culture shock, a clarification must be made regarding its
manifestations, more precisely its symptoms.
Symptoms of Culture Shock
Culture shock does not manifest itself in the same way for each
individual. Still, taking into consideration the frequency of some
manifestations, a list of the most common symptoms may be presented to
the reader.
The most frequent culture shock symptoms:
homesickness
17 Jacques Demorgon, Edmond-Mark Lipiansky, Brukhard Muller, Hans Nicklas,
Dynamiques Interculturelles pour L'Europe, Paris: Ed. Economica, 2003, p. 114.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication
excessive concern for sanitation regarding hand washing, the
quality of the food or water consumed
fear of physical contact with members of the other culture
troubles with concentrating on certain things
insomnia
nightmares
fatigue
feelings of helplessness
embarrassment
anger
fear of being injured, robbed or cheated
117
exaggeration of the damage caused by minor injuries or any other
physical disorders
stomachaches
headaches
alcohol or drugs abuse
even more severe effects, like suicidal attempts
Triandis also pointed out that the degree of manifestation of
culture shock is proportional with the conceptual distance between the
home culture. and the host culture. There is also a strong connection
between culture shock and intercultural experience, the proportion being
reversed in this case.
I will end this section by presenting one of Triandis' experiences
as a traveler. Though he had a rich traveling experience, the first time he
went to Calcutta, India, having arrived during the night, he was
surprised to see lots of corpses along the road. But what he thought to be
corpses were actually people sleeping. Only later he learned that those
people were not dead; it was common for people to sleep there, in order
to save some of the money they gained and to help their families in the
villages. His conclusion is that:
"When we are able to predict what others will do, when we can act so as
to get others to do what we want done, when we know how to get
rewards from our environment and avoid punishments, we feel in
118 Delia Flanja
control. In new cultures we are often not able to predict the behavior of
others or get them to do what we want."18
Means of Coping with Culture Shock
Intercultural training presupposes not only teaching the language of
a certain country. Giving information about the culture of foreign countries
and constantly adapting the information to the current situation is an
imperative in intercultural training.
As the language aspect has been brought into discussion, I would
like to draw attention on what knowing the language of the culture that is
going to be visited actually means. In a case study on 127 students, engaged
in study motilities in France, Margaret Pitts notices that there is a difference
between the levels of language that student perceive of having and the way
they manage to perform in that particular language abroad. She considers
this to be in many cases a first level of shock for students.19 Different
academic demands, combined with an unexpected language difficulty
could represent a first challenge into adaptation, and this is why even
language knowledge should be adapted to particular regions and social
environments.
Culture training addresses especially to long term travelers like
sojourners or immigrants; in the case of tourists, some general information
is usually sufficient. The economic aspect should also de taken into
consideration because culture training is rather expensive and this is why
special emphasis should be put on long term travelers, which can benefit
much more than tourists from that training. Besides the period of
departure, the need for special training and the potential difficulties of
psychological and socio-cultural adaptation depend on the quantity and
quality of relations with the host nationals and the cultural differences
between the county of origin and the host country.
The international traveler is looking for support in two directions.
The first direction is from the host nationals and the second one is from
18 Harry Triandis, op.cit., pp. 262-263.
19 Margaret Pitts, "Identity and the role of expectations, stress, and talk in short-term student
sojourner adjustment", in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 33, no. 6,
November 2009, pp. 450-462.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 119
family, friends, or acquaintances back horne. The support from the people
back horne seems to be the most reliable source of support but it can also
make the traveler's stay abroad more difficult. Keeping constant contact with
people back horne can, in some cases, create difficulties in adaptation, as
homesickness is intensified. So, contact with people back horne and with host
nationals should be combined in such a way that the traveler can find his
comfort zone.
Some studies have focused on the sources of support for the sojourners
and among the most used and effective ones we can find: maintaining contact
with the people back horne and corning into contact with the host nationals or
with other international students, visiting the new country, being openminded
and optimistic, having a good knowledge of the foreign language,
learning the other culture's specificity, keeping a journal, finding a comfort
zone, thinking about the outcomes of that experience. Besides the general
stress coping strategies, each individual should try to discover his or her own
ways of feeling comfortable in the new environment and should take
advantage of all the help he or she can get.
There are some reactions to culture shock that, instead of diminishing
its negative effects, can only increase stress and the negative attitude towards
the new culture. Some intercultural travelers blame their condition on the host
nationals, on the environment or on the persons that have encouraged them in
their departure. Though blaming others and staying more or less isolated may
seem as a proper solution to avoid responsibility, this only postpones takin~
efficient measures for making the time spent abroad as enjoyable as possible. 2
In the case of international students, active counseling can help
them surpass difficulties and to benefit the most from the experience.
Keeping them busy and involved could be a good method for
diminishing culture shock. Community programs and group
integrations may seem time consuming but it can be both relaxing and
educational.
"These two goals, if broadly defined, are not antagonistic.
Although the student may have a specific academic goal,
inevitably he will have experienced cultural unities and
diversities during his sojourn abroad. Almost inevitably, he will
20 Nancy Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Begavior, second edition, Belmont:
Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992, pp. 227-231.
120 Delia Flanja
be called upon to fulfill, in addition to his professional role, upon
return home, the role of a cultural interpreter."21
So, it is perfectly justifiable why adequate communication has
been regarded by many· as the key component of intercultural
effectiveness.
Training Techniques
There are several training methods in this domain and I will
present some of the most efficient ones in the following paragraphs,
using the study of Colleen Ward et alii22 as source of information:
One of the best training methods is to bring a member of the host
culture into the trainee's one. This way, he is exposed to a very realistic
and genuine source of knowledge and he is kept away from
experiencing the first contact shock, on foreign ground. It is, of course
important to learn about the foreign culture, but having an example in
front of you is much more concluding. Of course, the person selected
must be one representative for his or her culture, not an out of the
ordinary individual. Though it is more difficult to put in practice, short
term exchange among culture members seems to be the best way of a
proper comprehension.
Another learning method, though more theoretical, is indeed
very efficient. This method is called "the culture assimilator" and it is a
programmed learning approach that consists of a set of one hundred to two
hundred scenarios in which individuals from two different cultures
interact. For each scenario, the trainee is given a set of explanations for the
miscommunication process, and he has to choose the correct one. This
technique is also useful because, instead of presenting facts, it places the
trainee in the position of learning from his own assumptions. This can
give him a feedback on what he already knows and on how prepared he
is for a future contact. Also, having actual situations as examples makes
learning more practical and attractive.
21 Cajoleas, Louis, "Counseling Overseas Students" , in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol.
29, no. 4,1958, pp. 209-212, 234.
22 Coleen Ward, Stephen Bochner, Adrian Furnham, op.cit.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 121
In the BAF A BAF A game, trainees are given a hypothetical
cultural group that they have to identify with. There are two different
teams, Alpha and Beta, belonging to different cultural groups. Both
teams receive information regarding the culture that they must identify
with. The game consists in exchanging visitors and simulating a hostsojourner
situation. This way, the trainees learn in an interactive way of
two cultures at the time and, also, they make an idea of what being a
host means.
Another interesting technique is the Barnga game. The subjects
receive a set of playing cards, different for each team, and a set of rules
that they have to memorize. They are not allowed to speak or write words.
They can express themselves only by gestures and drawings. When the
game is over, the participants discuss their experiences. The aim of
Barnga is to simulate intercultural communication difficulties.
In the Ecotonos game, players are divided into three teams, each
representing one culture. They receive cards with rules in each culture.
After discussing for a short while about their cultures, they must make
up stories about their cultural development. Then they are combined in
"multicultural" groups, and are given different tasks that they must
accomplish together, taking into consideration the cultural background
that they have been assigned. This game also gave the purpose of
improving communication skills and cultural knowledge.
The last technique that I will describe is "the critical incident
technique". This technique presupposes the analysis of some episodes of
misunderstanding or conflict arising from cultural differences between
the actors. With the help of a facilitator that will explain at the end, in
detail, what had happened, the trainees must discover the problem
issues.
It is very difficult to evaluate the efficiency of one training
method or another, as it takes a lot of time to see the results and those
results are very much influenced by the specificity of each individual
and of each culture. Some of the methods of testing their efficiency are
the feedback on return home, the individual's performance or his
results, the feedback of representatives of the receiving country. "The
analysis produced a three factor model of intercultural effectiveness: (1)
122 Delia Flanja
ability to manage psychological stress, (2) ability to communicate
effectively, and (3) ability to establish interpersonal relationships."23
"The 'shock' part of culture shock is now being discussed in terms
of skills deficits (Bochner, 1986) and acculturative stress (Berry,
1994a, 1997). This, in tum, draws attention to the range of
mediating and moderating variables that can either attenuate or
accentuate the effects of behavioural deficits and psychosocial
stressors that sojourners, immigrants and refugees may face." 24
It is important to comprehend that no method is self sufficient or
completely efficient. Still, the importance of being aware of the potential
difficulties reduces culture shock considerably. To support this final idea
I will make use of the adaptation of Fons Trompenaars to the famous
saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Referring to the Japanese
people and to their solution to adapting to the changes produced by
globalization around the world, he considers that the correct manner of
dealing with interculturality and its challenges would be: "When in
Rome, understand the behaviour of the Romans, and thus become an
even more complete J apanese." 25
CONCLUSIONS
The boundaries of one's country are no longer an impediment in
one's development. People have the freedom of circulating more freely
among countries and cultures and the changes in their needs often
determine them to take advantage of that freedom. But being a good
communicator in one culture does not necessary mean that one will be a
good communicator in all cultures.
The cultural differences may put in difficulty even the most
experimented traveler, as the examples in my paper have shown. In order
to surpass those difficulties, people need to embrace a new set of rules and
23 Ibidem, p. 41.
24 Ibidem, p. 40.
25 Fons Trompenaars, Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding cultural Diversity in Business,
London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993, p. 4.
Culture Shock In Intercultural Communication 123
values. If they are not able to adapt, than the negative symptoms of culture
shock intervene. One may experience this culture shock when he is placed
out of his familiar environment, in an environment where his own norms
and values are not compatible to those of others.
Nowadays, the international travelers have the advantage of being
quite numerous. As a result, it is easier for them to integrate in a new
environment if they find people placed in a similar situation. Lately, the
economic implications of intercultural contact have led to the tendency
towards training also the host nationals for the intercultural encounter. The
manner in which this training should be made and the proper model to be
chosen is as challenging as in the case of pre-departure training.
What we should keep in mind is that there is no correct or incorrect
way of perceiving things and of communicating; there is just a different
way of doing those things. In order to improve our life, we must adapt our
behaviors and our needs to the environment that we inhabit. As the
environment is constantly enlarging, intercultural training is an imperative
in any communication act.
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