Cultural Adjustment
Cultural adjustment can cause intense discomfort, often accompanied by hyperirritability, bitterness, resentment,
homesickness, and depression. In some cases distinct physical symptoms of
psychosomatic illness occur.
For some people the bout with cultural adjustment is brief and hardly noticeable.
These are usually people whose personalities provide them with a kind of natural
immunity. Most of us, however, will have to deal with cultural adjustment.
Cultural adjustment vs. frustration
Common causes of frustration:
Frustration is uncomfortable but it is generally short-lived as compared to culture adjustment.
Cultural adjustment has two distinctive features:
1.
2.
The Progressive Stages of Cultural Adjustment
1.
2.
3.
4.
Reactions to Cultural Confrontation Situations
Overall Symptoms
Withdrawal Symptoms
Aggressive Symptoms
Anxiety
Physical and/or psychological
withdrawal
Compulsive eating
Spending excessive amounts of time
reading
Exaggerated cleanliness
Homesickness
Helplessness
Boredom
Depression
Fatigue
Confusion
Self-doubt
Feelings of Inadequacy
Unexplained fits of weeping
Need for excessive amounts of sleep
Only seeing other Americans or
Westerners
Avoiding contact with locals
Short attention span
Diminished productivity
Paranoia
Loss of ability to work or study
effectively
Physical ailments and
psychosomatic illnesses
Quitting and returning to US early
Stages of Adjustment
Compulsive drinking
Irritability
Family tensions
Excessive chauvinism
Stereotyping
Hostility toward locals
Verbal aggressiveness
Physical Aggressiveness
Deciding to stay put but
permanently hating the country and
its people
1.
2.
3.
4.
Cultural Adjustment cycle
Note that there are often two low points.
Responding to Cultural Adjustment