Adapting to different cultures
Cultural adaptation
- The long-term process of adjusting to and feeling comfortable in a new environment.
- The environment plays a crucial role to this adaptation (Context can depend on environment
itself)
o Is it hostile or welcoming?
- Whether or not an environment is welcoming or hostile is often dependent on the migrant
group/host under consideration.
Can feel environment = hostile / inviting
Insight into why easy for some + difficult to others → 4 diff kinds of groups
(Category short/long term and voluntary/involuntary)
Usually, involuntary migrants that host populations tend to take issue with
Migrant-host relationships
- Relationships of the migrants & their hosts
- Attitudes toward each other’s cultures
4 modes of relating (assimilation, separation, margination)
1. Assimilation: take on the culture, a type of cultural adaption in which an individual gives up
on his/her own cultural heritage and adopts the mainstream cultural identity
2. Separation: retains his/her original cultures while interacting minimally with other groups (it
may be initiated/forced by the dominant society, resulting in segregation) (Chinatown in new
York → neighborhood in new york, find Chinese speaking, culturally Chinese people who
practice the culture in new York, the broader dominant culture) (separated groups can be
caused by the dominant culture pushing them out / result of the cultural group choosing to
create their own cultural support base [value customs, culture, norms, values])
3. Integration: maintains original culture, but doesn’t shy away from interacting with others
(what travelers or exchange students aspire to do)
4. Marginalization: no desire to participate in own culture + nor do they want to engage with
or experience the dominant culture
5. Fifth mode apposed → cultural hybridity: 4 modes combined, 4 modes not always mutually
exclusive nor do they exist independently from one another (at times the four modes are
combined, thus a hybrid relationship with the host culture is formed)
3 approaches from which adaption theory can be studied:
- Social science approach: consider who the individual is (history + backstory + what makes them
them, what characteristics cause them to change?) (focus = usually on the outcome of
adaptation, what is it about me that would have caused me to experience culture shock and how
will I change upon reentry)
- Interpretive approach: focus = on the phases when we look at cultural adaptation as a process
(there is a hybridity that exists when individuals experience a new culture)
, - Critical approach: looks at the greater context of cultural adaptation (pay attention to political,
social, economic structures that would make a specific culture group easier to marginalize /
integrate) (through this approach → acknowledgment that cultural adaptation = highly
subjective and context dependent)
Anxiety and uncertainty management model
- Communication = an ambiguous thing
- When we culturally adapt → importance = hinged on being able to cut through the ambiguity
- The more we know about a culture + prepared to interact with that culture, the more readily we
will be able to adapt
Uncertainty reduction:
- Predictive uncertainty (inability to predict what someone will say or do)
- Explanatory uncertainty (inability to explain why people behave as they do)
Gather information about how the other culture communicates and interacts with people around them
Most effective communicators:
- open to new information
- solid sense of self and self-esteem
- flexible attitudes + behaviors (behave unfamiliar → you are less rigid)
- people who are able to identify similarities & differences whilst avoiding stereotypes
goal is not to seek out information, but to gain an awareness of how much predictability and explain
ability, we rely on
transitions model:
fight vs flight: no right model (what an individual does = very subjective)
flight: withdrawing / distancing (not speak the language, spend time with similar)
fight: trial + error (more willing to throw themselves into intercultural context whatever the scenario is)
(willing to offend the other culture, if it means that they will learn from it)
u-curve model: (interpretive approach) – cant be applied to long-term immigrants (go through a series of
u-curves)
- phases dip
- pertains specifically to the concept of culture shock and reentry shock
- excitement → shock → adjustment
excitement: charm
shock: generally, a short-term phase (best way to treat culture shock is to force yourself to engage)
W-curve model:
Reverse culture shock
, Have sensitivity to another culture didn’t have before
Everything at home is going to feel small → home isn’t what it is expected to be
Cultural fusion theory:
Idea behind fusion theory → newcomers flexibility = acknowledged
Subculture = often developed instead → adaptation occurs, migrants have changed in some way, but not
all the way → new subculture developed
- Ultimately, cultural fusion is the process whereby migrants adopt behaviours of the dominant
culture whilst maintaining elements of their minority identity.
- Additionally, the dominant culture is also transformed as a result of the migrant’s culture.
- Crucially, this process occurs as a result of communication and brings about intercultural
transformation.
Cultural adaptation
- The long-term process of adjusting to and feeling comfortable in a new environment.
- The environment plays a crucial role to this adaptation (Context can depend on environment
itself)
o Is it hostile or welcoming?
- Whether or not an environment is welcoming or hostile is often dependent on the migrant
group/host under consideration.
Can feel environment = hostile / inviting
Insight into why easy for some + difficult to others → 4 diff kinds of groups
(Category short/long term and voluntary/involuntary)
Usually, involuntary migrants that host populations tend to take issue with
Migrant-host relationships
- Relationships of the migrants & their hosts
- Attitudes toward each other’s cultures
4 modes of relating (assimilation, separation, margination)
1. Assimilation: take on the culture, a type of cultural adaption in which an individual gives up
on his/her own cultural heritage and adopts the mainstream cultural identity
2. Separation: retains his/her original cultures while interacting minimally with other groups (it
may be initiated/forced by the dominant society, resulting in segregation) (Chinatown in new
York → neighborhood in new york, find Chinese speaking, culturally Chinese people who
practice the culture in new York, the broader dominant culture) (separated groups can be
caused by the dominant culture pushing them out / result of the cultural group choosing to
create their own cultural support base [value customs, culture, norms, values])
3. Integration: maintains original culture, but doesn’t shy away from interacting with others
(what travelers or exchange students aspire to do)
4. Marginalization: no desire to participate in own culture + nor do they want to engage with
or experience the dominant culture
5. Fifth mode apposed → cultural hybridity: 4 modes combined, 4 modes not always mutually
exclusive nor do they exist independently from one another (at times the four modes are
combined, thus a hybrid relationship with the host culture is formed)
3 approaches from which adaption theory can be studied:
- Social science approach: consider who the individual is (history + backstory + what makes them
them, what characteristics cause them to change?) (focus = usually on the outcome of
adaptation, what is it about me that would have caused me to experience culture shock and how
will I change upon reentry)
- Interpretive approach: focus = on the phases when we look at cultural adaptation as a process
(there is a hybridity that exists when individuals experience a new culture)
, - Critical approach: looks at the greater context of cultural adaptation (pay attention to political,
social, economic structures that would make a specific culture group easier to marginalize /
integrate) (through this approach → acknowledgment that cultural adaptation = highly
subjective and context dependent)
Anxiety and uncertainty management model
- Communication = an ambiguous thing
- When we culturally adapt → importance = hinged on being able to cut through the ambiguity
- The more we know about a culture + prepared to interact with that culture, the more readily we
will be able to adapt
Uncertainty reduction:
- Predictive uncertainty (inability to predict what someone will say or do)
- Explanatory uncertainty (inability to explain why people behave as they do)
Gather information about how the other culture communicates and interacts with people around them
Most effective communicators:
- open to new information
- solid sense of self and self-esteem
- flexible attitudes + behaviors (behave unfamiliar → you are less rigid)
- people who are able to identify similarities & differences whilst avoiding stereotypes
goal is not to seek out information, but to gain an awareness of how much predictability and explain
ability, we rely on
transitions model:
fight vs flight: no right model (what an individual does = very subjective)
flight: withdrawing / distancing (not speak the language, spend time with similar)
fight: trial + error (more willing to throw themselves into intercultural context whatever the scenario is)
(willing to offend the other culture, if it means that they will learn from it)
u-curve model: (interpretive approach) – cant be applied to long-term immigrants (go through a series of
u-curves)
- phases dip
- pertains specifically to the concept of culture shock and reentry shock
- excitement → shock → adjustment
excitement: charm
shock: generally, a short-term phase (best way to treat culture shock is to force yourself to engage)
W-curve model:
Reverse culture shock
, Have sensitivity to another culture didn’t have before
Everything at home is going to feel small → home isn’t what it is expected to be
Cultural fusion theory:
Idea behind fusion theory → newcomers flexibility = acknowledged
Subculture = often developed instead → adaptation occurs, migrants have changed in some way, but not
all the way → new subculture developed
- Ultimately, cultural fusion is the process whereby migrants adopt behaviours of the dominant
culture whilst maintaining elements of their minority identity.
- Additionally, the dominant culture is also transformed as a result of the migrant’s culture.
- Crucially, this process occurs as a result of communication and brings about intercultural
transformation.
