Handling Culture
Shock Effectively
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Culture Shock Video
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Overview
• Defining the Terms: Culture Shock and
Country Shock
• Stages of Culture Shock
• Managing Country and Culture Shock
• The Role of Culture in Conflicts and
Conflict Resolution
• A Leader’s Role in Handling Culture Shock
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What is Culture Shock?
• How would you define culture shock?
• Reaction to psychological disorientation
• Fish out of water feeling
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What is Culture Shock?
• Causes of Culture Shock
• Being cut off from cultural cues and patterns
• Living/working over an extended period of
time in ambiguous situations
• Having your values questioned
• Being expected to operate at maximum skill
and speed without fully understanding
“the rules”
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What is Culture Shock?
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Effects/Symptoms of Culture Shock
Intense discomfort
Resentment
Homesickness
Depression
Variety of physical
symptoms from
psychosomatic illnesses
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Country Shock vs. Culture Shock
• Country Shock
– Physical
circumstances
– The setting of the
culture
– Occurs/resolves
quickly
• Culture Shock
– Interaction among
people
– Behaviors that seem
strange to others
– Takes longer to
begin/resolve
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Country Shock
• What can bring on
country shock?
– Unfamiliar weather patterns
– “Strange” foods
– “Bugs” (insects, spiders, etc.)
that make life uncomfortable
– Infrastructure differences
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Country Shock
• What can heighten the intensity of country shock?
– New faces and communities
– Getting physically sick
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Stages of Culture Shock
• Honeymoon
• Irritability/Hostility
• Gradual Adjustment
• Adaptation
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The Honeymoon Stage
• Characteristics
– Occurs at beginning of deployment
– Positive mindset
– High expectations
– Focus on similarities between
home and host culture
– Typically lasts 1-6 weeks
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Irritability/Hostility Stage
• Actions during irritability
– Withdrawal from host culture
– Interacting only with
other Americans
– Interacting only with other military personnel
• Actions during hostility
– Verbal aggressiveness
– Physical aggressiveness
– Stereotyping
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Gradual Adjustment Stage
• What it takes to get there
– Time
– Recognizing subtle cultural cues
– Less isolation/greater comfort
– More interaction with host culture
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Adaptation Stage
• How you know you’ve arrived
– Greater enjoyment of local customs
– Comfort with host culture
communication norms
– Realization that you will miss
aspects of host culture when
you return home
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Dealing With Country Shock
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Ineffective responses
Returning to “mother culture”
Hide out (stay on base/compound)
Travel to areas of greater cultural diversity
Effective response
Establish new routines for basic life skills
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Managing Culture Shock
• Effective responses
• Realize almost everyone experiences a
certain level of culture shock
• Develop self-awareness of your
behavioral expectations
• Understand the local’s expectations for
your behavior
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Managing Culture Shock
• We inflict culture shock on others by…
– being ethnocentric
– not becoming “other”
– failing to practice empathy
– reinforcing the concept
“the ugly American”
of
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Conflict Video
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Conflict
• What is conflict?
• Struggle over values and claims to scarce
status, power, and resources
• Perceived divergence of interests
• Our working definition: When two related
parties find themselves divided by perceived
incompatible interests or goals, or in
competition for control of scarce resources
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Conflict
• Causes of conflict?
– Value differences
– Relationship clashes
– Disagreement over data
– Diverging interests
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Culture and Conflict
• Role of culture in conflict
– It’s about who we are so it’s bound to impact conflict
– It relates to what we think is important, and we often
respond strongly when that’s challenged
– It can be the direct cause of conflict
– It can be a contributing factor
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Culture and Conflict
• Culture affects conflict in how we…
– Name (describe it)
– Frame (conceptualize it)
– Blame (assign fault for it)
– Tame (resolve it)
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Culture and Conflict:
An Example
• Think about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
– How does culture affect how it is described?
– From what framework is it viewed?
– Who is blamed?
– What is the best way to resolve it?
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Culture and Conflict Resolution
• How would you define conflict resolution?
– Eliminating the root cause of a conflict and
seeking the solution to the problems which led to
the conflict
– Methods and processes of negotiation, arbitration,
institution-building which promote the peaceful
ending of social conflict and war
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Culture and Conflict Resolution
• Methods of conflict resolution
– Mediation
– Diplomacy
– Negotiation (most commonly used)
– War
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Negotiation
• What is negotiation?
– Striking a deal with someone
– Bargaining
– Discussing an issue with the hope of settling it
– When two or more parties confer with one another
to reach a mutually accepted outcome
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Negotiation
• Situations requiring negotiation skills
– Personal life
– Within squadron
– While deployed with local population and leaders
– With joint/coalition/allied forces
– With other organizations (governmental
and nongovernmental)
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Personality & Negotiation
• Impact of personality on negotiation
– Some traits more conducive to
successful negotiation than others
– Some traits counterproductive
to negotiation
– Some traits are better suited to
other conflict resolution
techniques, e.g., mediation,
diplomacy, competing-forcing, etc.)
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Negotiation in the Military
• Military personality and
negotiation
– Typical Airman may not be
predisposed to
negotiation
– Hierarchical mindset (chain of command)
– Leans more toward compliance than negotiation
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Negotiation in the Military
• When can negotiation skills be helpful
to you?
– Contingency ops
– Peacekeeping ops
– Humanitarian relief responses
– Personal life
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Cultural Dimensions
& Negotiation
• Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
– Power Distance
– Uncertainty Avoidance
– Individualism vs. collectivism
– Long-term vs.
short-term orientation
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Wrapping Up Our Discussion
As an Air Force leader, what is your role
in handling culture shock effectively?
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Summary
• Defining the Terms: Culture Shock and
Country Shock
• Stages of Culture Shock
• Managing Country and Culture Shock
• The Role of Culture in Conflicts and
Conflict Resolution
• A Leader’s Role in Handling Culture Shock
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