Cultural Diversity Between Cross-Cultural Adjustment and Cultural Shock

Abstract

The feeling of profound disorientation experienced by an individual when encountering a foreign culture is designated in the specialized literature as culture shock. It represents a traumatizing experience described by explorers and missionaries who arrived in places where completely unfamiliar languages were spoken and where customs and traditions were strange. But the acceptance into a new culture largely depends on the immigrant’s willingness and ability to communicate with members of the culture in accordance with their cultural norms and conventions. Acceptance is accelerated when the immigrant makes an effort to learn the local language and communicate regularly with the local people thus becomes familiar with their beliefs and cultural values.