Chapter 1: Culture
5. Culture Shock
Our mental software contains basic values, which have been acquired early in our lives and operate on an unconscious level. The international visitor can learn some of the symbols and rituals of the new environment, but it is unlikely that they can recognise or even feel the underlying values. In a way the visitor returns to the state of an infant, in which they have to learn the simplest things again.
Experience has shown that there is a typical curve of cultural adaptation. Hofstede (2001) describes this curve as follows :
Figure: Culture shock (Own illustration based on Oberg, 1960)
(cf. Hofstede, 2001, p. 288)
- Phase 1: is a time of euphoria, the honeymoon, characterised by a love of travel and curiosity about the other country; usually doesn’t last long.
- Phase 2: is the time of culture shock, when daily life in the new environment begins.
- Phase 3: is acculturation, otherwise known as cultural adaptation, when the foreigner learns to live under the new conditions, when they have learned some of the foreign customs, and when they have been integrated into the new network.
- Phase 4: is then the mental stability which is finally achieved; this phase can take three different forms. Either the foreigner continues to feel like a foreigner, or they feel just like they´re at home and are able to live in both cultures; alternatively, they may also feel more comfortable in the foreign culture - in other words, they are more Roman than the Romans.
The length of the phases varies and depends on the length of time spent in the foreign country. People who have spent many years abroad report of shock phases lasting a year.
From the opposite perspective, foreigners are experienced by insiders (locals) in 3 phases:
- Phase 1: Curiosity, which means they take a positive interest in the foreigner. This phase corresponds to the euphoric phase.
- Phase 2: Ethnocentrism. In this phase, insiders evaluate guests/ newcomers/ foreigners based on their own norms. Their own little world is thus viewed as the centre and pivot point of the world. Ethnocentrism is related to a culture in the same way that egocentrism is related to a person (this phase corresponds to culture shock).
- Phase 3: In a best case scenario, this phase transforms into the polycentrism phase. This means that different persons are measured by different yardsticks, and foreigners are understood based on their own norms. This is a milder form of multiculturalism.Sometimes, however, this phase can turn into xenophobia.In this case, everything in the foreign culture is considered far worse than at home.Neither ethnocentrism nor xenophobia form a healthy basis for intercultural cohabitation.