First of
all I hope that none of my students will ever experience a “culture shock”
while they are spending their institutional semester abroad in Italy.
I tend to associate the term ‘shock’ to a traumatic event that causes a sudden
and violent disturbance in the emotions.
If my use of the term makes any sense, I do not think that American students necessarily experience
a “culture shock” (Kalvero Oberg 1960) while they are studying in
Florence. Or, to put it in other, more sociological terms, I do not see this
group of people exposed to such a threat — no more than any other group of
youngsters that comes to my mind. As a sociologist, I would never start studying
the topic “American Students Abroad” from such perspective. That’s why I am
always surprised when a student uses the expression “culture shock” — a bit as
a mantra, I shall confess — in class. It seems as if they were prepared and socialized
to this theory, and they are applying it as "the" interpretative paradigm for their acculturation
process abroad. Therefore, I believe culture "shock" is an inopportune terminological choice; I
would consider “culture malaise”, or “culture fatigue”, or “culture frustration”, or “culture
anxiety”, or “culture stress”, proper expressions. Shortly, I consider the locution cultural shock, referred
to the average American youngster who is studying in Florence, a hyperbole. How
would you describe a true traumatic event, Cultural
Super-Shock! I believe there is a profound difference between frustrating and
traumatic events.
Within the
psychological literature “acculturative stress” has become the preferred expression
for other reasons, because “it is
closely linked to psychological models of stress as a response to environmental
stressors” (Berry & Sam, 1997, 298). Anyhow, we are talking about stressors, not shockers!
Acculturative
stress is defined as a negative psychological reaction to the experiences of
acculturation, often characterized by anxiety, depression and a variety of
psychosomatic problems. Berry prefers
to use the expression “acculturative stress” for two more reasons.
First, the notion of shock carries only negative connotations, whereas
stress can vary from positive (eustress) to negative (dis-stress) in valence.
Because acculturation has both positive (e.g., new opportunities) and negative
(e.g., discrimination) aspects, the stress conceptualization better matches the
range of affect experienced during acculturation. Moreover, shock has no
cultural or psychological theory or research context associated with it,
whereas stress has a place in a well-developed
theoretical matrix (i.e., stress-coping-adaptation). Second, the phenomena of
interest have their life in the intersection of two cultures; they are
intercultural, rather than cultural, in their origin. The term “culture”
implies that only one culture is involved, whereas the term “acculturation” draws
our attention to the fact that two cultures are interacting with, and
producing, the phenomena. Hence, for both reasons, the author prefers the
notion of acculturative stress to that of culture shock (Berry, 'Acculturation',
in Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, 2004).
I do have
some problems also applying to the American students in Florence Peter Adler’s five-stage process (1975). The initial
contact, or the honeymoon stage, is when the newly arrived individual
experiences the curiosity and excitement of a tourist without any corresponding
sense of responsibility for his or her own behavior. The second stage involves
disintegration of familiar cues and overwhelms the individual with the
requirements of the new culture. The individual typically experiences
self-blame and a sense of personal inadequacy for difficulties encountered. The
third stage reintegrates new cues with an increased ability to function in the
new culture. However, the emotions associated with this third stage are
typically anger, blame, and resentment toward the new culture for having caused
difficulties unnecessarily. The fourth stage continues the process of
reintegration toward gradual autonomy and increased ability to see both bad and
good elements of the old and new cultures. The fifth stage is when the
individual has achieved a bicultural identity and is able to function in both
the old and the new cultures.
What's my problem with such a sequence? I simply
never met a student that went through anything like that; if you are one of
them — or you know one — please reply to this post.
Moreover, this sequence is considered by some scholars controversial and simplistic. According
to Furnham and Bochner (1986) the U-curve theory first does not consider
several important variables in the adjustment process — such as depression,
loneliness, homesickness. Second, each subject might experience cultural stress
in different moments of the adjustment process. That is, you might be "shocked" as soon as you get off the plane, and experience the honeymoon stage at
the end of your sojourn — may be because you truly fall in love with an Italian
boy or girl!
The U-curve model does not even address differences
in time, location, and intensity of the sojourn —predicting the same curve for
people who experience little or significant culture gaps. The U-curve
and its variations —W-curves; but I can
easily imagine other kinds of curves appearing in the next future (M, Z, K, and X-curves) — are largely anecdotal
and fail to describe other types of sojourners: who fails to adjust; who returns home early.
Finally, why
cultural problems, or however you want to name them, are thought in a negative
way? Why critical cultural encounters have to be weathered in advance? Why not
seeing them as positive experiences within the overall identity development
of the youngster abroad?
-
Berry,
J. W.; Kim, U.; Minde, T.; Mok, D. (1987) Comparative studies of acculturative stress. “International
Migration Review”, 21, 491-511.
-
Berry,
J. W.; Kim, U.; Power, S.; Young, M.; Bujaki, M. (1989)
Acculturation attitudes in plural
societies. “Applied Psychology”, 38, 185-206.
-
Berry,
J.W., & Sam, D. (1997) Acculturation
and adaptation. In J.W. Berry, M.H. Segall, & C. Kagitcibasi (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology:
Vol 3 (pp. 291–326). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
-
Furnham,
A., & Bochner, S. (1986) Culture
shock: Psychological reactions to unfamiliar environments. London: Methuen.
-
Oberg,
K. (1960) Cultural shock: Adjustment to
new cultural environments. “Practical Anthropology”, 7, 177–182.
Shock (New Oxford American Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2010).
N. 1. a sudden upsetting
or surprising event or experience: it was a shock to face
such hostile attitudes when I arrived. ■ a feeling of disturbed surprise
resulting from such an event: her death gave us all a terrible shock | her
eyes opened wide in shock. ■ an acute medical condition
associated with a fall in blood pressure, caused by such events as loss of
blood, severe burns, bacterial infection, allergic reaction, or sudden
emotional stress, and marked by cold, pallid skin, irregular breathing, rapid pulse,
and dilated pupils: he died of shock due to massive abdominal
hemorrhage. ■ a disturbance causing instability in an economy: trading
imbalances caused by the two oil shocks. ■short for electric shock. 2. a violent shaking movement caused by an impact, explosion, or
tremor: earthquake shocks | rackets today don't
bend or absorb shock the way wooden rackets do. ■short for shockabsorber.
V. 1. [with
obj.] cause (someone) to feel surprised and upset:
she was shocked at
the state of his injuries. ■ offend the moral feelings of; outrage:
the
revelations shocked the nation. ■[no obj.] experience such feelings:
he
shocked so easily. ■(usu. be shocked) affect with physiological shock,
or with an electric shock.
2. [no obj.]
(archaic) collide
violently:
carriage after carriage shocked fiercely against the engine.
ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French choc (noun), choquer (verb),
of unknown origin. The original senses were ‘throw (troops) into confusion by
charging at them’ and ‘an encounter between charging forces,’ giving rise to
the notion of ‘sudden violent blow or impact.’
