Culture Shock (3) (1) [619311]

Claudia-Maria Gutu Diana Andreea Penu Andra-Marina Tudoroiu CULTURE SHOCK Culture shock is something a person will experience when she or he moves to a cultural environment which is different from one’s own. One may feel disoriented while experiencing a different way of life. This can happen during a visit to a new country, switching different social environments or immigration. 1 Oberg defined “culture shock” as the “anxiety that results from losing all of our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse”. 2 Adler on the other hand, focuses more on the psychological experience, writing that “culture shock is primarily a set of emotional reactions to the loss of perceptual reinforcements from one's own culture, to new cultural stimuli which have little or no meaning, and to the misunderstanding of new and diverse experiences. It may encompass feelings of helplessness, irritability, and fears of being cheated, contaminated, injured or disregarded.” 3 Weaver though has a more structured explanation to culture shock. He states there are three basic causal explanations: first, the loss of familiar cues; second, the breakdown of interpersonal communications, and third an identity crisis. 4
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock 2 K. Oberg, Cultural shock: Adjustment to new cultural environments, Practical Anthropology 7 (1960), pp. 177–182. 3 Adler, P.S. 1975. The transitional experience: An alternative view of culture shock. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 15 4, pp. 13–23. 4 G.R. Weaver, Understanding and coping with cross-cultural adjustment stress. In: G.R. Weaver, Editor, Culture, communication and conflict: Readings in intercultural relations, Ginn Press, Needham Heights, MA (1994), pp. 169–189

What can be symptoms of a culture shock?5 Ø Homesickness Ø Language barriers Ø Information overload Ø Loneliness Ø Depression Ø Need for more sleep than normal Ø Withdrawal from social activities Ø Generation gap Ø Technology gap Ø Compulsive eating or loss of appetite Ø Stereotyping of and hostility towards host nationals Ø Job dependency (boredom) Ø Skill interdependence Ø Lack of energy For some individuals, culture shock is brief and may get by without even being noticed, but others may have to deal with it for several weeks or possibly months. So people experience culture shock differently, it depends on every single human being. They can experience culture shock in different periods. While some have most difficulties in the first couple of weeks, others only start to notice culture shock after a couple of months. We are not all alike. The way people cope with culture shock differs as well.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 http://www.harzing.com/resources/living-and-working-abroad/culture-shock

How to cope with cultural shock? Ø Talk to other people about your reactions Ø Be prepared for new experiences and differences, these shouldn’t be a total surprise Ø Learn basic vocabulary and expressions in the language of the country you are experiencing the culture shock in Ø Stay in touch with your folks back home Ø Bring personal items from back home with you Ø Make friends with other people – enrich your expatriate experience Ø Exercise – do sports! (alone, or even better, in teams) Ø Look for shops and restaurants that sell food like the one from your home country Ø Go outside and get busy doing something Ø Try to enjoy yourself and appreciate the chance of living in a foreign country with a different culture There is not an exact “recipe” to prevent culture shock entirely, as individuals in any society are affected at a personal level by cultural aspects differently. One just has to try and embrace it. What triggers culture shock? → Individuals in a foreign environment Culture shock dispatches from the anxiety that results from losing all familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs represent ways in which we orient ourselves to the situations of daily life: when to shake hands and what to say when we meet people, when and how to give tips, how to give orders to servants, how to make purchases, when to accept and when to refuse invitations, when to take statements seriously and when not.

All of these, which may be words, gestures, facial expressions, customs, or norms are acquired by us while we grow up and are as much a part of our culture as the language we speak or the beliefs we accept. We all depend on these cues, most of which are unconsciously learned. 6 “When a person enters a strange culture, all or most of these familiar cues are removed. She or he is like a fish without water. No matter how broad- and open-minded or full of good will she or he may be, a series of props have been knocked from under that person” (Dr. Lalervo Oberg: Culture Shock & The Problem Of Adjustment To New Cultural Environments). A feeling of frustration and anxiety follows. People react to frustration pretty much the same. First they reject the environment which causes the discomfort. Stages of cultural shock Culture shock can be described as consisting of at least one of four distinct phases: honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, and mastery.
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 6 An editorial by Dr. Lalervo Oberg: Culture Shock & The Problem Of Adjustment To New Cultural Environments 7 http://www.pptpdx.com/china-chuangkou/culture-shock-2/

Honeymoon is the first stage of culture shock, where the individuals moves in a completely new environment and it takes not more than a few weeks. Here, a person is simply fascinated by the new culture, by its people, by its food and habits. They try to associate everything the see or experience in the new country with what happens at home. They are very excited about everything what happens around them, but unfortunately, this doesn’t last for too long. Negotiation or Depression stage is the second phase of cultural shock. Depending on the individual, negotiation can happen after a couple of months after they moved in a new country. They now see the new environment in a completely different way from how they saw it at the beginning of the trip. They now start to see and feel the differences between the new and the old way of living. For example, some foreign students become anxious due to the language barriers of the new country have. They also face fear regarding illness. If they feel sick and they need to buy medicine, they found barriers regarding the name of the medicine, that are different from the ones back home. They find themselves in new situations and they see these as problems and cannot find a solution to handle them.
8 Another difficulty foreigners find in the host country can be found in the new people that they meet for the first time. Here intervene the body language, language barriers and different ways of approaching a conversation with a person with different background. Also the fact that each nationality has its own characteristics and people living here have a different look from others
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8
 https://medium.com/global-perspectives/the-4-stages-of-culture-shock-a79957726164#.4h00ynugm

and approach a different way of behaving, it can lead to frustration and to the feeling of being an outsider. They see faces they’ve never seen before and they feel angry about the fact that they are different here and not feeling as at home. All these factors and even more lead to feelings like loneliness, homesick and insomnia. The foreign students especially feel they are not welcome in the new country, they don’t have a support (family, old friends) and they see only disadvantages regarding the new culture. Adjustment is the third step of cultural shock. This can take place after 6 to12 months, depending on the individual. This phase is represented though different skills persons develop while living in the host country. The try to see all the situations and thing they found difficult in the negotiation phase, as positive. They develop communication skills, problem-solving skills and they try to face everything what happens with a positive attitude. They try to accommodate and to face the situations as they are. Adaptation or Acceptance is the final stage. Individuals are able to face all the situations with brio, they don’t fear anymore and they act like they are already part of the new culture. The feeling of being an outsider is not present here anymore, they use the new developed skills of communicating and of handling with potential problems. What remains untouched are the old habits. Most individuals do not give up old habits and culture. There are three forms of adaptation: the affective, the social and behavioral, but also the cognitive adaptation. The fact that the feeling of uncertainty intensifies affective reactions can be defined as affective adaptation. Uncertainty can make the pleasant situations more pleasant and the unpleasant experiences even more unpleasant. The affective adaptation is shortly described by Mc Ewan: “People often remark about how quickly the extraordinary becomes commonplace. I think that every time I’m on a motorway at night, or on a plane as it rises through cloud cover into sunlight. We are highly adaptive creatures. The predictable becomes, by definition, background, leaving the attention uncluttered, the better to deal with the random or unexpected. “ The social and behavioral adaptation describes how host-sojourner interaction can help guests improve their stay in a new country. As an

example, foreign students can improve socially and even academically due to interaction with host nationals. Due to Pruitt, a greater amount of interaction can be associated with lower academic problems and improved communication skills. And even more, it can lead to improved adaptation overseas. “Is it not reasonable to anticipate that our understanding o f the human mind would be aided greatly by knowing the purpose for which it was designed?” – George Williams. This is a short description of the cognitive adaptation. There are two types of cognitive adaptation: Assimilation (Everything that is new for an individual is assimilated with familiar, old ideas) and Accommodation (In order to include or accommodate new experiences, we restructure old ideas) Reverse Culture Shock The stage when an individual returns to his/her home country after living for a middle-long period of time in another country is called reverse culture shock. This can be defined through the “disappointment” that a person feels when returning back home. After months or years spent in another country and getting used to the new culture, a person is shocked to see that the world he/she was used to back home has now completely changed. During an individual’s stay in a foreign country, he remembers the environment back home unchanged and unmodified, not realizing that it actually changed while he was not there. We all went through such situations. We expect to go back home and to see and have the same feelings that we had before leaving our country. But we are shocked to see that we go home and actually we go to a new culture. Home culture is now a new culture. People have changed, sometimes habits, everything is now changed. When all these happen, transition shock can take place. This is caused by changes in one’s familiar cultural environment. People are irritated, angry, they go through excessive sleep, homesickness, feelings of helplesness,…

Reverse culture shock means actually to re-experience the cultural shock that we went through, while traveling to another country. We go again through all the four stages of cultural shock back home. How to cope with cultural shock? Ø Before traveling to a new country, you should learn some facts about the new culture (language phrases, religion, customs, way of living, food, climate, the good, the bad…) Ø Do not base on stereotypes. This will not help you to learn about the new culture and its people Ø A new culture is a new challenge. Don’t be hard on yourself, it takes time! Ø Talk to other people about your reactions Ø Stay in touch with your folks back home Ø Make friends with other people – enrich your expatriate experience Ø Associate with positive people you know Ø Be active, do sports! (alone, or even better, in teams), sleep well, Ø Go outside and get busy doing something Ø Look for shops and restaurants that sell food like the one from your home country Ø The sense of humor is the most important! Try to maintain a sense of humor most of the time, it will help you a lot! There is no true way to entirely prevent culture shock, as individuals in any society are personally affected by cultural contrasts differently. Conclusion The term culture shock is used to describe the frustration and anxiety that most people who are leaving their home country experience the first year. Anxiety happens as a result of losing all our familiar symbols and sign, when we face unpleasant situations, not being able to socialize with the hosts due to language barriers. People manage to get over the stress only after they go through all the stages of cultural shock, successfully. Culture itself is a way of

adaptation, which helps us to develop the ability to survive in a new society that is completely different from the one we know. Once we learn how to cope with it, this becomes a way of living for an individual. Personal Note: We also have dealt with previous multicultural experiences, from which we have learned a lot; for example, Claudia was Erasmus student in Vienna for 6 months and then she applied for Work & Travel in Las Vegas, USA for 4 months. Diana lived in Vienna for one year, where she was an exchange student and Andra has traveled around Europe, but never lived in a place more than one month. Germany is for her the longest experience with a foreign culture, where she came by herself. Our opinions regarding our experiences are different. For Andra it was a little bit strange to find herself alone in a small city in Germany and it took time to accommodate to the place and to the people, whereas for Claudia and Diana things were easier, because they are used to such experiences. We can say, we’ve learned how to apply the tips described above, in order to help ourselves dealing with the new culture and to better and easily adapt to it. Of course, there are some steps we all still need to improve, in order to get rid of the anxiety and the negative issues that come with the cultural shock, but we are now able to travel the world and live mid-term period of time in a completely new culture, without fear. So remember: There are so many students around the world who went through all the stages of cultural shock, but this happens just during your first exchange experience. It is hard, but in the same time, you MUST think it is something temporarily and furthermore, you will “win” more positive rewards, then negative aspects: you will learn a new language or improve it, you will have a wider cultural knowledge and what s most important is that not everybody has this chance like we do.

Bibliography – G.R. Weaver, Understanding and coping with cross-cultural adjustment stress. In: G.R. Weaver, Editor, Culture, communication and conflict: Readings in intercultural relations, Ginn Press, Needham Heights, MA (1994) – Adler, P.S. 1975. The transitional experience: An alternative view of culture shock. Journal of Humanistic Psychology – G.R. Weaver, Understanding and coping with cross-cultural adjustment stress. In: G.R. Weaver, Editor, Culture, communication and conflict: Readings in intercultural relations, Ginn Press, Needham Heights, MA (1994), – http://www.worldwide.edu/travel_planner/culture_shock.html – https://medium.com/global-perspectives/the-4-stages-of-culture-shock-a79957726164#.c1j5f0hfs – http://www.pptpdx.com/china-chuangkou/culture-shock-2/ – http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Adaptations.html – https://sites.google.com/site/calpolycultureshockproject/how-does-effect-people