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Beyond cultural categories
Communication, adaptation and
transformation
Young Yun Kim
1. Introduction
‘You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh water is forever flowing towards you’,
observed Heraclitus of Ephesus, a Greek philosopher of the late sixth century BCE. This ancient
insight into the human condition is relevant today more than ever before. Spurred by the
globalization of human activities and the increasing interface of cultural traditions, we are in the
midst of a historically unprecedented scope and pace of change. Some of the most profound and
all-encompassing changes are being experienced by people who move across cultural boundaries.
Countless immigrants and refugees leave their familiar milieu to build a new home in a foreign
land, along with numerous temporary sojourners – from diplomats, military personnel, missionaries and business employees to construction workers, athletes, artists, musicians, writers,
professors and students.
Although unique in individual circumstances and varied in scope, intensity, and duration,
all strangers in a new and unfamiliar environment embark on the common project of establishing and maintaining a relatively stable and reciprocal relationship with the environment.
Even relatively short-term sojourners must be at least minimally concerned with building a level
of fitness that is necessary for their daily functioning. Given sufficient time, even those with the
intention of confining themselves to only superficial relationships with the host environment
are likely to be changed by the experience ‘in spite of themselves’ (Taft 1977: 150). This, in a
nutshell, describes the phenomenon of cross-cultural adaptation at the individual level being
addressed in this chapter.
2. Historical overview
Academic enquiry into the phenomenon of cross-cultural adaptation has been vast and varied
across social science disciplines. This field of study became formalized in the 1930s when the
Social Science Research Council adopted the term ‘acculturation’ to represent the new enquiry
in cultural anthropology. The Council provided the parameters for this new field, which dealt
with ‘those phenomena which result when groups of individuals have different cultures and come
into first-hand contact with subsequent changes in the original pattern of either or both groups’
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(Redfield et al. 1936: 149). Accordingly, anthropologists such as Herskovits (1958) have
approached the acculturation phenomenon largely at the level of cultural groups, focusing on
the dynamics of change in traditional cultures and the presence of kin, friends and social
organizations within immigrant communities. Sociologists, likewise, have focused on group-level
issues pertaining to the structural ‘assimilation’ of immigrant groups within and across generations,
employing indicators such as intermarriage and socioeconomic status (e.g. Anderson and
Saenz 1994).
Paralleling the macro-level approaches to cross-cultural adaptation are a wide range of
individual-level approaches employed by researchers mainly in psychology and communication.
Major developments in the micro-level studies of long-term and short-term cross-cultural
adaptation are briefly described below, along with a number of more notable theoretical
accounts thereof.
Long-term adaptation: strain, change, strategy
One of the central issues addressed in studies of long-term cross-cultural adaptation is the psychological and social strain immigrants and other settlers experience in response to their cultural
uprooting and dislocation. Various terms have been employed to refer to such strain including
‘marginality’ (Park 1928; Stonequist 1937), ‘cultural fatigue’ (Taft 1977), ‘acculturative stress’
(Berry 1975) and ‘adaptive stress’ (Kim 1988, 2001, 2005). Others in psychiatry have focused on
severe symptoms of mental illness such as emotional trauma and paranoia (e.g. Kinzie et al. 1980).
By far the most dominant issue in long-term adaptation studies is the cumulative nature of
adaptive change that takes place over time within individuals and in their relationship to the
host environment. Taft (1966) delineated seven stages of ‘assimilation’ of individual immigrants,
moving progressively from the ‘cultural learning’ stage to the ‘congruence’ stage. A similar
directionality of change towards assimilation was demonstrated by Nagata (1969) across successive
generations of Japanese Americans. Many other studies have documented a similar long-term
assimilative trend (e.g. Van Oudenhoven and Eisses 1998).
Based on cross-sectional comparisons according to the length of residence, numerous studies
such as these have provided a substantial body of largely consistent empirical evidence for an
incremental and progressive trend of adaptation. A common assumption underlying these studies
has been that most, if not all, long-term settlers who live and work in a new environment need,
and want, to be better adapted to the local language and cultural practices, so as to achieve
some level of efficacy in their daily lives.
An alternative to the traditional perspective on long-term adaptive change has been
employed in the bidimensional model of acculturation proposed by Berry (1980, 1990), among
others. Rather than looking at the adaptive changes in individuals over time, Berry offers a
psychological and pluralistic way of understanding immigrant experience. The theory is built on
two central issues that immigrants confront: (1) cultural maintenance; and (2) contact and participation in the host society and its culture. With respect to cultural maintenance, the subject is
asked to respond to the question: ‘Are cultural identity and customs of value to be retained?’
With respect to contact and participation in the host society, the subject is asked to respond
to the question: ‘Are positive relations with the larger society of value and to be sought?’ By
combining the response types (yes, no) to these two questions, four ‘acculturation strategies’ are
identified: ‘integration’ (yes, yes), ‘assimilation’ (no, yes), ‘separation’ (yes, no) and ‘marginality’
(no, no). As a model to assess the state, or location, of an individual on the orthogonal domains
of home and host culture identification, Berry’s theory has been utilized widely in a variety of
cultural contexts (e.g. Berry 2008).
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Short-term adaptation: culture shock, U-curve and W-curve
By and large, studies of short-term adaptation of sojourners have investigated the experience of ‘culture
shock’ and the related ‘U-curve’ and ‘W-curve’ processes of psychological adjustment. Oberg
(1960: 177) coined the term ‘culture shock’ to describe ‘the anxiety that results from losing all our
familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse’. Subsequently, a number of alternative conceptions
of culture shock have been offered. Bennett (1977), for example, expanded the meaning of culture
shock, and regarded it as part of the general ‘transition shock’, a natural consequence of individuals’
inability to interact with the new environment effectively. Zaharna (1989: 501) added to the
discussion the notion of ‘self-shock’, emphasizing ‘the double-binding challenge of identity’.
Although culture shock is typically associated with negative psychological impacts, many
investigators have highlighted that most sojourners eventually achieve satisfactory adjustment.
The idea of a ‘U-shaped curve’ of psychological adjustment was first introduced by Lysgaard
(1955). Based on his study of Norwegian Fulbright scholars in the United States, Lysgaard
observed that psychological adjustment followed a U-curve, that is, the individuals who
experienced the most difficulty during their sojourn in the US were those who had stayed for
between 6 and 18 months, compared with those who had stayed for either less than 6 months
or more than 18 months. Oberg (1960) subsequently identified the four stages of a U-curve
leading to an eventual satisfactory adjustment: a ‘honeymoon’ phase, followed by a period of
crisis, a period of adjustment, integration and enjoyment of the new environment. The U-curve
hypothesis has been extended further to the ‘W-curve’ (Gullahorn and Gullahorn 1963) by
adding the re-entry (or return-home) phase, during which the sojourner once again goes
through a similar process.
Although the U- and W-curve hypotheses have proven to be heuristic to the extent that
they remain popular and are intuitively appealing, these theories have demonstrated inconsistent
results when applied to different research contexts. Comprehensive reviews of culture shock
research (e.g. Anderson 1994; Ward et al. 1998, 2001) have concluded that support for the U- and
W-curve hypotheses is limited and that evidence for the theories’ claims tends to be inconclusive.
Arguments have also been made that the cultural shock experience must be viewed in a broader
context of learning and personal development. Adler (1972/1987: 29), for example, explained
that culture shock should not be viewed as a ‘disease for which adaptation is the cure, but is at
the very heart of the cross-cultural learning experience, self-understanding, and change’. Consistent
with this view, Ruben and Kealey (1979) reported that, among Canadian technical advisors and
their spouses on 2-year assignments in Kenya, the magnitude of culture shock was positively
related to the individuals’ social and professional effectiveness within the new environment.
Factors explaining the level of cross-cultural adaptation
Given that no two individuals adapt identically even under similar circumstances, a large number
of theoretical models have been proposed to explain or predict differing levels or rates of
individual adaptation. Factors identified in such models range widely from country of origin, predeparture expectations and preparedness, personality characteristics (e.g. patience, empathy and
flexibility) and psychological orientations (e.g. perception, attitude, motivation, uncertainty and
anxiety), communication patterns/skills (e.g. language competence/preference, listening skills,
interpersonal relationship development/preference, mass media behaviours and job-related technical
skills) to demographic characteristics (e.g. age, age at the time of resettlement, socioeconomic
status, length of residence and marital status). For example, Coelho (1958) focused on the
complexity of sojourners’ perception of members of the host society, whereas Epstein et al. (1996)
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assessed ‘linguistic acculturation’ and Gudykunst (2005) focused on two psychological factors,
uncertainty and anxiety. Mass communication researchers, meanwhile, have examined the patterns of mass media usage in relation to degrees of change in cultural values (e.g. Stilling 1997).
Over the years, efforts have been made to explain the level of cross-cultural adaptation based
on a broader range of factors. Shuval (1963), for example, included a variety of factors from
demographic factors (such as age and sex) and psychological factors (such as knowledge of the
host language, motivation for acculturation and positive attitude towards the host society) to
factors of social integration (including interpersonal relationships with the natives).
More recent efforts to explain cross-cultural adaptation broadly include the two-tiered conceptions proposed by Berry et al. (2006) and by Ward (1995, 2001). According to Berry et al.
(2006: 13), ‘psychological adaptation’ refers to ‘good mental health’ reflected in ‘few psychological problems of anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic symptoms’ and ‘a high sense of well
being (i.e., self-esteem and life satisfaction)’, whereas ‘sociocultural adaptation’ refers to ‘the
quality of relationships between individuals and their sociocultural contexts’. Building on a
similar two-tiered conception, Ward (1995, 2001) has proposed a theoretical model that identifies
psychological and sociocultural forms of acculturation as outcomes of societal-level and individuallevel factors. Included within Ward’s framework are macro-level factors related to the sociopolitical,
socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of both the acculturating individual’s society of
origin and the society of settlement, as well as micro-level factors that reflect both characteristics
of the acculturating individual and situational elements of the acculturative experience.
3. An integrative communication approach
As suggested in the above historical overview, cross-cultural adaptation as a field of social scientific enquiry has been, and continues to be, one of many varied perspectives and conceptions.
The field as a whole reflects wide-ranging interests, perspectives and foci that are specific to the
individual investigators. With respect to individual-level adaptation across cultures, a variety of
concepts and models have been employed to investigate specific types and aspects of the phenomenon – from long-term, cumulative–progressive adaptive changes and accompanying stresses
and bidimensional psychological strategies of acculturation to the experience of culture shock and
associated patterns of short-term psychological adaptation.
As an effort to seek greater conceptual cohesion in the field, the present author (Kim 1988,
2001, 2005) has proposed an integrative communication theory of cross-cultural adaptation.
Predicated on a set of open systems assumptions about human nature (Bertalanffy 1968; Ford
and Lerner 1992; Jantsch 1980), this theory brings together many of the existing perspectives,
concepts, theoretical accounts and research findings with respect to short-term and long-term
adaptation into a comprehensive communication framework. As such, this theory is discussed
here in some detail as a way of examining the phenomenon of cross-cultural adaptation in its
full dynamism and complexity.
Integration of key terms
From the open systems perspective, human beings are self-organizing living systems that are
equipped with the capacity to maintain an overall integrity in the face of the continual instability
created by multiple influences from the environment. Such systemic integrity is possible because
of the human capacity to adapt, that is, to develop new forms of relating to a given milieu. Placed
at the intersection of the person and the environment, adaptation is essentially a communication
process that occurs as long as the individual remains in contact with a given environment.
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Accordingly, ‘cross-cultural adaptation’ is defined as the phenomenon in which individuals
who, upon relocating to an unfamiliar cultural environment, strive to establish and maintain a
relatively stable, reciprocal and functional relationship with the environment. At the core of this
definition is the goal of achieving an overall ‘fit’ between their internal conditions and the
conditions of the environment. In this perspective, cross-cultural adaptation refers to the
‘entirety’ of the phenomenon that includes both the person and the environment, as well as
both the process and the outcomes of communication activities. As such, the term cross-cultural
adaptation serves not as an independent or dependent variable, but as a ‘superordinate conceptual category’ representing all facets of the phenomenon, a higher level abstraction in which
other commonly used terms such as acculturation and assimilation can be subsumed and their
interrelationships identified.
First, cross-cultural adaptation is a phenomenon that occurs subsequent to the process of
childhood ‘enculturation’ of individuals into recognizable members of a given cultural community. As children, we learn to relate to our social environment and its culture; that is, the
universe of information and operative linguistic and non-linguistic communication rituals that
gives coherence, continuity and distinction to a communal way of life. The familiar culture is
the ‘home world’, which is associated closely with the family or significant others.
Second, all individuals entering a new and unfamiliar culture undergo some degree of new
cultural learning, that is, the acquisition of the native cultural patterns and practices, particularly
in areas of direct relevance to the daily functioning of the individual – from attire and food
habits to behavioural norms and cultural values. The re-socialization activities are the very
essence of ‘acculturation’, consistent with the definition offered by Marden and Meyer (1968: 36),
among many others: ‘the change in individuals whose primary learning has been in one culture
and who take over traits from another culture’.
Third, acculturation is not a process in which new cultural elements are simply added to
prior internal conditions. As new learning occurs, ‘deculturation’ (or unlearning) of some of the
old cultural habits has to occur, at least in the sense that new responses are adopted in situations
that would previously have evoked old, habitual ones. The act of acquiring something new is
inevitably the ‘losing’ of something old, in much the same way as ‘being someone requires the
forfeiture of being someone else’ (Thayer 1975: 240).
Fourth, as the interplay of acculturation and deculturation continues, the individual undergoes an internal transformation in the direction of ‘assimilation’, a state of the highest degree of
acculturation and deculturation theoretically possible. Whether by choice or by circumstance,
individuals vary in the distance they travel in their own adaptation process. For most people,
assimilation remains a lifetime goal rather than an obtainable outcome, one that often requires
the efforts of multiple generations.
Generally speaking, measurable degrees of assimilation are unlikely among temporary visitors
or sojourners engaged in relatively short-term cross-cultural adaptation experiences. In comparison,
numerous empirical studies focusing on historical change in immigrants have amply demonstrated the acculturative, deculturative and assimilative trend both within and across generations.
A study by the American Jewish Committee, for example, reported a significant increase in the
members’ merging into non-Jewish organizations and a substantial decrease in their Jewish identification (Zweigenhalf 1979–80). Likewise, Suro (1998) found both acculturative and deculturative
trends among Hispanics in the United States: long-term Hispanics showed diminished Hispanic
cultural patterns in their judgements and increased social interactions with non-Hispanics.
Based on these basic considerations, Kim’s integrative communication theory addresses two
central questions: (1) what is the essential nature of the adaptation process individual settlers
undergo over time?; and (2) why are some settlers more successful than others in attaining a
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level of psychosocial fitness in the host environment? The first question is addressed in the form
of a process model – a process of personal evolution towards increased functional fitness and
psychological health and a gradual emergence of intercultural identity. The second question is
addressed by a structural model in which key dimensions of factors that facilitate or impede the
adaptation process are identified and their interrelationships specified.
The process of cross-cultural adaptation
The process model identifies a cumulative–progressive trajectory of an individual’s adaptive
change over time, highlighting the juxtapositions of the experiences of ‘adaptation’ with those of
‘stress’. Faced with uncertainty and anxiety, individuals are temporarily in a state of stress, a
condition of internal disequilibrium or ‘symmetry breaks’ (Jantsch 1980: 79). The state of internal
flux is often met by the tendency to use various defence mechanisms such as denial, hostility,
cynicism, avoidance and withdrawal, all of which are particularly acute during the initial phase of
sojourn or immigration.
At the same time, stress experiences are the very force that drives individuals towards adaptation. It is through the impetus of stress that they are compelled to engage in adaptive activities
of new learning and making adjustments in the existing cultural habits, which enables them to
handle the transactions of daily living with greater efficacy. The interplay of stress and adaptation thus serves as a dialectic between disintegration and reintegration, between regression and
progression and between permanence and change. Each stress experience presents strangers with
an opportunity to recreate themselves. Over time, most people manage to achieve an increasing
capacity to detect similarities and differences between the new surroundings and the home
culture and better able to manage their changed circumstances. What accompanies successful
and cumulative management of the stress adaptation disequilibrium is a subtle and often
imperceptible psychological ‘growth’, a form of internal change in the direction of increased
perceptual and cognitive complexity with respect to the host culture.
Together, stress, adaptation and growth constitute the ‘stress–adaptation–growth dynamic’, a
three-pronged conceptual representation of the psychological underpinning of the cross-cultural
adaptation process (see Figure 14.1). The overall upward–forward process does not unfold in
a smooth, arrow-like linear progression, but in a cyclic and fluctuating pattern of drawbackto-leap: each stressful experience is responded to with a temporary setback which, in turn,
activates adaptive energy to reorganize and re-engage in the activities of cultural learning and
internal change, bringing about a new self-reintegration. Integrated in this model of the stress–
adaptation–growth dynamic is the traditional linear–progressive conceptions of long-term
adaptation and the U-curve model of short-term adaptation. This model also presents additional
information about the adaptation process, that is, large and sudden changes occur during
the initial phase when the severity of difficulties and disruptions is likely to be high. Over time, the
fluctuations of stress and adaptation are likely to subside, leading to an overall calming in the
individual experiences of interacting with the host environment.
The structure of cross-cultural adaptation
We now turn to the question of differential adaptation rates, or speeds, at which cross-cultural
adaptation occurs in individual cases. As depicted in Figure 14.2, Kim’s structural model identifies
key dimensions and factors that interactively facilitate, or impede, a given individual’s adaptive
change over time. The interlocking bilateral functional relationships between and among these
constructs are specified in twenty-one theorems (e.g. ‘Theorem 1: the greater the host
communication competence, the greater the participation in host social (interpersonal, mass)
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Figure 14.1 The process of cross-cultural adaptation
Source: Kim (2001: 59). Reproduced with permission.
communication’; ‘Theorem 7: the greater the host receptivity and host conformity pressure, the
greater the host communication competence’; Kim 2001: 91–92).
Communication factors
At the heart of the structure of cross-cultural adaptation is the individual’s personal and social
communication activities, that is, host communication competence and his or her engagement with
the host environment through participation in host interpersonal and mass communication activities.
Figure 14.2 The structure of cross-cultural adaptation
Source: Kim (2001: 87). Reproduced with permission.
Notes: IC = Interpersonal Communication
MC = Mass Communication
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‘Host communication competence’ refers to the overall internal capacity of a stranger to
decode and encode information in accordance with the host cultural communication practices.
It is composed of three interrelated subcategories: cognitive, affective and operational. ‘Cognitive competence’ includes the knowledge of the host language and culture, history, social
institutions and rules of interpersonal conduct. Knowledge of the host language, in particular,
serves as the primary conduit for adaptation, enabling strangers to access the accumulated
records of the host culture, including an understanding of how to communicate with native
speakers in ways that are appropriate in local contexts.
‘Affective competence’ refers to the emotional and motivational capacity to deal with the
various challenges of living in the host environment. A positive, willing and flexible self–other
orientation helps to engender greater openness and lessen unwarranted negativism towards new
cultural experiences. Also included in affective competence is the development of a capacity to
appreciate and participate in the local people’s emotional and aesthetic sensibilities, thereby
making it possible for strangers to establish a meaningful psychological connection with the
native inhabitants. The cognitive and affective capabilities work side by side with the ‘operational competence’, the capacity to express outwardly by choosing a ‘right’ combination of
verbal and nonverbal acts in specific social transactions of the host environment.
Host communication competence is directly and reciprocally linked to participation in the
social communication processes of the host society through interpersonal and mass communication channels. ‘Host interpersonal communication’ activities involving cultural native people
offer opportunities for ‘corrective exchanges’ with respect to the use of the host communication
system, including its verbal and nonverbal codes. Through active participation in host interpersonal communication activities, non-natives can begin the process of constructing a set of
potentially satisfying and supportive relationships with natives. Host communication competence
further facilitates, and is facilitated by, participation in ‘host mass communication’ activities.
Through a wide range of mediated communication systems such as radio, television, newspaper,
magazine, movie, art, literature, music and drama, non-natives interact with their host cultural
milieu without direct interpersonal involvements. Such mass communication activities help
broaden the scope of new cultural learning beyond one’s immediate social context.
In many societies and communities today, non-natives’ social communication activities
involve their co-ethnics or co-nationals and home cultural experiences as well. Some form of
‘ethnic interpersonal communication’ activities through ethnic mutual aid or self-help organizations, including religious organizations, may be available to render assistance to those who
need material, informational, emotional and other forms of social support. In addition, opportunities
to participate in ‘ethnic mass communication’ activities through ethnic newspapers, radio stations
and television programmes may be accessible via the internet or in pre-recorded audio- and
videotapes and computer disks. Participation in ethnic interpersonal and mass communication
activities can be helpful in the initial phase of the cross-cultural adaptation process when newly
arrived strangers lack host communication competence and access to host interpersonal resources.
Beyond the initial phase, however, heavy and prolonged reliance on co-ethnics is likely to be
either an insignificant influence on, or impede, the long-term adaptation process with respect to
the host society at large.
Environmental factors
The adaptive function of the individual’s host communication competence and social (interpersonal, mass) communication activities cannot be fully explained in isolation from the
conditions of the host environment. As different societies and communities present different
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environments for cross-cultural adaptation, a given stranger can be more successful in adapting to
a certain environment than to another one. Of various environmental characteristics, three key
factors are identified in Kim’s theory as significant with respect to an individual’s adaptation
process: (1) host receptivity; (2) host conformity pressure; and (3) ethnic group strength. These
three factors help define the relative degrees of ‘push-and-pull’ that a given host environment
presents to the individual.
‘Host receptivity’ refers to the degree to which the receiving environment welcomes and
accepts strangers into its interpersonal networks and offers them various forms of informational,
technical, material and emotional support. A society or a community can be more hospitable
towards certain groups of strangers while unwelcoming towards certain others. Along with
receptivity, individuals face differing levels of conformity pressure from the host environment.
Individual sojourners and immigrants face ‘host conformity pressure’ to the extent to which
the host environment challenges them, implicitly or explicitly, to act in accordance with the
normative patterns of the host culture. Different host environments show different levels of
acceptance and appreciation of strangers and their ethnic characteristics. In general, people in
heterogeneous and cosmopolitan societies such as the United States tend to hold more pluralistic
and tolerant attitudes towards ethnic differences, thereby exerting less pressure on strangers to
change their habitual ways.
The third environmental factor, ‘ethnic group strength’, refers to the relative status or standing
of a particular ethnic group in the context of the surrounding host society. Depending on
relative group size or status, stronger ethnic groups are likely to provide their members with a
more vibrant subculture and practical services to their members. In doing so, however, a strong
ethnic community tends to encourage the maintenance of ethnic culture and communication,
and even exert its own pressure to conform to the ethnic cultural norms, thereby discouraging
individual community members’ active social engagement with the host environment at large.
Predisposition factors
New arrivals begin the cross-cultural adaptation process with a different set of backgrounds that
help to set the parameters for the way they relate to the new environment and their own
subsequent adaptive changes. The various predispositional differences are grouped into three
categories: (1) preparedness; (2) ethnic proximity/distance; and (3) personality predisposition.
Together, these characteristics help define the degree of a stranger’s adaptive potential.
‘Preparedness’ includes the level of readiness to undertake the process of cross-cultural adaptation by developing host communication competence and participating in host social
communication activities. Influencing the individual’s readiness are differing levels of formal and
informal learning of the host language and culture prior to moving to the host society. In addition,
preparedness is often influenced by whether the move to the host society is voluntary or involuntary and for how long. Voluntary, long-term immigrants, for example, are likely to enter the
host society with greater willingness to make the necessary efforts to adapt, compared with
temporary visitors or those who relocate unwillingly for reasons other than their own volition.
The second factor, ‘ethnic proximity/distance’, addresses the extent to which the ethnicity of
an individual immigrant or sojourner plays a role in the cross-cultural adaptation process by
serving as a certain level of advantage or handicap. The individual’s visual (such as height, skin
colour and facial features) and audible (such as accents and other speech patterns) ethnic markers, as
well as intrinsic ethnic characteristics (such as religious beliefs and cultural values), potentially
influence the degree of host receptivity in terms of the native peoples’ willingness or
preparedness to welcome them into their interpersonal networks.
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Along with preparedness and ethnicity, the non-native’s ‘adaptive personality’, or a set of
more or less enduring traits of sensibilities, facilitates his or her own adaptation process. Adaptive
personality serves as the inner resource, based on which the individual pursues new cultural
experiences with enthusiasm and success. Of particular interest are three interrelated personality
resources that would help facilitate the strangers’ adaptation by enabling them to endure stressful
challenges and to maximize new learning: (1) openness, an internal posture that is receptive to
new information; (2) strength, the quality of resilience, patience, hardiness and persistence; and
(3) positivity, an affirmative and optimistic outlook that enables the individual to better endure
stressful events with a belief in the possibilities of life in general.
Three facets of intercultural transformation
Through the interactive workings of the above-described factors of personal and social communication, of the environment and of the individual’s backgrounds, the process of cross-cultural
adaptation unfolds. Emerging in the adaptation process are three interrelated facets of adaptive
change and intercultural transformation of the individual: (1) increased functional fitness in
carrying out daily transactions; (2) improved psychological health in dealing with the environment;
and (3) emergence of an intercultural identity orientation. These three facets are interrelated
developmental continua, in which individual strangers can be placed at different locations
reflecting the different levels of adaptive change at a given point in time.
Most individuals who find themselves in an unfamiliar environment instinctively strive to ‘know
their way around’. Through repeated activities resulting in new learning and internal reorganizing,
they achieve an increasing ‘functional fitness’ in the host environment. Well-adapted individuals
would be those who have accomplished a desired level of effective functional relationship with the
host environment – particularly with those individuals with whom they carry out their daily activities.
Along with functional fitness, everyone needs the ongoing validation of his or her social
experience, thereby maintaining a satisfactory level of ‘psychological health’, a term that integrates related concepts such as culture shock and psychological adaptation. In the absence of
adequate host communication competence, engagement in host social communication activities
and functional fitness, individuals are subject to frustration, leading to the symptoms of maladaptation such as marginalization and alienation. Conversely, those individuals who have
acquired high-level host communication competence, who actively participate in host social
processes and who are proficient in their daily transactions in the host society are likely to enjoy
a greater sense of fulfilment and efficacy.
Adaptive changes also include the emergence of an ‘intercultural identity’, a gradual and
often unintended psychological evolution beyond the boundaries of childhood enculturation,
an orientation towards self and others that is no longer rigidly defined by either the identity
linked to the ‘home’ culture or the identity of the host culture. Intercultural identity transformation manifests itself in the progressive attainment of a self–other orientation that is increasingly
‘individuated’ and ‘universalized’. As an individual’s cultural identity evolves towards intercultural identity, that person’s definition of self and others becomes simultaneously less restricted
by rigid cultural and social categories and more broadened and enriched by an increased ability
to, at once, particularize and humanize his or her perception of each communicative event.
Empirical evidence
An extensive number of studies across the social sciences were examined and incorporated into
the original formal construction (Kim 1988), and the subsequent elaboration (Kim 2001), of the
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above-described integrative communication theory of cross-cultural adaptation. Additionally, a
substantial number of studies have tested directly both the process model and the structural model
of this theory in a variety of research contexts. The latter group of studies includes those of
Southeast Asian refugees (Kim 1989) and Haitian immigrants in the United States (Walker 1993),
international university students in the United States (Tamam 1993) and in Japan (Maruyama
1998), American university exchange students overseas (Milstein 2005; Pitts 2009), Turkish
employees of an American military organization in Germany (Braun 2001) and Korean
expatriates in the United States and their counterparts in South Korea (Kim and Kim 2004), as
well as native-born subcultural groups such as Native Americans (Kim et al. 1998) and Hispanic
high-school students in the United States (McKay-Semmler 2010).
Perhaps one of the most succinct and eloquent testimonials to Kim’s conception of the crosscultural adaptation process and intercultural transformation was offered by Yoshikawa (1978).
As someone who grew up in Japan and had lived in the United States for many years, Yoshikawa
reflected on his own intercultural transformation as follows:
I am now able to look at both cultures with objectivity as well as subjectivity; I am able to
move in both cultures, back and forth without any apparent conflict. … I think that
something beyond the sum of each [cultural] identification took place, and that it became
something akin to the concept of ‘synergy’ – when one adds 1 and 1, one gets three, or a
little more. This something extra is not culture-specific but something unique of its own,
probably the emergence of a new attribute or a new self-awareness, born out of an
awareness of the relative nature of values and of the universal aspect of human nature. …
I really am not concerned whether others take me as a Japanese or an American; I can
accept myself as I am. I feel I am much freer than ever. …
Yoshikawa (1978: 220)
4. Looking forward
Since the early twentieth century, academic enquiry in cross-cultural adaptation has been continuous
and active across social science disciplines. Today, the field offers many different theoretical
accounts and models to guide empirical studies with varying degrees of comprehensiveness,
including some of the notable ones that have been examined in this chapter. On the whole, the
theorizing activities have contributed to a significant advancement of the field towards a fuller
understanding of how individuals, socialized in one culture, strive to forge a new life away from
their familiar grounds, and how, in this process, they are changed by the cumulative communication
experiences vis-à-vis the host environment.
Looking forward, we may foresee the continuing vitality of cross-cultural adaptation as a
research domain. As long as people continue to interface across the boundaries of cultural and
subcultural differences and engage each other in communication activities, issues of crosscultural adaptation in general, and of identity transformation in particular, will be likely to have
relevance and significance.
Emerging research issues
One of the emerging research issues pertains to the advent of new communication technologies
and their potential role in the cross-cultural adaptation process. A number of studies have
begun to examine the potential influence of the rapid spread of various new forms of computerbased interpersonal and mass communication technologies on how sojourners and immigrants
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maintain relational ties back home and how they orient themselves to the host environment.
For example, Cemalcilar et al. (2005) report that computer-mediated interpersonal communication activities (such as e-mail and the internet) have become the primary vehicle for
maintaining relationships with folks back home, replacing many of the more traditional
activities of making long-distance telephone calls and writing letters. Several other studies
(e.g. Kim et al. 2009; Wang and Sun 2007) have suggested that mediated interpersonal communication may not change the positive theoretical relationship between active participation in
host social processes and successful adaptive changes in the host society at large. Future studies in a
variety of research contexts can produce a clearer and more in-depth understanding of the role
that new communication technologies play in shaping the nature of an individual’s direct
engagement with local people and their psychological and functional relationship with the host
environment.
Another promising research avenue yet to be explored is the phenomenon of ‘stay home’
cross-cultural adaptation. In many parts of the world, particularly in large metropolitan areas,
people no longer have to leave home to experience the acculturative and deculturative pressures. Physical distance no longer dictates the extent of exposure to the images, sounds and
events of once distant cultures.
Moreover, many urban centres present their own contexts of new cultural learning, as the
native inhabitants are routinely coming into direct or indirect contacts with various groups of
cultural strangers. Such everyday encounters are likely to challenge some of the cultural
assumptions and practices of the local people, thereby compelling them to undertake the stress–
adaptation–growth process of cross-cultural adaptation themselves, just as the non-natives do.
Reaching beyond categories
Even as academic enquiry in cross-cultural adaptation continues to evolve, it is clear from the
existing knowledge base, and specifically from Kim’s integrative communication theory, that
cross-cultural adaptation is a journey that ultimately rests on the conscious and unconscious
decisions each individual makes. By resisting change, one can minimize the change. By accelerating
adaptive efforts, one can maximize it.
Should we choose to adapt successfully, we need to recognize the critical importance of host
communication competence and work to cultivate it. Host communication competence is,
indeed, the sine qua non of successful adaptation, as both the quality and the quantity of our
social engagement, functional fitness and psychological fitness in the host community hinges on
it. The full benefit of acquiring host language competence, in particular, is the access it gives to
the advantages that native speakers enjoy. In addition to the host language, we need to strive to
understand the aesthetic and emotional sensibilities of local people, so that we may partake in
their experiences meaningfully and intimately. We need to form and practice new habits of
behaviour that will allow us to carry out our social activities closely aligned with those of the
natives.
Each time we cross cultural boundaries, we are presented with multitudes of the challenge, as
well as the opportunity, to learn and acquire new cultural categories. As we keep our sights on
the goal of successful cross-cultural adaptation, we are able to reach beyond the conventional
habit of defining ourselves and others according to cultural categories. We would want to
embrace the real possibility of a gradual internal transformation along the way – a subtle internal
change leading to a way of being in our rapidly changing world that is less monocultural and
more intercultural, less categorical and more individuated and universalized, with an increasing
blurring of lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
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Beyond cultural categories
Modern history presents countless cases of successfully adapted immigrants and sojourners.
They demonstrate to us that personal transformation beyond cultural categories is not only a
theoretical possibility but an empirical reality. They show us that cultivating an intercultural
identity does not require us to be disloyal to our home culture, that cross-borrowing of identities is often an act of appreciation that leaves neither the lender nor the borrower deprived and
that the experiences of going through adaptive challenges bring about a special privilege and
freedom – to think, feel and act beyond the confines of any single culture. The Indian-born
British author Salman Rushdie speaks to this freedom in East, West (1994: 211) in the voice of
the book’s narrator: ‘I, too, have ropes around my neck, I have them to this day, pulling me
this way and that, East and West, the nooses tightening, commanding, choose, choose. … Ropes,
I do not choose between you. … I choose neither of you, and both. Do you hear? I refuse to
choose’.
Related topics
Accommodation; acculturation; hybridity; identity; intercultural competence; intercultural
contact; mobility; technology; third space
Further reading
Berry, J.W. (1990) ‘Psychology of acculturation: understanding individuals moving between cultures’, in
R. Brislin (ed.) Applied Cross-cultural Psychology, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 232–53 (a presentation of
Berry’s theory of psychological acculturation).
Kim, Y.Y. (2001) Becoming Intercultural: An Integrative Theory of Communication and Cross-cultural Adaptation,
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage (an extensive literature review and a formal explication of Kim’s theory of
cross-cultural adaptation).
Ward, C. (1995) ‘Acculturation’, in D. Landis and R.S. Bhagat (eds) Handbook of Intercultural Training, 2nd
edn, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 124–47 (a presentation of Ward’s theory of psychological and
sociocultural forms of adaptation as outcomes of acculturation).
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