Culture shock and its perception by sojourners in the USA: an explorative study

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an intercultural study done at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA in the period September 2006 to February 2007 when 23 informants from 17 countries were interviewed face-to-face and recorded on tapes. It outlines three distinct phases in the perception of culture shock: 1) unawareness, 2) partial awareness, 3) full awareness, and argues that culture shock appears out of the conflict between local codes and perceived meanings. The process of cultural hybridisation is a natural outcome of the coping strategies with culture shock. However, the paper also argues that full adaptation is not at all equal to cultural assimilation.