In a foreign country, foreign students often encounter differences in the norms of behavior, beliefs, customs and values ​​of local residents. Although in general immersion in a foreign culture can be considered a positive process, it can sometimes cause a so-called "culture shock".

The term was first used by the anthropologist Calvero Oeberg (Kalvero Oberg). This phenomenon lies in the fact that the cultural norms that a foreigner encounters abroad are in internal conflict with the norms on which he was brought up in his own country. Scientists have noticed that the development of culture shock takes place in several stages.

This, of course, does not mean that all people endure culture shock in the same way or experience it in a strictly certain time. But general patterns still exist.

Immediately after arriving in another country, a foreigner experiences exceptionally positive emotions (the “honeymoon” stage), as they interact more deeply with a foreign culture, “rose-colored glasses” fall off, cultural contradictions emerge (“culture shock” stage), then follows a natural internal adjustment to the new one. environment (stage of "adaptation").

In terms of the intensity and polarity of the emotions experienced, the process of adaptation resembles a ride on a rollercoaster.

Researcher Stephen Rinesmith ( Stephen Rhinesmith) identifies 10 stages of adaptation to a foreign culture:

1. Arrival in another country and primary anxiety.
2. primary euphoria.
3. Culture shock.
4. surface adaptation.
5. Depression-frustration.
6. Acceptance of a foreign culture.
7. Return home and re-anxiety.
8. Repeated euphoria.
9. Reverse culture shock.
10. Reintegration into your culture.

Experiencing culture shock, an international student follows the natural ups and downs of emotions. Spiritual uplift is replaced by a decline in mood, depression. At this moment, the degree of rise and fall of mood, the intensity and duration of emotions, depend on the individual characteristics of the person. This process helps to adapt to new circumstances.

Stages 1-5. Immersion in a foreign culture

Before leaving abroad, a foreign student experiences pleasant excitement in anticipation of new experiences. Once abroad, he gradually masters and begins to get acquainted with a foreign culture.

At first, everything is perceived through the eyes of a tourist, there is a feeling of euphoria. Then the first difficulties in interacting with the new environment begin, and the foreigner begins to compare and contrast the culture of his country with the culture of the host country, focuses his attention on what he considers to be the shortcomings of a foreign culture.

The state of euphoria is replaced by longing for familiar things and surroundings. Gradually these internal contradictions cause feelings of depression. Everything is aggravated by the fact that a foreign student has to experience stress every day when faced with unusual phenomena abroad, whether it is a trip by public transport, shopping, making a bank transaction, and so on.

Then comes a period when negative emotions and depression become apparent and develop into culture shock. The symptoms of culture shock can manifest both psychologically (feelings of depression, loss, longing) and physically (drowsiness or insomnia, feeling unwell). The most important thing is to realize that he is present and not to withdraw into himself.

Stage 6. Acceptance of a foreign culture

As they get used to it, a foreign student acquires new acquaintances and friends, begins to travel more around the country, everything around no longer seems alien and hostile. Previously annoying cultural norms now seem acceptable.

However, if difficulties arise at this stage, a return to a short state of depression is possible. As a rule, people with experience living abroad quickly adapt to a foreign culture. At this stage, adaptation can develop in the following areas:

• complete rejection of foreign culture, which is characterized by self-isolation from it. Returning home is perceived as the only possible way to solve the problem. So-called "hermits" tend to have the most difficulty reintegrating into their own culture upon return;
• full acceptance of foreign culture, which is characterized by full integration and loss of the former cultural identity. As a rule, the so-called "adherents" do not seek to return home;
• acceptance of certain aspects of a foreign culture while maintaining particles of one's own, which is expressed in the emergence of a unique mixture of two or more cultures. So-called "cosmopolitans" do not suffer much culture shock when moving to another country or when returning home from abroad.

Stage 7-10. Homecoming

Upon returning home after a long study abroad, there comes a period of re-adaptation to their own culture. The native country is no longer perceived as before leaving for study. Now the opposite is true: the cultural norms of one's country begin to be assessed more critically and seem not as "normal" as before. This process is commonly referred to as "reverse culture shock". After some time, there is a reverse adaptation to the native environment.

Ways to overcome culture shock

• Start a diary or blog.Every day, write down everything that you have to face and your reactions to what is happening. Keeping records helps to analyze the situation in general, and not get hung up on one thing. In a year it will be interesting to read how you felt at the very beginning of your studies abroad.
• Communicate.Get yourself a so-called "informant" - a comrade for whom the culture of the host country is native, but who is also interested in the culture of your country, for example, studying Russian. He will help you get used to his culture, and you will help him to get used to yours. At the same time, get a friend who comes from the same country or at least the region as you. Discussing common difficulties will make it easier for you to get through the transition. However, try not to let the joint discussions turn into whining like "I'm tired of everything in this country."
• Act like a tourist.Periodically imagine that you are a tourist: visit tourist places where locals never go. This will allow you to look at everything from the outside and at least briefly return to the "honeymoon" stage.
• Do something familiar.Cook your usual or national food more often, meet friends from your country, watch your favorite movies on mother tongue. Sometimes you just need to feel, breathe in and see something familiar and familiar in order to get rid of homesickness.
• Please send mail.Ask your loved ones to send you something by mail. Such a trifle as a parcel from home can restore a good mood and a sense of connection with family and friends.
• Go in for sports. Physical activity will help you overcome psychological stress, distract yourself and relieve unnecessary stress.
• Don't lose your sense of humor.Try to see something useful in your experience of living in another country and maybe something funny. It is known that a sense of humor helps to overcome difficulties.

The types of ethnocultural interaction that we have considered develop at the level of ethnic groups and communities. Ethnic contacts at the individual level have their own characteristics and develop specifically. Representatives of various areas of ethnological science agree that with stable contacts with a foreign cultural environment, an individual develops a special state of consciousness, which in ethnology is called culture shock.

Each culture creates many symbols of the social environment, verbal and non-verbal ways of communication, with the help of which its bearers freely and confidently navigate the life around them. Spiritual world and the character of each person depends on these cultural phenomena, many of which he is not aware of. When this system of orientation in the surrounding world becomes inadequate in the conditions of a new culture, a person experiences a deep nervous shock, a cultural shock. The essence of culture shock is the discrepancy or conflict of old and familiar cultural norms with new and unusual ones.

The term "culture shock" was introduced into scientific use by the American researcher K. Oberg in 1960, when he noted that entering a new culture is accompanied by a number of unpleasant sensations. Today it is considered that the experience of a new culture is unpleasant, or shocking, on the one hand, because it is unexpected, and on the other hand, because it can lead to a negative assessment of one's own culture. Grushevitskaya, T.G. Fundamentals of intercultural communication: Textbook for universities / T.G. Grushevitskaya, A.P. Sadokhin, V.D. Popkov. - Moscow: UNITI-DANA, 2003. - 215-225 p.

There are usually six forms of culture shock:

tension due to the efforts made to achieve psychological adaptation;

feeling of loss due to deprivation of friends, position, profession, property;

a feeling of loneliness (rejection) in a new culture, which can turn into a denial of this culture;

violation of role expectations and sense of self-identification;

anxiety, turning into indignation and disgust after the realization of cultural differences;

feelings of inferiority due to inability to cope with the situation.

Indicators of culture shock, according to the founders of this concept - American cultural anthropologists A. Farnham and S. Bochner, are excessive concern for drinking water, dishes and beds; fear of physical contact with representatives of another culture; a feeling of helplessness and a desire to be under the protection of a representative of one's own culture; fear of being deceived or offended. Culture shock, in fact, is a defensive reaction of the individual's psyche to an excessively large amount of new information, the influx of which is so huge that a person feels powerless to cope with it for some time.

Culture shock occurs not only and not so much because the environment surrounding a person suddenly becomes unpredictable and there is a danger to his life due to inadequate behavior. Such acute situations are extremely rare. The bottom line is a completely unusual feeling that one can live without the usual knowledge and understanding of the world, that it is not universal, that the people around him live according to their own laws and ideas, not at all caring about how he understands and evaluates them at the same time. The individual realizes the uselessness and uselessness of familiar knowledge, feels the need to rethink all his life experience.

The experience of interacting with a new culture is shocking also because it can lead to a negative assessment of one's own culture, and also because it is unexpected. AT last years many of our compatriots had to experience the impact of this shock. First of all, these are "shuttle traders", students, scientists, businessmen, tourists, who have directly encountered a foreign cultural environment. However, especially strong feeling Culture shock is experienced by people who travel abroad for permanent residence. As a rule, they live there materially incomparably better than in Russia, but morally they feel a sense of nostalgia, melancholy, and inferiority. Therefore, as established by special studies, there are more mental illnesses among migrants than among indigenous people. Specific links were also established between migrant groups and the nature of mental disorders. For example, British people in Australia suffer from alcoholism, while Indians in England suffer from schizophrenia.

Of course, culture shock is not only Negative consequences. Modern researchers consider it as a normal reaction, as part of the normal process of human adaptation to new living conditions. During this process, a person not only acquires knowledge about a new culture and the norms of behavior in it, but also becomes more culturally developed.

The experience of culture shock goes through certain stages before the individual reaches a satisfied level of adaptation. To describe this process, a model is proposed in which five stages of adaptation are distinguished.

The first stage is called the "honeymoon" because many migrants are full of enthusiasm and hope, as their desire to study and work abroad has come true. In addition, relatives or official bodies often prepare for their arrival, they are expected, at first they receive help and may have some privileges. However, this period passes quickly.

In the second stage, the unfamiliar environment and culture begin to have a negative impact. Increasingly important are psychological factors caused by a lack of understanding of local residents and living conditions. This can result in frustration and frustration, symptoms of culture shock. Therefore, during this period, migrants are trying to escape from reality, communicating mainly with their fellow countrymen and complaining about their lives.

The third stage becomes critical - the culture shock reaches its maximum. This can lead to physical and mental illness. Some migrants give up and return home to their homeland. But most of finds the strength to overcome cultural differences, learns the language, gets acquainted with the local culture, acquires local friends, from whom he receives the necessary support.

At the fourth stage, as a rule, an optimistic mood appears, a person becomes more self-confident and satisfied with his position in the new society and culture. Adaptation and integration into the life of the new society are progressing very successfully.

At the fifth stage, complete adaptation to the new culture is achieved. The individual and the environment henceforth correspond to each other. Depending on the factors influencing the adaptation process, it can last from months to 4-5 years.

The severity of culture shock and its duration depend on many factors. They can be combined into two groups: external (group) and internal (individual), among which the most important are the individual characteristics of a person - gender, age, character traits, motivation.

Among internal factors, age is the most critical moment of a person's adaptation to living conditions in another society. The older people are, the more difficult it is for them to adapt to the new cultural system, experience cultural shock harder and longer, perceive the norms and values ​​of the new culture more slowly. Small children adapt quickly and successfully, but already schoolchildren experience great difficulties in this process, and older people are practically incapable of adaptation and acculturation.

Gender also plays a significant role in the process of adaptation to a new culture and the duration of culture shock: women have more difficulty adjusting to a new socio-cultural environment than men. But this judgment applies to a large extent to women from traditional societies, whose destiny, even in a new place, is housework and limited communication with new acquaintances. Women from developed countries show no difference in their acculturation abilities compared to men. For adaptation, more important than gender is the factor of education: the higher the level of education, the more successful adaptation. Education, even without taking into account the cultural content, expands the internal capabilities of a person, which contributes to an easier and faster perception of innovation.

Based on the research results, a universal set was formulated personal characteristics, which a person who is preparing for life in a foreign country with a foreign culture should have. This set includes: professional competence, high self-esteem, sociability, extroversion, openness to different views, interest in others, a tendency to cooperate, tolerance for uncertainty, a high level of self-control, courage and perseverance, and empathic abilities. True, life practice shows that the presence of these qualities does not always guarantee success.

The duration of overcoming culture shock also depends on the motives for adaptation. The strongest motivation is usually among emigrants and students who seek to move to a permanent place of residence in another country or study abroad and therefore strive to adapt as quickly and fully as possible. The situation is much worse for internally displaced persons and refugees who, contrary to their wishes, left their homeland and with great difficulty get used to the new living conditions.

Among the external factors influencing the overcoming of culture shock, first of all, it is necessary to name the cultural distance - the degree of difference between the native culture and the one to which it is necessary to adapt. In this case, it is not even the cultural distance itself that is important, but a person's idea of ​​it, his sense of cultural distance, which depends on many factors: the presence or absence of wars or conflicts both in the present and in the past; the meaning of a foreign language, customs, traditions, etc. Subjectively, the cultural distance can be perceived as longer or shorter than it actually is. In both cases, the culture shock will last, and adaptation will be difficult.

The process of adaptation is also influenced by the peculiarities of the migrant's culture. Thus, representatives of cultures in which the concept of "face" is very important and where they are afraid to lose it (Japanese, Chinese and other Eastern cultures) are more difficult to adapt to a foreign cultural environment. It is very important for representatives of these cultures to behave correctly, therefore they are extremely sensitive to mistakes and ignorance, inevitable in the process of adaptation. Representatives of the so-called great peoples and cultures, who usually believe that it is not they, but others who should adapt to them, also do not adapt well.

A very important external factor in overcoming culture shock is the conditions of the host country: how friendly the locals are to visitors, whether they are psychologically ready to help them, to communicate with them. Clearly, it is easier to adapt to a pluralistic society than to a totalitarian or orthodox one.

Culture shock is difficult and painful for a person psychological state when there is a breaking of existing stereotypes, which requires huge expenditures of physical and mental resources of a person.

In this chapter, we have tried to give the concept of ethnic contacts. Identified the main forms of ethnic interactions and considered the concept of culture shock

When contacting a foreign culture, one gets acquainted with new artistic creations, social and material values, people's actions that depend on the picture of the world, value ideas, norms and conventions, forms of thinking inherent in a foreign culture. Such meetings tend to enrich people, but often contact with another culture leads to problems and conflicts due to a misunderstanding of this culture.

The concept of "culture shock" and its symptoms

Experts called the stressful impact of a new culture on a person culture shock; sometimes similar concepts of "transition shock", "cultural fatigue" are used. Almost all immigrants experience it to one degree or another. It causes a mental health disorder, a more or less pronounced mental shock.

The term "culture shock" was coined in scientific circulation American researcher Kalsrvo Oberg in 1954. He noted that when entering a new culture, a person experiences a number of unpleasant sensations. Today it is considered that the experience of a new culture is unpleasant or shocking because it is unexpected and because it can lead to a negative assessment of one's own culture.

The most common manifestations of culture shock are:

• tension due to the efforts made to achieve psychological adaptation;
• feeling of loss due to deprivation of friends, position, profession, property;
• feeling of loneliness (rejection) in the new culture, which
• can be transformed into a denial of this culture; o violation of role expectations and self-identification;
• anxiety, turning into indignation and disgust after the realization of cultural differences;
• feelings of inferiority due to inability to cope with the situation.

The main cause of culture shock is the difference in cultures. Each culture has developed many symbols and images, stereotypes of behavior, with the help of which a person can automatically act in different situations. When a person finds himself in a new culture, the usual orientation system becomes inadequate, since it is based on other ideas about the world, other norms and values, stereotypes of behavior and perception. It is disappointment in the adequacy of one's own culture, the realization of its non-universality that causes shock, since in the conditions of one's own culture a person does not realize that it has this hidden, invisible part of culture.

The state of culture shock is most directly related to the process of communication. Each person takes his ability to communicate for granted and does not realize what role this ability plays in his life until he finds himself in a situation of misunderstanding. Unsuccessful communication, as a rule, causes him heartache and frustration. However, in this state, the person realizes that the source of frustration is his own inability to communicate adequately. It's about not only and not so much about ignorance of the language, but about the ability to decipher the cultural information of a different cultural environment, about psychological compatibility with carriers of a different culture, the ability to understand and accept their values.

Range of symptoms of culture shock very wide - from mild emotional disorders to serious stress, psychosis, alcoholism and suicide. In practice, it is often expressed in excessive concern for the cleanliness of dishes, linen, the quality of water and food, psychosomatic disorders, general anxiety, insomnia, fear. One or another kind of culture shock can develop from several months to several years, depending on the individual characteristics of the individual.

Modern researchers consider culture shock as part of the process of adaptation to new conditions. Moreover, in this process, a person not only acquires knowledge about a new culture and the norms of behavior in it, but becomes more culturally developed, although he experiences stress. Therefore, since the early 1990s. experts prefer to talk not about culture shock, but about acculturation stress.

Mechanism of development of culture shock first described in detail by Oberg, who argued that people go through certain stages of experiencing culture shock and gradually reach a satisfactory level of adaptation. Today, to describe them, an adaptation curve (U-shaped curve) is proposed, in which five stages of adaptation are distinguished.

• The first stage is called the "honeymoon": as a rule, migrants, once abroad, are full of enthusiasm and hope. In addition, they are often prepared for their arrival, they are expected, and at first they receive help, they may have some benefits. But this period passes quickly.
• In the second stage, the unfamiliar environment and culture begin to have a negative impact. The psychological factors caused by the misunderstanding of local residents are becoming increasingly important. The result can be frustration, frustration, and even depression. Therefore, during this period, migrants are trying to escape from reality, communicating mainly with their fellow countrymen and complaining about their lives.
• The third stage is critical, as the culture shock reaches its maximum. This can lead to somatic and mental illness. Some migrants return to their homeland. But most find the strength to overcome cultural differences, learn the language, get acquainted with the local culture, acquire local friends, from whom they receive the necessary support.
• At the fourth stage, an optimistic mood appears, a person becomes more self-confident and satisfied with his position in the new society and culture, considering adaptation and integration into the life of the new society to be very successful.
• At the fifth stage, complete adaptation to the new culture is achieved. Since that time, the individual and the environment are mutually consistent with each other. Depending on the intensity of these factors, the adaptation process can last from several months to 4-5 years.

The resulting U-shaped curve for the development of culture shock is characterized by the following steps: good, worse, bad, better, good.

When a person who has successfully adapted to a foreign culture returns to his homeland, he is faced with the need to reverse adaptation (re-adaptation) to his own culture. It is believed that in this case he experiences a "return shock", described by a W-shaped readaptation curve. It repeats the U-shaped curve: at first, a person rejoices at the return, meeting with friends, then he notices that some features of his native culture seem strange and unusual to him, but gradually he again adapts to life at home.

Factors affecting culture shock can be divided into two groups - internal (individual) and external (group).

In the group of internal (individual) factors, the most important are the individual characteristics of a person - age, gender, education and, character traits, life experience.

Age is a critical element of adapting to another community: than older man, the more difficult it is for him to adapt to a new cultural system, the harder and longer he experiences cultural shock, the slower he perceives the models of a new culture. So, small children adapt quickly and successfully, but already schoolchildren are experiencing great difficulties, and older people are practically incapable of adaptation and acculturation.

Floor. Women were previously thought to be more difficult to adjust to new environments than men. But this applies to women from traditional societies, whose destiny, even in a new place, is housework and limited communication with new people. Women from developed countries have the same ability to acculturate as men, and American women are better than men at adapting to new circumstances. Therefore, in recent times researchers believe that adaptation is more important education factor: the higher it is, the more successful the adaptation. Education, even without taking into account the cultural content, expands the inner possibilities of a person. The more complex a person's picture of the world, the easier and faster he perceives innovations.

In this regard, experts have identified a universal set personal characteristics, which a person who is preparing for life in a foreign country with a foreign culture should have. These are professional competence, high self-esteem, sociability, extroversion, openness to different views, interest in others, a tendency to cooperate, tolerance for uncertainty, internal self-control, courage and perseverance, empathy. True, real life practice shows that the presence of these qualities does not always guarantee success. If the values ​​of a foreign culture differ too much from the named personality traits, i.e. cultural distance is too great, adaptation will be very difficult.

Circumstances of a person's life experience also refer to internal factors of adaptation and overcoming culture shock. The most important thing here is the motives for adaptation. It depends on the motivation of migrants how fully they get acquainted with the language, history and culture of the country where they are going. There is a strong motivation among emigrants who seek to move permanently to another country and want to quickly become full members of a new culture, as well as students studying abroad. The situation is much worse for internally displaced persons and refugees who did not want to leave their homeland and do not want to get used to new living conditions.

Faster adaptation is facilitated by the experience of staying in a foreign cultural environment, the presence of friends among local residents who help to quickly acquire the information necessary for life, provide support (social, emotional, sometimes even financial), contacts with former compatriots living in this country. But here there is a danger of becoming isolated in a narrow circle of communication, which will increase alienation. Therefore, many services related to emigrants try to limit their residence in homogeneous national groups, believing that this hinders rapid adaptation and may even cause ethnic prejudice.

External factors influencing adaptation and culture shock include cultural distance, cultural characteristics, conditions of the host country.

Cultural distance - the degree of differences between the native culture and the one to which a person adapts. At the same time, it is not even the cultural distance itself that influences adaptation, but the person's idea of ​​it. his sense of cultural distance, which depends on many factors - the presence or absence of wars or conflicts both in the present and in the past, knowledge of a foreign language and culture, etc. Subjectively, cultural distance can be perceived as more distant or closer than it actually is; in both cases, the culture shock will last, and adaptation will be difficult.

Features of culture, to which the migrants belong. So, representatives of cultures in which the concept of “face” is very important and where they are afraid to lose it adapt worse; such people are very sensitive to the inevitable mistakes and ignorance in the process of adaptation. Representatives of the "great powers", who usually believe that it is not they who should adapt, but others, adapt with difficulty.

Conditions of the host country, in particular, the goodwill of local residents to visitors, the willingness to help them, to communicate with them. In a pluralistic society, it is much easier to adapt, and also in societies where the policy of cultural pluralism is proclaimed at the state level, as, for example, in Canada or Sweden, than in a totalitarian or orthodox one.

It is impossible not to name such factors as economic and political stability in the host country, the level of crime, on which the safety of migrants depends, the opportunity to communicate with representatives of another culture (which is real if there are joint activities - general work, hobbies, etc.), the position of the media that create a common emotional mood and public opinion regarding other ethnic and cultural groups.

Culture shock is a complex and painful condition for a person, but it testifies to personal growth, the breaking of existing stereotypes, which requires huge expenditures of a person’s physical and psychological resources. As a result, a new picture world, based on the acceptance and understanding of cultural diversity, the We-They dichotomy is removed, resistance to new trials appears, tolerance for the new and unusual. The main result is the ability to live in an ever-changing world in which borders between countries are of less importance and direct contacts between people are becoming more important.

Culture shock theories

Despite the abundance of empirical research in modern Western cross-cultural psychology, the problem of psychological acculturation of migrants is still one of the most complex and theoretically ambiguous.

The general position is the opinion expressed by most scientists about the stressful impact of a new culture that migrants face as a result of geographical movement, that contact with a different culture causes a mental health disorder, a more or less pronounced mental shock, to designate which in cross - cultural psychology introduced the term "culture shock".

In their book, entitled "Culture Shock", A. Fanem and S. Bochner define this concept: "Culture shock- it's the shock of the new. The culture shock hypothesis is based on, that the experience of a new culture is an unpleasant or shocking part because, that he is unexpected, and partly because, that it can lead to a negative evaluation of one's own culture" ( .

Anthropologist K. Oberg was the first to use this term, highlighting six aspects of culture shock:

• 1) voltage, to which the efforts required to achieve the necessary psychological adaptation lead;
• 2) feeling of loss or deprivation(friends, status, profession and property);
• 3)feeling of rejection representatives of a new culture or their rejection;
• 4) failure in roles, role expectations, values, feelings and self-identification;
• 5) sudden alarm, even disgust and resentment as a result of awareness of cultural differences;
• 6) feeling of inferiority from the inability to "cope" with the new environment.

K. Oberg writes that every culture has many symbols of the social environment, both verbal and non-verbal (gestures, facial expressions) ways of communication with which we navigate and act in situations of everyday life, and that our mental world depends on these signals, many of which we are not even aware of. And when this whole invisible system of free orientation in the world suddenly becomes inadequate in the conditions of a new culture, a person experiences a deep nervous shock 2 .

Researchers working after Oberg viewed culture shock as a normal reaction, as part of the normal process of adapting to cultural stress and a desire for a more understandable, stable, and predictable environment. In table. 6.1 presents some of the symptoms of culture shock and their description.

Culture shock symptoms 3

Table 6.1

• 1 See: Fumham A., BechnerS. Culture Shock: Psychological reaction to unfamiliar environments. L.; N.Y., 1986.
• 2 cm.: Oberg K. Cultural shock: Adjustments to new cultural environments // Practical Anthropology. 1960 Vol. 7. P. 177-182.
• 3 cm.: Shiraev E., LeviD. Op. cit.

Table ending. in. one

Most researchers of culture shock have sought mainly to establish the difficulties faced by migrants and typical reactions to certain situations. Less attention has been paid to the personality aspects of culture shock, the types of people who experience shock to a greater or lesser extent, the determinants of personality reactions, the duration of the state of shock, and so on.

Essentially, all people experience culture shock to some degree, and it almost always feels unpleasant, or at least stressful. This position needs empirical verification. Theoretically, as A. Fanem and S. Bokner write, some people may not experience the negative aspects of culture shock, moreover, they may find a kind of pleasure in it.

Some researchers also see the positive side of culture shock - either for those individuals who "enjoy" the diversity of the environment, or for those who are prompted by an unexpected disruption of plans to self-development.

The vast body of research on migration and mental health can be summed up in two broad conclusions.

• 1. There are usually more mental illnesses among migrants than among natives. There are a number of exceptions to this rule, but in general, the results of numerous studies support this conclusion.
• 2. There are important differences between groups of migrants, both in terms of the degree and type of mental disorders they suffer from.

Example

For example, English people in Australia have a higher rate of alcoholism (compared to the indigenous population), while western Indians in England have a high incidence of schizophrenia. A. Fanem and S. Bokner conclude that there are common universal, specific subcultural and individual factors that, acting together, produce or prevent mental illness among migrants.

In cross-cultural psychology, there are a number of concepts, or theories, the so-called traditional and contemporary that attempt to explain the link between migration and mental health. First, let's look at traditional theories.

The first - which grew up within the framework of the psychoanalytic tradition - is the theory suffering(grief) or deprivation(loss), which considers migration as an experience of loss (social ties, loved ones, position, property, etc.). Suffering is a general stressful reaction to the actual or imagined loss of a significant object or role, which can be overcome if a new personal connection is established or a new object is acquired to replace the lost one. It is assumed that an analogy can be drawn between migration and loss, which causes a reaction such as grief or suffering.

However, this theory has notable limitations - it is assumed that all migrants experience negative, suffering-like reactions, but in some cases migration is a happy outcome. Secondly, this concept does not answer the question of what type of people suffer more or less from loss, how long and in what form the suffering will be experienced. And thirdly, suffering people need psychological counseling, while migrants are more in need of adequate information. All these limitations make this concept applicable only in a small number of cases.

The second theory explaining the link between migration and mental health is based on locus of control. It proceeds from the postulate that people with an internal locus of control, who consider themselves responsible for everything that happens to them, adapt easier and faster than people with fatalistic inclinations, who believe that everything that happens to them is the result of fate or the will of other people. However, according to empirical data, this is not always the case, for example, R. Cochrane found that, although Indians come from a “fatalistic” culture, they usually adapt well in England. There is also a temptation to think that usually the decision to migrate is made by people with an internal locus of control and, as a result, are relatively independent of the culture of the country of origin.

Thus, this theory also has a number of serious limitations and ambiguities.

Third theory selective migration - one of the oldest and most popular. The neo-Darwinian idea of ​​selective migration is the development of the principle of natural selection, according to which all living organisms that better adapt to the environment become the dominant type. Thus, people "selected" for a new environment will "handle" it better than others. This theory also has a number of limitations - it is not clear what barriers or obstacles are "selective" for adaptation, and it is rather difficult to determine the true nature of adaptive selections both in the country of origin and in the country of new residence.

This theory was quite popular in the study of migration in our country, for example, F. B. Berezin believes that selective processes affect the effectiveness of population adaptation due to the fact that individuals of predominantly certain types are involved in the migration flow, in particular, those with accentuated personality traits. features.

A number of researchers, in particular R. Cochrane, carry out the idea of ​​different groups of migrants from the same culture - stable, economically interested people who travel to a new location for work-related reasons, and unstable who have potential problems and move in the illusory hope of solving them rather than for specific purposes.

So, although selectivity undoubtedly exists both before migration and later - in the process of adaptation to a new environment, but its real nature and possible muds, as well as its role in explaining the connection between migration and mental health, are not sufficiently argued, and this hypothesis cannot be an explanatory theory.

The fourth is theory expectation values, which argues that the adequacy of migrants' expectations from life in a new country directly affects their adaptation. There is a number of evidence that low expectations lead to better adjustment.

Example

D. Krupinski noted that many Vietnamese refugees who arrived in the United States expected more low level life and more discrimination than they actually experienced; this led to their rather successful adaptation.

This approach also has its problems - it is not clear, for example, which expectations in which aspects of life in a new country are more important for adjustment than others. Also unclear is the mechanism by which unfulfilled expectations lead to maladjustment, for example: how and always do unfulfilled or unreasonable expectations lead to anxiety, depression and fear?

It also follows from the literature on this problem that low expectations among migrants are better for their adjustment, but worse for social mobility. This approach is relatively new, and, according to A. Fanem and S. Bokner, many of the problems in its mainstream have simply not yet been considered.

In addition to the above traditional explanations for culture shock exist modern theories that are mainly used by researchers to interpret the empirical data obtained.

As in the previous case, none of the theories is able to explain all or even most of the differences in the adaptation of migrant groups, but each of them is based on factors that are very important for understanding the relationship between resettlement in a new environment and culture shock. These are theories negative life events, value differences and social support.

According to the first theory, experience big changes in life conditions (both negative and positive) leads to mental and physical illnesses. Although this theory is more descriptive than explanatory, it is interesting in that it points to significant cultural differences in the stressfulness of the most significant life events; there are scales for different cultures where the same events are perceived and evaluated differently. Similar studies have also been carried out in our country.

The theory of negative life events is inherently similar to the theory of value differences, which explains culture shock as a collision different systems values. At the same time, it is believed that the degree of differences in values ​​between the country of origin and the country of settlement of migrants is directly proportional to the number of difficulties experienced by a person in the process of adaptation. This theory is also descriptive. There were attempts to draw up a kind of "world map" according to the types of leading values.

Example

In particular, Hofstsd proposed to divide the countries of the world according to the types of motivation and values ​​into four groups or "quadrants".

• 1. USA, Great Britain, whose representatives tend to strive for personal success, well-being and self-actualization.
• 2. Japan, German-speaking countries, whose representatives are characterized by personal security motives, and the leading values ​​are welfare and hard work.
• 3. France, Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Chile and other Latin American and Asian countries for whose representatives individual well-being is less important than group solidarity.
• 4. Nordic countries and the Netherlands, where personal success is regarded as a common achievement and the quality of human connections in the living environment is of particular importance.

Interesting in this classification is the presence of a single type of leading values ​​among representatives of a number of countries at different levels of economic and social development, located on different continents and belonging to different types of cultures.

However, as interesting and useful as these descriptive studies are, they do not explain how, when, and why differences in values ​​between people in contact lead to mental illness. To overcome these limitations, the Australian scientist N. Faser and his colleagues studied the assimilation of migrants as a function of value differences.

These studies found that adult migrants already have well-established, relatively immutable systems values ​​and their corresponding behavioral repertoires. It is more likely that the values ​​of their children, due to closer and more frequent contacts with representatives of a different culture and the instability of their value systems, will be more inclined towards the values ​​of representatives of the dominant culture. This hypothesis was confirmed during a survey of Ukrainian and Latvian migrants in Australia.

Cultures also differ in the degree of tolerance (tolerance) towards people, value orientations which differ from those prevailing in a given society.

In order to understand the consequences of value differences for migrants, according to A. Fanem and S. Bokner, it is necessary to take into account the influence of three factors: the quality and quantity of differences in leading values ​​between cultures of exit and settlement; tolerance for different cultural value systems in the society of the country of settlement; individual cognitive complexity, the ability to change one's value system (i.e. the degree of "strength" of the migrant's existing value system).

There are a number of values ​​that allow you to adapt better than others; for example, Cochrane noted that some values, such as stoicism and self-regulation (like helping oneself), may be more adaptive than others. The values ​​that prevail in the migrant's value system, and whether they characterize minor states or reflect ways in which one can cope with stress, one can judge how a person overcomes his own alienation in a different culture.

So, the theory of value differences, characterizing a number of important aspects culture shock, cannot reveal its mechanism and teach how to cope with it.

One of the most interesting and, in our opinion, profound theories that try to explain the mechanism of culture shock is the theory social support. The essence of this theory is that support from other people prevents mental disorders and provides psychological comfort to the individual.

It is assumed that during migration a person loses significant social ties that supported him in the past, and this has a destructive effect on his mental health. Although, as L. Fanem and S. Bokner write, there is no established taxonomy of support options, it is clear that it can have different directions, contain emotional, instrumental(help with behavior) and informational components, each of which has a special meaning in different periods adaptation.

Different areas of social support may be important for different people at different periods of life. Thus, migrants to a different culture may first need more informational support, then instrumental, and then emotional support. It is important to determine how the type of social support affects their psychological adaptation. Psychologists have found that emotional support that stimulates self-esteem and high self-esteem is more effective as a buffer against various stressors than other types of support. But it is obvious that one type of support may be more effective in some types of stress, and the other - in others.

The importance of a developed network of social support for the adaptation of migrants to a new socio-cultural environment is evidenced by numerous studies that point to the relationship between the size or size of the ethnic group, which includes a migrant who is in a different ethnic environment.

Cross-cultural differences

Australian psychologist D. Kraus found a highly significant negative correlation (-0.67 for men and -0.82 for women) between the increase in schizophrenia and the size of certain groups of migrants. This connection suggests that if an individual is isolated in a new cultural environment, his mental disorders can grow dramatically and irreversibly. The same trend was revealed by D. Kruiinsky, who studied the frequency of various mental illnesses (depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism and personality disorders) among groups of British, Dutch, German-speaking, Italian, Greek and Yugoslav immigrants in Australia in connection with the size of these ethnic groups. The relationship between the decrease in the frequency of mental disorders and the growth of a separate ethnic group was seen only in the Yugoslav population, the smallest of all. Krupiński suggested that perhaps this is the most critical size of an ethnic group required to achieve the necessary support for its members. He further hypothesized that, below a critical size, immigrants create small ethnic nests in areas of low ethnic concentration in order to provide themselves with the greatest possible support.

J. Machlin, using data on hospitalizations in psychiatric hospitals of people born in Ireland, Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Russia and Italy, tested the hypothesis of an inverse relationship between the size of an ethnic group in society and the degree of mental illness in the group. His results also strongly support this hypothesis: first- and second-generation associations of Irish, 0.33; Germans, 0.46; Poles, 0.34; Austrians, 0.41; ethnic Russians, 0.29; Italians, 0.40 (all relationships are highly significant).

Some researchers have suggested that it may be better for migrants to initially live in large groups compatriots, and then, after a certain period of time, they or their children can be encouraged to more intensive social, political and cultural integration into the host society.

However, as Fanham and Bochner point out, many immigrant-related agencies try to prevent them from living in homogeneous national groups because they are convinced that the ego interferes with adaptation and assimilation and may even cause ethnic prejudice. There are also quite good reasons for this opinion.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

RUSSIAN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF TOURISM

VOLZHSKKO-KAMA BRANCH