Cultural Differences, Culture Shock

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Cultural Differences,Culture Shock

• Orientation Meeting
• Strecno
• 20. 9. 2008

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• ... OR
• What every exchange student should know about
  culture before his stay abroad

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The best preparation is to understand the concept
of culture and the idea of cultural differences
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What is culture?

• learned behavior, not hereditary or genetic
• Culture is the acquired knowledge (not
  instinctual) that groups use in order to
• interpret the world around them
• generate social behavior
• judge the behavior of others

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What is culture?

• everything that is not a part of nature
• Tree part of nature
• Chair invention and manifestation of culture
• Buildings, architecture

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Communication

• Communication, particularly language, is the
  foundation of culture. Language labels, creates,
  maintains, and transforms culture.

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Language

• Language is not only the way culture is
  transmitted
• It is one of the lenses through which culture is
  created

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What is culture?

• An integrated system of learned behavior patterns
  that are characteristic of any given society or
  group
• It refers to the total way of life, including how
  people think, feel and behave

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Metaphorically, culture is the LENS, through
which we see the world
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Think of these cultural lens as the ability to
see the world colorful or colorless
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Think of color-blindness (inability to see
different colors) asculture-blindness
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Ethnocentrism

• The universal tendency for any culture to see
  its own values and practices as natural and
  correct
• The Mediterranean Sea
• China means middle earth
• In Ecuador, the monument at the equator is
  roughly translated as The middle of the world

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Ethnorelativism

• The acquired ability to see many values, beliefs
  and behaviors as cultural rather than universal

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Developing Intercultural Sensitivity
The Experience of Difference
Acceptance Adaptation Integration
Denial Defense Minimization
Ethnocentric stages
Ethnorelative stages
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Developing cultural sensitivity and competence
requires moving from Ethnocentrism to
Ethnorelativism
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Defensiveness

• Recognizing a cultural practice as different, but
• Labeling it wrong or inferior
• Or, by labeling ones own practice superior

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• Our own culture or sub-culture comes to us
  naturally and unconsciously
• Ex Our handedness
• We generally dont think about what hand we will
  use to write our names
• Changing our cultural point of view is about as
  hard as changing our handedness
• Both are possible, but neither is easy

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Cultural differences

• Easily noticed differences
• Language
• Food
• Clothing
• Deeper differences
• Values
• Thinking patterns

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The Cultural iceberg
Conscious behaviors
1/8th above the surface
Unconscious beliefs and values
7/8ths below the surface
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Individualism Group Orientation
Formality Informality
Past
Future
Directness Indirectness
Change Permanence
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Change Permanence
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Individualism Group orientation

• Example development of music players (walkman,
  discman, iPod)

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Individualism
Western cultures
Change Permanence
Eastern cultures
Group orientation
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Culture shock

• The profound sense of disorientation and
  discomfort that comes with extended travel or
  living in a foreign culture markedly different
  from ones own

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Stages of Culture Shock

• Initial excitement
• Irritability and negativeness
• .
• .

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Some travelers want to go to foreign places
but are dismayed when the places turn out
actually to be foreign.Canadian author
Margaret Atwood
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Stages of Culture Shock

• Initial excitement
• Irritability and negativeness
• Gradual adaptation
• Biculturalism

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Culture Shock Cycle
Months
Pre- departure
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 Return...
Normal level of feelings
Adapted from a model by Robert Kohls
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Reverse Culture Shock

• Initial Euphoria (may be very brief or not
  happen at all)
• Irritability and Negativism (may be very lengthy)
• Gradual Adaptation
• True Bi-Culturalism

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Culture Shock and Reverse Culture Shock are not
just unpleasant side effects of international
living. They are the necessary ingredients that
bring about quality exchanges.
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Inbound Syndrome

• Universal tendency of foreigners to group
  together, regardless their country of origin
• They become a sub-culture and being foreigners is
  what they have in common

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When you travel, remember that a foreign
country is not designed to make you comfortable.
It is designed to make its own people
comfortable.Clifton Fadiman
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First you need to know your own cultural values
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Slovak cultureCzech culture
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Advantages?

• personality
• biculturalism
• further education
• employment
• your life

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Finding help

• To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.
  Chinese Proverb
• Problems connected with culture shock can be
  helped by those, who have such experience
  (rebounds) or who know about the problem (YEO in
  your club)
• Your parents cant give you good advice unless
  they have lived in a different culture for a
  longer period of time

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Prepared by Ivan Polák, Rotex Slovensko,
2007 From the original Dennis White, Ph.D., WI,
USA Presented at 2007 USA Canada YE Network
Conference, www.yeoresources.org