What does culture shock mean

Initially a blur of culture shock juxtaposed with her ongoing disenchantment, the journals track her obsession with her elusive, rakish colleague as well as her increasingly erratic state of mind. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so. I don't know why or who's doing it, but it's the legacy…and it's a legacy that is so important to the culture. Whether he gets his full due in popular culture remains to be seen.

In Cuba its culture commenced in , and from this and the other islands large quantities were shipped to Europe. The culture of expression is a very different thing from the artful imitation of the signs of feeling and purpose. Yet a child coming under the humanising influences of culture soon gets far away from the level of the savage. Its culture however was looked upon with the same disapproval by Charles II.

It would be a modest guess that Accadian culture implied a growth of at least ten thousand years. This behavior leads to an increase in ethnocentric tendencies and chauvinism. Those individuals having a weak identity with their culture of origin and are strongly attracted to the contact culture are known as the assimilated passing type. They almost fully reject the culture of origin and adapt completely to the norms and values of the host culture. The loss of cultural identity poses a significant problem for re-integration.

Finally the combination of weak cultural identity and poor relations with the cultural outgroup is categorized as marginalized. Both cultures are seen to have important values and norms, but are also regarded to be incompatible and therefore no integration is possible. The marginalistic type sways between two cultures, which might have a serious identity conflict as consequence, but can also lead to a striving for reforms and social changes.

Table 2 " Outcomes of cultural contact at the individual level: psychological responses to second culture influences" With the exception of euphoria every phase of the Culture Shock process corresponds to a certain reaction type. The transformation to the next stage always involves a shift from one reaction type to the other, while the previous one is still present but no longer dominating.

A typical development along Oberg's Culture Shock model would show the chauvinistic reaction type during the actual crisis phase, followed by the marginal type vacillating between the two cultures, and finally resulting into the passing or the mediating type depending on the state of adjustment. Both fighting the other culture and looking down on its members as well as taking flight and only interacting with members of the own culture are dysfunctional approaches to adaptation.

This means adjusting behavior to the situation by first observing the way things are done in the culture, keeping in mind that all members of the host culture do not behave in the same way.

Culture Shock including its variety of symptoms and outcomes is a completely normal physical and psychological reaction to a foreign environment. Culture shock in all its diverse forms is completely normal and is part of a successful process of adaptation. The extent of adjustment does not depend on whether the negative symptoms of Culture Shock are experienced, but how they are coped with. In fact, they can have positive outcomes in the end, by serving as a hint that something is not right and therefore motivating thinking about how to adjust.

Therefore Culture Shock should no longer be seen as a negative and frustrating process but as a "positive sign on the road to international adaptation". The Culture Shock process described in section 2. Why somebody experiences the negative effects of Culture Shock, what determines them, how intense the experience is and whether the individual finds a way out of the crisis cannot be answered by the model.

The degree and length of Culture Shock vary significantly due to differences in the individual, the cultures involved and the situation of the encounter. Furnham and Bochner distinguish between three categories of conditions that influence the duration and extent of Culture Shock:. As these differences are multidimensional, the cultures may be very similar on one factor and very different on others 2 Individual differences - This aspect refers to differences in personality and the ability to cope with new environments.

It also includes demographic variables such as age, sex, socio-economic class, and education. The following parts of this section describe the factors related to the individual and those related to the societal level. The "ability to cope in another culture is affected by knowledge of the culture and its language, stereotypes of and attitudes towards people in the other culture, being able to suspend evaluation of other people's behavior and understanding the self as a cultural being.

Knowledge about a culture, the length of residence, amount of contact with host nationals, previous experience abroad, and cross-cultural training are commonly considered in relation to cross-cultural adaptation.

Knowledge about the culture and language are essential in order to understand the attitudes and behavior within the host culture. This knowledge can be gained in various ways including reading books, watching TV programs, talking to people who had extended contact to the host culture or directly to host nationals, or by observing the behavior of members of the other culture. This aspect is covered in more detail under point 3. Studying the language of the host culture is among the best ways to learn about people.

Of course this does not mean that it is necessary to speak the language fluently, but the more of the language is understood, the more of the culture can be understood. In general it can be said that language fluency bears a straightforward relationship to sociocultural adjustment. It is directly related to increased interaction with host nationals and therefore the decrease in sociocultural adjustment problems.

Expectations also play an important role in the adaptation process. Although the precise influence of expectations on the adjustment process has yet to be determined, a certain relationship can be observed.

Realistic expectations are believed to facilitate adjustment, while overly optimistic expectations are likely to result in psychological adaptation problems. Individuals who strongly identify with their country of origin display fewer symptoms of depression while strong host national identification is associated with lowered sociocultural adaptation problems.

There are various other factors related to the sojourner's personality that have a considerable influence on the adjustment process. The motivation to adapt is maybe one of the most important of these factors. This motivation depends largely on the length of stay in the host culture. The longer the stay is expected to be, the higher is the motivation to adapt. In contrast to that authoritarianism, rigidity, and ethnocentrism impede the acculturation process.

Other personality factors related to the Culture Shock process are coping with humor, personal flexibility, and tolerance of ambiguity. Even though some personality factors are generally believed to have a positive influence on the adaptation process, the model of the perfect sojourner does not exist. Sojourners go through the adaptation process at different rates - some adapt more quickly than others and a few do not adapt at all.

The previous section deals with the reasons for the differential rates that are related to the individual and the personality. However, there are also many reasons more closely related to the host environment, "some countries and organizations are easier to fit into than others.

This concept was introduced by Babiker et al. Sojourners' social networks have a strong influence as well. Having friends who are members of the host society is positively related to the attitude towards the host culture and the speed and degree of cross-cultural adaptation. Furthermore, personal, informal orientation appears to be much more effective than institutionally sponsored assistance.

There are three different types of networks depending on members and purpose. Differences in the type of acculturating group also determine the degree and duration of the adaptation process. The last part of this section is about the psychological reactions of host culture members receiving a foreign visitor that usually mirror the reactions of the foreigner.

It all starts with curiosity , the visitor is something new and different, and therefore exciting. This phase is followed by ethnocentrism. Host nationals will evaluate the foreigner applying their own cultural standards and finding him lacking. Some hosts may never get past this phase. If they are exposed to foreigners regularly they may move to the phase of polycentrism , knowing that there are different kinds of people who need to be measured by different kinds of standards.

Unfortunately there are also the two extreme reaction types of xenophobia and xenophilia , implying that one culture is superior to the other and rejecting the other culture completely. Due to international growth of companies, the building of strategic alliances and networks or cross-cultural mergers and acquisitions the number of expatriates increased significantly over the last 30 years. Becoming an expatriate is usually associated with possibilities to increase salary, career opportunities, and self- development.

Nevertheless, an international assignment also goes along with a high social pressure in the family or relationship, the temporary or permanent loss of social relations, a risk for career planning, and depending on the host country considerable Culture Shock and integration problems.

The limited availability of personnel willing and capable of working abroad for an extended period of time as well as the specialized requirements of the job and the need for internal recruitment oftentimes leads to the fact that there is only a small number of candidates to choose from. As a consequence, in many cases the candidate chosen is simply "the man who happened to be there".

The next section deals with the possibilities of improving the selection process in order to take into consideration additional requirements and therefore aim at decreasing the probability of failure. The selection of future expatriates is a crucial point in the assignment. It is possible to measure technical skills and professional education. Interpersonal communication skills can also be assessed when referring to previous or current colleagues and superiors. However, there are various factors that need to be taken into consideration before sending an employee abroad that are very difficult to measure accurately.

The problem of recruitment is further intensified by the fact that most companies still lack effective methods for selecting managers for international assignments. International selection processes vary only insignificantly from those used for domestic staff and ignore that success in a domestic operation is not a guarantee for success in an international assignment.

Companies show a strong need for an integrated screening and selection system being able to determine the aptitudes of candidates with a moderate degree of validity. Kealey suggests a three components system consisting of. Certain traits and characteristics have been identified as predictors of expatriate success. This does not mean that an expatriate with these traits is guaranteed to be successful on the assignment, but without them the probability of failure is certainly higher.

These traits and characteristics include technical ability, managerial skills, cultural empathy, adaptability, diplomacy, language ability, positive attitude, emotional stability and maturity, and adaptability of family Redden developed the Culture Shock inventory model that categorizes the skills and competencies into 8 dimensions, that serve as basis for the evaluation of candidates' aptitude.

Each dimension has an extreme increasing the aptitude and one lowering it or even hindering intercultural adjustment:. Summd than usual. All the factors described in this part correspond to the aspects influencing Culture Shock that were mentioned under point 2.

The family situation of the expatriate is of great importance for the success of the assignment. The family being unhappy is often a reason for expatriate failure and many assignments have to be terminated prematurely due to unbearable adaptation problems of spouses and children. While the expatriate is busy with getting acquainted to the new work environment and the nature of the job, the family feels isolated and suffers from the effects of Culture Shock even worse than the expatriate himself.

This phenomenon is commonly called the dual-career-problem. The spouse sacrifices career opportunities and finds herself in a far more irritating situation than the expatriate himself. This feeling is increased by the fact that the partner is usually responsible for building up every day life logistics and is busy in trying to establish a routine that keeps life functioning.

The description of the dual-career-problem makes it clear that family members also need to be involved in any training that is offered to help the expatriate adapting to the host culture either before or after departure, or if possible both. The next part grants a closer look on the various training methods available.

Although many aspects of the desired expatriate qualification profile are personality factors that can only slowly be changed or developed, there are others that can be shaped and improved through intercultural training. Three different areas of training contribute to a successful transition to a foreign post: culture training, language instruction, and assistance with practical, day-to-day matters.

It is necessary to start the first two prior to the international assignment and thus it is recommended to notify the posting well in advance of the departure. Practical assistance starts as soon as the employee arrives in the host culture.

As the importance of language skills with regard to interpersonal communication with host nationals and the influence on the effects of Culture Shock were already mentioned in section 2. Even though the potential benefits of intercultural training on the negative effects of Culture Shock is widely acknowledged, there are still companies not offering any training at all.

Considering the immense costs of a prematurely terminated assignment that could have been more successful with prior cultural training, the behavior of these companies is highly negligent. The companies that do offer cultural training often provide incomprehensive preparation as they focus on area orientation briefings and language acquisition instead of cross-cultural skills.

Apart from that the training programs are usually too short and the spouse and family are left out completely. The available methodologies for intercultural training can be classified into four categories according to the approaches used and the content of the training:. It is a proven fact that cross-cultural training has a positive influence on building intercultural competence, the ability to act appropriately in an intercultural situation.

Nevertheless, no wonders should be expected from preparatory training. It is not possible within the framework of usually rather short training programs to reprogram adults who are socialized in one culture. It is rather the effort to create a certain openness towards foreign and sometimes bewildering attitudes and behavior, cultural awareness and skills, and therefore intercultural competence. Practical assistance contributes significantly toward the adaptation of the expatriate and his family.

Being left to fend for themselves would most likely increase the negative effects of Culture Shock and thus make adjustment much more difficult and stressful for all persons involved. In order to avoid the feeling of being left alone many companies offer support in establishing a pattern of day-to-day life including friends, banks, shopping, laundry, transportation, and so on.

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