Culture Shock (Case study)

Résumé du document

Moving to a new country is not as simple as it might seem. In a world where it has never been so easy to move from a country to another, it is important to understand the parameters that can interfere with our original culture, values, beliefs and customs. Quite a few authors had already tried to explain the new culture process. Anthropologist Kalero Oberg was the first to share his views about culture shock. In this paper, we will try to understand in detail about culture shock and determine the different stages of culture shock according to different authors and theories. In the process of acculturation, culture shock is a key element that needs to be taken in consideration. Everyone who enters a new country is confronted to a process of culture shocks.

Extraits

[...] This is really important to understand that High-Load environment use a varied, uncertain and complex language whereas Low load use certain, simple and redundant vocabulary. This has an indirect impact on culture shock as information load deals with uncertainty. For Mehrabian, the higher the information load is, the higher the uncertainty will be. But in the contrary, the more familiar we are with a situation, the less uncertainty we'll experience. In another hand, the degree of privacy from one country to another is really different. [...]

[...] Culture shock is the result of the confrontation of two different cultures, values, beliefs, behaviors and customs. When somebody moves to another country, he takes with him all its acquired traits from its original country. In each country we are educated and formatted with some norms proper to the country we live. All of what we acquired during life is explicit thought our parents' education but also implicitly thought the country where we live. If we take the example of France, we acquired implicitly that woman are in the same level in the society than men whereas in Iran, it is implicitly known that woman don't have the same power than men. [...]

[...] This is what we can call a reentry shock. This model shows us that while we had adapted ourselves into a new culture, we have lost some parts of our original culture. While people come back to their original culture, they have to readapt themselves into new ways of living. They have the feeling to come back in an old period, the period where the lived the country. They have difficulties to communicate and describe their experience with others and with family, friends. [...]

[...] The U Curve Model By designing This U Curve model, Professor Kim Zaptf wanted to demonstrate that in order to adapt themselves to a country, people have to know that they'll be confronted to different phases that will influence their psychological status. The first phase, often-called tourist phase or honeymoon is the beginning of this process. When entering to a new country, people will find a lot of interest in this new culture. They show lots of euphoria and interest discovering this new culture. Their psychological status is at its best. In this phase, every small elements of the culture are seen in a positive way. [...]

[...] They become frustrated and stressed. At this point, people are making remarks about cleanliness and other cultural differences are not tolerated. As the result most of people are without their knowing it, in depression. People fell helpless, isolated and paranoiac. In some cases, people might develop irrational fears of being robbed or cheated. It is important to note that the degree of the culture shock phase can vary a lot from one person to another. Walt Lonner had identified six factors that influence the nature of culture shock experienced. [...]