Culture Shock occurs where individuals encounter a new and different culture and experience a major disruption of their normal assumptions about social values and behavior. Culture Shock is common among groups who have opted for immigration and can sometimes affect whole societies if they are swept up in rapid social change. The new culture seems strange, unacceptable and culturally shocking.
Culture Shock is experienced by individuals who travel to a very different society and discover cultural ideas and practices that differ very much from their own. The concept of culture shock has been applied to the experiences of aboriginal people following colonial contact.
What you think is gross may be
considered a delicacy in other countries, like dog meat for example.
Blowing nose in public and
spitting around the place one sits can be seen as normal in most parts of Asia.
There are
social customs and traditions like body piercing that would make a lot many
recoil in disgust.
Understanding the Shock in
"Culture Shock." - Schnell,
Jim.
"Culture shock" is the expression generally associated with the frustrations
that occur when persons have difficulty functioning in a different culture or when persons
are exposed to individuals from another culture. Culture shock typically occurs in a
4-stage process that can unfold over varying lengths of time: the honeymoon, crisis,
resolution, and stabilization. For one instructor who experienced
culture shock while teaching in China, an incident with his students and plagiarized
materials taught him that plagiarizing research documents is not considered a serious
offense in China. The key to dealing successfully with culture shock rests with being able
to recognize the stages of culture shock as they are being experienced. Once the shock in
"culture shock" is understood, it can be changed from a frustrating experience
to a learning experience.
Culture shock and the international student ‘offshore’ - David Pyvis, Anne Chapman. Within the context of higher education, it is the international student who travels to another country to study who is typically identified as the subject at risk of culture shock. This paper attempts to go further by suggesting that international students studying in their home country with an overseas institution may also experience culture shock as an effect of this engagement.
Culture Shock among Young British Volunteers Working Abroad: Predictors, Risk Factors and Outcome - David Bardwell Mumford. This study investigates the factors and circumstances that predict culture shock in young British volunteers working abroad. A new questionnaire to measure culture shock was developed for the study, derived from the literature on culture shock and first-hand reports by volunteers. Cultural distance was the strongest predictor of culture shock. Higher culture shock scores at 3 weeks predicted a greater risk of early return home and lower satisfaction with their time abroad.
Second-Language Acquisition, Culture Shock, and Language Stress of Adult Female Latina Students in New York - Lucia Buttaro. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the educational, cultural, and linguistic adjustments and experiences encountered by Hispanic adult females in learning English as a second language, and the relation of these experiences to the variables of language, culture, and education of adult Hispanic females.
Sharing culture shock through a collection of experiences - Azeez, B. Kerne, A. Southern, J. Summerfield, B. Aholu, I. Sharmin, E.
Abstract: Culture shock and cultural adaptation are phenomena that international students
experience, while crossing boundaries. Digital
collections can serve as a medium for sharing sensations and experiences. They can help
overcome the sense of isolation and culture shock, by illustrating to an individual how
others have similar experiences.
The new culture shock: the manager in the evolving
information society - Linstone, H.A.
Abstract: Summary form only given. It is contended that managers, fully immersed in their
immediate tasks and deadlines, may only belatedly recognize the profound changes triggered
by the world around them. Mosaic structures are relapsing multilevel
hierarchy.
The Role of the Physical Environment in Culture Shock. Arza Churchman, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning.
The concept of place attachment is examined within
the context of a between-country migration situation, that of immigrants from
the former Soviet Union to Israel.
Expatriate culture shock in China: a study in the Beijing hotel industry - Kaye, Marianna; Taylor, William G.K.
Abstract: Explores the occurrence of culture shock in the population of expatriate
managers working in the joint venture hotels in Beijing, China. The paper seeks to gauge
the importance of a variety of factors that might influence the level of culture shock.
Proposes a model which envisages culture shock as determined by situational factors and by
the level of inter-cultural sensitivity of an expatriate. The findings demonstrate a strong inverse relationship between
inter-cultural sensitivity and culture shock. Among situational factors, a managerial
emphasis on motivating employees is associated with lower culture shock. A surprising
finding is the tendency for Asian expatriates to experience greater culture shock for a
given level of inter-cultural sensitivity.
The collective culture shock in transition countries - theoretical and empirical
implications - Feichtinger C.; Fink G.
Abstract: Individual culture shock is a well known and evidenced phenomenon. It describes
the psychological and also physical reactions of a person staying abroad.
Culture shock is the result of confrontation with a foreign culture. According to the authors such
reactions also exist on the level of society as a whole. This “collective culture
shock” influences management and business relations and causes problems. A theory of
the collective culture shock is developed that analyses these problems and provides a
framework for solutions.