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Symptoms of culture shock
Failure to identify cultural issues and take action can lead to culture shock. Often, the symptoms are ignored or simply not recognized. Actually, symptoms of culture shock are:
- Productivity is negatively impacted;
- Employees are disgruntled and frustrated;
- Stereotyping affects judgment;
- People are unable to establish trust and good working relationships;
- Effectiveness of marketing efforts reduced;
- Ineffective exchange of information;
- Frequent miscommunication and misunderstandings;
- Difficult to attract qualified and talented workforce;
- Lawsuits filed by unhappy employees or dissatisfied customers.
Some of the symptoms of culture shock are: excessive concern over cleanliness and the feeling that what is new and strange is "dirty." This could be in relation to drinking water, food, dishes, and bedding; fear of physical contact with attendants or servants; a feeling of helplessness and a desire for dependence on long-term residents of one's own nationality; irritation over delays and other minor frustrations out of proportion to their causes; delay and outright refusal to learn the language of the host country; excessive fear of being cheated, robbed, or injured; great concern over minor pains and irruptions of the skin; and finally, that terrible longing to be back home, to be in familiar surroundings, to visit one's relatives, and, in general, to talk to people who really "make sense."
Individuals differ greatly in the degree in which culture shock affects them. Although not common, there are individuals who cannot live in foreign countries. Those who have seen people go through a serious case of culture shock and on to a satisfactory adjustment can discern steps in the process.
Another important point worth considering is the attitude of others to a person suffering from culture shock. If you are frustrated and have an aggressive attitude to the people of the host country, they will sense this hostility and in many cases respond in either a hostile manner or try to avoid you. In other words, their response moves from a preliminary phase of ingratiation to aggressive ridicule and on to avoidance.
Culture shock affects wives more than husbands. The husband has his professional duties to occupy him and his activities may not differ too much from what he has been accustomed to. The wife, on the other hand, has to operate in an environment, which differs much more from the milieu in which she grew up.
In an effort to get over culture shock, I think there is value in knowing something about the nature of culture and its relationship to the individual. In addition to living in a physical environment, an individual lives in a cultural environment consisting of manmade physical objects, social institutions, and ideas and beliefs.
An individual is not born with culture but only with the capacity to learn it and use it. There is nothing in a new born child which dictates that it should eventually speak Portuguese, English, or French, nor that he eat with a fork in his left hand rather than in the right, or use chop sticks. All these things the child has to learn. Nor are the parents responsible for the culture which they transmit to their young. The culture of any people is the product of history and is built up over time largely through processes, which are, as far as the individual is concerned, beyond his awareness. It is by means of culture that the young learn to adapt themselves to the physical environment and to the people with whom they associate.
As we know, children and adolescents often experience difficulties in this process of learning and adjustment. But once learned, culture becomes a way of life, the sure, familiar, largely automatic way of getting what you want from your environment and as such it also becomes a value.
People have a way of accepting their culture as both the best and the only way of doing things. This is perfectly normal and understandable. To this attitude we give the name ethnocentrism, a belief that not only the culture but the race and nation form the center of the world.
Individuals identify themselves with their own group and its ways to the extent that any critical comment is taken as an affront to the individual as well as to the group. If you criticize my country, you are criticizing me. If you criticize me, you are criticizing my country.
Along with this attitude goes the tendency to attribute all individual peculiarities as national characteristics. For instance, if an American does something odd or antisocial in a foreign country which back home would be considered a purely individual act, it is now considered a national trait.
Instead of being censured as an individual, his country is censured. It is best to recognize that ethnocentrism is a characteristic of national groups. If a national criticizes some aspect of his own culture, the foreigner should listen but not enter into the criticism.
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