When Cultures Collide

Question 1

How does information travel quickly?

Answer 1

Through social media - cultures come into contact all the time

Question 2

What is acculturation?

Answer 2

It is a term which results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into first hand continuo contact, which changes their original culture patterns of either or both groups
In practise, one group usually changes more. Acculturating group (minority) vs the host society (majority)

Question 3

What are the reasons why people come into contact from different societies?

Answer 3

Most societies are plural because of:
Migrants 
Sojourners
Refugees
Tourists
Indigenous people

Question 4

Why do these groups come into contact with each other?

Answer 4

Voluntary (economic migrating, touring, students, businesses)—forced (refuges fleeing)
Sedentary—mobile (arrived recently)
Permanent—temporary (moving between)
Global communications - doesn’t necessarily involve going to other places, occurs on social eider, international distribution of films and products, can come into contact with others just through communication

Question 5

What are the effects of psychological acculturation?

Answer 5

Psychological - individuals in both groups experience changes because of it

Process of adaptation - affective, behavioural and cognitive

Intergroup relations - power differentials, peaceful/hostile

Cultural changes - both groups, can lead to emergence of new norms

Acculturation strategies - changes in practises, values and identifications

Question 6

What are the processes of adaption?

Answer 6

ABSs - coping with culture shock
Affective 
(a.k.a. “psychological adaptation”)
Psychological well-being vs. anxiety, stress, depression
Behavioural 
(a.k.a. “sociocultural adaptation”)
Learning effective social skills for new cultural environment vs. social difficulties in everyday functioning
Cognitive
Beliefs, values, and cultural identity

Question 7

What was the traditional view of acculturation?

Answer 7

Used to believe, the minority could either separate from their group to maintain their culture or assimilate to have a relationship with the dominant grou

A key question for minority: is it considered to be of value to maintain cultural identity and characteristics, or to maintain relationships with dominant group?

Question 8

What does Berry’s theoretical mode identify?

Answer 8

Identifies TWO key questions:

Is it considered to be of value to maintain cultural identity and characteristics? - Separation, no relationship with dominant group, cultural maintenance

Is it considered to be of value to maintain relationships with other groups? Assimilation - have a relationship with group, but no cultural maintenance

These are separate questions!

Question 9

What are the 4 acculturation strategies?

Answer 9

Integration - relationship with the dominant group and keep cultural maintenance

Assimilation - relationship with dominant group but no cultural maintenance

Separation - no relationship with dominant group but keep cultural maintenance

Marginalisation - no relationship with group and no maintenance

Question 10

How are individual strategies measured?

Answer 10

In terms of:
Preferences for contact
Preferences for cultural maintenance
Cultural identities
Language use and proficiency
Cultural practices (food, clothing, media, etc.)
Family and peer relationships

Question 11

What is the largest study to data?

Answer 11

4000 young immigrants, 30 ethnic groups, 13 nations

Cluster analysis shows four predicted groupings

Question 12

What have the studies showed about the strategies?

Answer 12

In most samples surveyed
Participants tended to prefer integration to the other acculturation strategies
Participants who adopted integration showed the best psychological adaptation / least stress
Marginalisation is least adaptive
Assimilation and separation show intermediate and more variable outcomes, depending on context

Question 13

What have studies which look at traditional family values shown?

Answer 13

Looked at traditional family values among Greeks in different locations: Greece, Germany, Netherlands, Canada
Canada (multicultural, more languages, respects others)
Greeks in Canada - maintained more family values than in other cultures, because Canada supported this
When Greek in Germany, maintained less values

Question 14

What is the difference between settler societies and non settler societies?

Answer 14

Berry et al distinguished between settler (multicultural) and non settler societies (stable majority)

Integration more common in settler soceities
Separation predicts psychological adaptation bettter in non-settler socieites
but varies with culture of origin

Question 15

What has the more recent expanded model of strategies shown?

Answer 15

Multiculturalism - integration, needs policy and values (so easy to adopt integration)

Segregation - separation but also rejection

Melting pot - assimilation, but pressure to adopt majority culture

Exclusion - marginalisation, entre can cause ethnocide - wiping out the minority culture

Question 16

How does culture relate to cultural identity?

Answer 16

Self categorisation theory believes that if you are in an intercultural context- you will have more cultural identities, they will become more aliens, and use to define self

Social identity theory believes people will be striving for positive cultural distinctiveness, to maintain culture against threat, don’t want their majority and minority identity to be threatened- they don’t want to merge

Question 17

How can we deal with multiple cultural identities?

Answer 17

Frame switching studies
Bicultural identity integration - are these identities in harmony or conflict with each other
Stategies: blending identities into new or keeping them separate - e.g. different with family and then friends

Integration predicts well being - especially harmony

Question 18

What do outcomes of acculturation depend on?

Answer 18

reasons for contact, acculturation styles of both groups etc

Question 19

What is adaptation?

Answer 19

Multidimensional - ABC’s

Question 20

What are the 2 ways cultures have historically changed?

Answer 20

Modernisation

Post-modernisation

Question 21

What is modernisation?

Answer 21

Economic development/instrualisation - interested in how culture will change with this, Marx believes cultures are a consequence of what is going on at the economic level, values are a byproduct. changes in ego-cultural framework = expect future to adapt to new culture

Prediction: with economic development, cultural beliefs and values will become more secular, less traditional and more rational

Question 22

What is post-modernisation?

Answer 22

In context of economic prosperity/secrurity
Shift from manufacturing to service economy
Prediction: cultural beliefs and values will become post materialistic, less focus on survival and greater focus on self-expression

Question 23

How can cultural change be tested?

Answer 23

World values survey - 6 waves from 1981 to present. representative national samples in >75 countries.
Traditional vs secular-rational values - traditional: god important, respect authority, abortion not okay, child should learn obedience and religion
Survival vs self-expression values - economic and physical security over self-expression and quality of life, not very happy, not signed petition, homosexuality not okay, people are untrustwotthy

Question 24

Do people have similar culture heritage?

Answer 24

Map of countries, pretty clear clusters of nations with similar cultural heritage
Move from survival values to self expression
Move from traditional values to rational ones

Question 25

Have countries moved?

Answer 25

Lots have moved over time
But some have gone backwards and moved the wrong way. This is the places which have economic instability - changes experienced

Question 26

Do cultures converge?

Answer 26

They develop across parallel lines but don’t converge

Question 27

Will cultures converge?

Answer 27

Cultures will adapt to changing economic context
Functional vs expressive characteristics - the ones which have functions will change when the environment changes, so if we change environment, the characteristic will change
Specific fictional adaptation

Question 28

What is globalisation?

Answer 28

More intercultural contact - much larger scale than the past

Question 29

Will all cultures move to global culture?

Answer 29

People travel more, go on mass media more
American businesses adopt Japanese cultures
Some evidence for Japanisation in business practises
Will cultures evaporate

Question 30

What are the pressures to maintain distinctiveness?

Answer 30

Loss of distinctiveness would be loss of identity
Make a pressure to keep it distinct
Anti-globalisation and anti-Americanisation movements (e.g. protesters, fundamentalists, separatists)
Tourist gaze values cultural ‘authenticity’ - they want to experience something different
Global (Western) culture is also an identity - everyone in the world, is a distinctive thing

Question 31

What is the future of culture?

Answer 31

Increasingly problematic to treat nations as self-contained sociocultural systems
International mobility (tourism and migration)
International mass communication
Changes in eco-cultural context
Yet national cultural differences persist
Development in parallel
Specific functional convergence
Maintaining cultural identities