Verto Education

The Psychology Of
Culture Shock

Verto Education May 30th, 2023

A fish out of water. A bike without a

chain. Out to sea. A stranger in a strange
land. There are many metaphors for
culture shock, all of which attempt to
describe the unique experience of being
far from one’s home country and culture.
Culture shock is defined as the feeling of
disorientation experienced by someone
who is suddenly subjected to an
unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of
attitudes. None of the metaphors or
definitions quite capture how it feels to be
in a new place for the first time. Culture
shock can feel extremely alienating and
lonely. And none of us are immune to its
effects. Gaining a deeper understanding
of this phenomenon and how it works can
help us prepare for what lies ahead.

Scientists have studied culture shock for

over a century. It is referred to as
“acculturative stress” and rather than
focusing on the purely negative aspects,
psychologists describe it as a process of
stress and adjustment. Most people are
familiar with the traditional adjustment
curve:

Oberg stated that although not all people

experience these stages with the same
intensity or at the same time, everyone
experiences all of them at some point in
their sojourn. The first stage is a state of
euphoria, or the honeymoon phase, when
we are filled with excitement about being

in another country and experiencing a

new culture. Eventually, as the
excitement dies down and day to day
challenges arise, we enter a state of crisis
and anxiety, causing us to have hostile
feelings about the host culture. The
longer we are immersed in the culture
and learn more about it, we adjust and
recover from those hostile feelings.
Finally, after some time we adjust even
more and fully accept the new culture.

Over the years, however, a variety of

patterns have been observed by
psychologists, including an inverse U-
curve, in which anxiety is highest at the
beginning and end of a person’s stay
abroad, and a J-curve, in which social
difficulty and depression are at their
highest 24 hours after entry, drop steeply
after 4 months and subsequently level off.
Since so many different adjustment
patterns have been observed, recently
some psychologists have argued that
there is no “one size fits all” when it
comes to how we manage time abroad.
They believe the “person-centered”
approach to be a much more valuable
way of studying adjustment over time.
Instead of focusing on how different
variables affect the individual, they prefer
to study how different individuals relate
to one another. After all, each of us is
unique, and we react in different ways to
our environment based on our
personalities, expectations, previous
experiences, etc. So what are the
individual factors that can affect our time
abroad? And is there anything we can do
to impact how we as unique individuals
adjust to being in a new country?

One of the factors that determines how

we react to cultural stress is our
personality. The most well-known and
often misunderstood dimension of
personality is extraversion. We tend to
believe people are either introverts or
extraverts. However, extraversion is a
continuum that describes what gives us
energy and how we prefer to recharge. No
one is 100% extraverted or introverted,
rather we tend to fall somewhere in
between these two extremes. Not
surprisingly, people who are closer to the
extraversion end of the spectrum tend to
have an easier time adjusting to new
cultures. That is because being in a new
country means meeting many new people
and spending a lot of time around those
people, and extraverts thrive in these
situations. But all is not lost for introverts
who go abroad. Being an introvert doesn’t
mean not enjoying making friends and
being with people. Introverts simply
prefer to be alone after spending
extensive time in groups. They only have
so much energy to spend in social
settings. There are many coping
strategies that introverts can employ
while studying abroad, the most
important of which is to know what they
need to recharge. Taking some “me” time
after a long day with others is important
for introverts to prevent overwhelm and
remain upbeat and positive. And despite
common misconceptions, sometimes
extraverts need alone time and introverts
need to be around others.

Historically, intelligence was known as a

general ability, however in recent decades
it has come to light that there are many
types of intelligence. The “alternate”
intelligence we hear about most
frequently is emotional intelligence. But
have you heard of cultural intelligence?
Cultural intelligence, or CQ, is defined as
the capability of an individual to function
effectively in situations characterized by
cultural diversity. CQ has to do with our
interest in interacting with people from
culturally diverse backgrounds, our
knowledge about other cultures, our
ability to adapt to new cultural norms
based on our environment and our ability
to adjust our verbal and non-verbal
actions to suit the context in which we
find ourselves. It is argued that CQ can
help us adapt to culture shock. The higher
our CQ, the lesser the effect of culture
shock on our ability to cope in new
situations. In addition, regardless of what
our CQ is now, we can increase it through
training and exposure to new cultures.
Often, our first introduction to our host
culture is upon arrival and at in-country
orientation. This is where we first learn
about the cultural norms of our new
home. But starting to learn about the new
culture earlier can arm us with the
information needed to develop a broader
cultural mindset. Try meeting and talking
with people in your community from your
host country. Read novels by authors
from your destination. Read about its
history. Find social media groups
centered around the culture. In the U.S.,
we tend to live and socialize in very
segregated pockets of people who look
and talk and think like us. Seeking out
opportunities to have genuine
interactions with all types of people
before going abroad is a solid first step
toward combating culture shock and
broadening our horizons.

What other ways can we cope in an

entirely new place? Many of the most
effective coping strategies are
interpersonal. A recent study found that
relating to others with empathy and
perspective taking is significantly
associated with lower stress levels
abroad. The more empathic we are and
the more we are able to take on other
people’s points of view, the more positive
our interpersonal relationships and thus
our adaptation to the stress of culture
shock. In fact, our relationships are one
of the biggest factors in how well we
adapt in new environments. Students
who spend time abroad generally have a
tenfold increase in their number of
relationships. A new local support
network develops. The close knit
community of students from our home
country who are also studying abroad is a
source of new friends that can relate to us
in ways that others cannot. We can also
rely on mentors like program leaders or
others who are there to help us through
the transition. Making local friends can
also be important for cultural adjustment.
Living with host families and attending
local schools provide the benefits of day
to day contact with host nationals – a
crucial “insider” element to help us
understand the new place in which we
find ourselves.

One important finding of psychological

studies around culture shock is the
positive effect of tackling our discomfort
head on as opposed to avoiding it. The
problem-solving approach involves
acknowledging how we feel, whether it be
sad, angry, tired, lonely, confused, hungry
or sick, and employing the same effective
strategies we normally employ when we
have those feelings. Sticking to our
routines (such as exercising or listening
to music when we’re stressed and
hanging out with friends when we’re
lonely) can be helpful in difficult times.
Having a sense of humor can also help in
adjusting to new situations. When I
studied abroad in Spain for the first time,
my American friends and I would speak
“Spanglish” to each other using the
Spanish words we found interesting (and
very different from English). We
essentially created our own language and
had fun laughing at how silly it sounded.
Sometimes we just have to laugh at our
awkwardness in the new place and not
take ourselves too seriously. This is a way
of thinking meta-cognitively – of seeing
ourselves from outside of ourselves. This
perspective also allows us to realize that
our time abroad goes quickly, and before
we know it, it’s over. All of the little and
seemingly big things that annoyed or
frustrated us while we were travelling
become miniscule in the bigger picture,
and our overall experience abroad comes
to light.

Is going abroad worth the sometimes

painful and lonely periods we must
endure? Why bother dealing with culture
shock? Study abroad is a significant life
event for the personality development of
young adults. The leaving home process
happens to most college age people, but
leaving home and spending weeks or
months in another country far from home
takes that process to a whole new level.
Nothing expedites maturity quite like this
experience. It has been shown that
spending significant time in another
culture accentuates openness and
agreeableness and increases emotional
stability. Self-efficacy goes through the
roof. After going through and learning so
much, we feel like there is nothing that
we can’t accomplish. So I ask you, is it
worth it?
1 -Demes, Kali and Nicolas Geeraert, “The Highs
and Lows of a Cultural Transition: A Longitudinal
Analysis of Sojourner Stress and Adaptation Across
50 Countries”, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 2015, Vol. 109, No. 2, 316-337
2 –Demes, Kali and Nicolas Geeraert, “The Highs
and Lows of a Cultural Transition: A Longitudinal
Analysis of Sojourner Stress and Adaptation Across
50 Countries”, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 2015, Vol. 109, No. 2, 316-337
3 -Demes, Kali and Nicolas Geeraert, “The Highs and
Lows of a Cultural Transition: A Longitudinal
Analysis of Sojourner Stress and Adaptation Across
50 Countries”, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 2015, Vol. 109, No. 2, 316-337
4 -Zimmerman, Julie and Franz J. Neyer, “Do We
Become a Different Person When Hitting the Road?
Personality Development of Sojourners”, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 2013, Vol. 105,
No. 3, 515-530

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