“Human behavior
takes place in a social and cultural context that varies widely from place to
place. This variation occurs along
certain dimensions that are signified by social science terminology that we use
in cross-cultural psychology.”
Segall, Dasen, Berry,
Poortinga, Human Behavior in Global Perspective
How To Improve Cross-Cultural Communications
When you live and work
in another culture and actively strive to develop cross-cultural understanding
and allow yourself to adjust to the culture, you make fundamental changes in the
way you think, feel and behave. We
can refer to this as informal on-the-job training and it can be very
effective. For many people an
informal approach may be all that is needed for them to quickly adjust to
another culture. Success with an
informal approach to cross-cultural self-training depends on the personality,
knowledge and experiences of the individual. Formal training programs in
cross-cultural communications also bring about the changes in people that are
necessary for them to interact cross-culturally. Perhaps one of the most effective
ways to bring about cross-cultural understanding and intercultural interaction
skills is to combine both language and cultural training in an intensive program
of instruction. The study of
language is a considerable aid to cross-cultural understanding because embedded
in a people’s language is their cultural logic and their rules of social
interaction. Most languages have
built-in ways to talk to people of different social statuses. The Japanese
language is a prime example and Pacific island languages also contain linguistic
conventions such as the respect speech and oratory found in Pohnpei, Fiji and
Samoa.
The Peace
Corps Approach To Cross-Cultural Training
A combination of
intensive language training and cultural immersion living is the approach taken
by the U.S. Peace Corps in its training programs for Peace Corps Volunteers
throughout the world. In-country
Peace Corps training programs typically last about 8 weeks and consist of
intensive language and culture training as well as orientation and training in
the field that the volunteer will be working in. The language and culture trainers
are often well-educated locals, many times educators, who have a good
understanding of American culture and its influence on the behavior of
Americans. They also very often
have an objective anthropological understanding of their own culture and its
influence on themselves and their own people. Peace Corps training programs are
intensive; there is normally about three hours of language training in the
morning with cultural and job-related sessions in the afternoon. Peace Corps trainers use a lot of
role-playing activities where volunteers must use both language and
culturally-correct social interaction skills. In addition to this formal training,
volunteer trainees also explore the local culture informally in their off-hours
and on weekends and try out some of their language and social interaction
skills. Some training programs also
combine village and home-stays with locals as part of the training process. During my own Peace Corps training in
Fiji we spent one week in a rural Fijian village, each volunteer staying with a
separate family. The families were
instructed not to speak any English to us and we were encouraged to try to speak
as little English as possible to each other. This was immersion training at its
best. At the end of a day we found
ourselves starved to speak English, but forced to communicate in the local
language. It was a very effective
cross-cultural and linguistic training regime and everyone in my group went on
to become successful volunteers, except for one.
Most Peace Corps
Volunteers have the correct attitude for successful cross-cultural communication
that allows changes to take place in them.
However, there are always a few who do not possess the right attitude and
who sometimes terminate even before the training is over. A few others may not make it through the
first year and will also go home.
And then there is sometimes even a few who must be “psycho-vacced”
(psychological evacuation) because of acute culture shock. In my training group in Fiji there
was only one volunteer that had to be psycho-vacced during the 8th
month our two-year stay. She had
classic culture-shock symptoms.
While at work as a nurse in the hospital she was fine because she was
always busy on the ward. But when
off duty she spent an excessive amount of time alone at home reading novels and
sleeping. And when she did
socialize with fellow volunteers she would become overly happy and histrionic
and end of laughing herself sometimes to the point of tears and sobbing. She was physically and psychologically
assessed by a doctor and it was determined that it would be best for her to
return home. She left Fiji in a
good frame of mind. She had done a
fine job while working as a nurse in the hospital, but she accepted the fact
that she just wasn’t cut out for long-term overseas assignments.
However, the
overwhelming majority of Peace Corps Volunteers are successful because it’s what
they signed up for in the first place.
There was one guy in our training group who wanted a very rigorous Peace
Corps experience and felt that Fiji was too developed and comfortable for
him. At the end of training he took
an option of getting reassigned before the final swearing-in ceremony and ended
up in Nepal. There is a
lot of truth in the Peace Corps recruiting slogan that says “it’s the toughest job you’ll ever
love.” It is psychologically
demanding, even grueling sometimes with regard to cross-cultural adjustment
requirements, but is also immensely challenging and rewarding with regard to the
character building and personal enrichment and achievement aspects of it. Some volunteers even become
significantly resocialized into the local culture and coupled with fluency in
the language these are the volunteers who are said to have “gone local.” They are usually very successful
volunteers and also the ones who are most remembered by the local people after
they return home – if they ever return home. But “going local” is not a necessary
requirement for a completely successful Peace Corps experience.
Not all expatriates
take overseas jobs for enriching cross-cultural experience and hardships. Becoming bicultural or bilingual is not
in everyone’s job description and neither is it always a prerequisite for being
a success overseas, but it obviously helps. Today most multinational businesses
provide cross-cultural and language training for employees who will be stationed
overseas, and the U.S. Foreign Service, a pioneer in this field, has developed
this type of training to a fine science.
Effects of
Cross-Culturalization
People who become
cross-culturalized through informal or formal training will undergo some very
fundamental changes in their thoughts, emotions and behaviors due to the neural
rewiring which takes place in their brain and the changes in the way they
process information. Our
thought processes become more sophisticated and complex as we factor new
cultural norms into our daily lives. We build new neural networks and alter
existing ones, and we construct new and more complex cognitive maps with these
networks. We learn to
naturally for multiple points- of- view and more possible explanations for the
thoughts, emotions and behaviors of the people we interact with. We engage less in simplistic
cultural - stereotyping and gradually develop the ability to see through the
cultural lenses of the local people.
We also learn that it is wise to suspend judgment sometimes and admit
that we are not yet ready to understand something about the host-country
people. We gradually learn to
tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty and to more patiently wait for insight and
understanding to come. We
learn to understand and control our ethnocentrism and the ways in which our own
culture influences us.
Changes in our
thoughts and emotions eventually lead to behaviors that can either be successful
or unsuccessful while living in another culture. A consistent production of unsuccessful
behaviors is normally an indication of culture shock. Symptoms of culture-shock include
negative stereotyping, excessive criticism of host country people and their
ways, anger and resentment, depression, sullenness and withdrawal. People experience stress when they can’t
successfully communicate with other people or make themselves understood by
them. It can be emotionally
demanding to always be unsure of how people will think, feel and behave. Each day can bring disconfirmed
expectancies and linguistic communication difficulties and it can sometimes be
cognitively and emotionally exhausting for a person just to get through an
average working day. Successful
cross-cultural communications allows one to be at ease in the host culture and
form real friendships and working relationship with the local people.