INTERCULTURAL ADAPTATION

INTERCULTURAL ADAPTATION

1. Culture Shock

   • An emotional phenomenon
     • EVERY SOJOURNER EXPERIENCES IT
   • Causes an identity "disequilibrium" state
   • Causes identity
     • Loss & Deprivation
     • Rejection & Confusion
     • Impotence
   • Has - & + implications

2. Adjustment Models

   • W-curve
     • Honeymoon, hostility, humorous, in-sync, ambivalence, reentry & resocialization
       • Transformers play an impotant role in the resocialization tage
         • "Change agents who bring home with them a wealth of personal & cultural treasures to share"
     • Back and forth looping movements
   • U-curve
     • Honeymoon, stress & effective phase
   • Researchers' conceptualization of soujourners' adjustment process

3. Systems-Level Factors

   • Elements in the host environment that inluence adaptation
     • Socioeconomic conditions
     • Attitudes towards cultural diversity
     • Institutions & agencies
     • Meaning definition
       • Perception on strangers & sojourners
     • Cultural distance between sojourners and hosts

4. Interpersonal-Level Factors

   • Interpersonal skills
   • Contact networks
     • Personal & social ties
       • Exchange of resources & knowledge
       • SUPPORTIVE SYSTEMS
         • "HEALING WEBS"
   • Use of mass media
     • ETHNIC MEDIA
       • Breaks down language barriers & facilitates adaptation

5. Individual-Level Factors

   • Motivation
     • Has to do with why the sojourner left his country
   • Expectations
     • Predictions
       • Must be realistic
   • Knowledge
     • All kinds of info., including LANGUAGE
       • What, where & when to say
   • Personality attributes
     • Including age & educational level

6. Sojourners' & immigrants' incremental identity-related process that takes place in a new environment

7. Ting-Toomey, S. (1999). Sojourner’s Adjustment Model. Communication Across Cultures. (pp. 247-253): New York: The Guilford Press. Ting-Toomey, S. (1999).

   • Antecedent Factors. Communication Across Cultures. (pp. 234-244): New York: The Guilford Press.