I’m currently taking a Cross Cultural Communications class – and I’m loving it! I’ve been looking forward to this course for a long time – ever since I attended (and live blogged from) the Intercultural Managment Institute’s annual conference. Dr. Gary Weaver, the Executive Director of IMI, teaches the course.
I’ll probably post quite a bit of what I’m learning and studying on my other blog, but something in lecture the other day really struck me.
I’ve always thought about living and working overseas, or at the very least spending considerable time abroad doing field work. I’ve felt pretty confident that I could adapt and handle living in a different culture, but I’ve often wondered how the family would handle it – after all, they haven’t been pining for this all their lives like I have!
So when Professor Weaver said that the most common reason for early return (of American employees working overseas) is an unhappy spouse, I had to pause. So how can you know if the fam could handle it?
It turns out there is a cluster of personality traits that correlate to failure to adapt to another culture. These are in no way predictive, but are generally reliable. (Also, it should be noted that we don’t know which personality traits correlate with success.)
- High uncertainty avoidance – this person is generally well organized, comfortable with people who give direct answers, and sees the life as something that can be scheduled.
- Overly task oriented – this person has a high need for individual achievement
- Overly close minded – everyone is closed minded to a certain extent. But there is a difference between being parochial (not realizing there are alternative ways of doing things) and being ethnocentric (thinking your way is the best and only way!)
Now, this isn’t rocket science, but I found it very interesting to have it spelled out like this.
Another characteristic? Being a teenager. Pre-adolescents are MUCH better at adapting to another culture than teenagers.
Guess I’d better get busy – just 3 more years until my oldest hits the teens!!!
1 Comment
February 25, 2009 at 5:55 am
that is interesting! and makes sense that pre-adolescents are easier to adapt than teenagers. scary that you only have 3 years until the teens! where did the time go on that one! i’m sure they would be fine though and in the end really benefit from the experience if you don’t get it done before the teenage years. hope you can do it sometime though! we’d come visit for sure!!