Theoretical models of culture shock and adaptation in international students in higher education

Figures & data

Table 1. Traditional theoretical approaches to culture shock.

Theory	Epistemological origin	Originator	Conceptual formulation
Grief and bereavement	Psychoanalytic tradition	Bowlby 1969	Sees migration as experience of loss
Locus of control	Applied social psychology	Rotter 1966	Control beliefs predict migration
Selective migration	Socio-biology (Neo-Darwinism)	e.g. Wells 1907	Individual fitness predicts adaptation
Expectations	Applied social psychology	Feather 1982	Expectancy-values relate to adjustment
Negative life-events	Clinical psychology	Holmes and Rahe 1967	Migration involves life changes, and adaptation to change is stressful
Social support	Clinical psychology	e.g. Brown, Bhrolchain, and Harris 1975	Social skill offers a buffering effect between life-events and depression
Value difference	Social psychology	Merton 1938	Value differences lead to poor adaptation
Social skills and culture learning	Social psychology	Argyle & Kendon 1967	Lacking social skills may cause cross-cultural problems

Table 2. Three contemporary theories of intercultural contact.

Theory	Theoretical origin	Conceptual framework	Theoretical premise	Factors affecting adjustment	Intervention guidelines
Stress and Coping (Affect)	Social psychology – stress, appraisal and coping (Lazarus & Folkman 1984); life events (Holmes and Rahe 1967)	Cross-cultural travellers need to develop coping strategies to deal with stress	Life changes are inherently stressful	Adjustment factors involving both personal (e.g. life change, personality) and situational (e.g. social support)	Training people to develop stress-management skills
Culture Learning (Behaviour)	Social and experimental psychology – social skills and interpersonal behaviour (Argyle 1969)	Cross-cultural travellers need to learn culturally relevant social skills to survive and thrive in their new settings	Social interaction is a mutually organised and skilled performance	Culture-specific variables such as: knowledge about a new culture, language or communication competence, cultural distance	Preparation, orientation and culture learning, especially behavioural-based social skill training
Social Identification (Cognition)	Ethnic, cross-cultural and social psychology – self (Deaux 1996; Social Identity Theory, e.g. Phinney 1990)	Cross-cultural transition may involve changes in cultural identity and inter-group relations	Identity is a fundamental issue for the cross-cultural travellers	Cognitive variables such as: knowledge of the host culture, mutual attitude between hosts and sojourners, cultural similarity, cultural identity	Enhancing self-esteem, overcoming barriers to inter-group harmony, emphasising inter-group similarities

Figure 1 The acculturation process (adapted from Ward, Bochner and Furnham 2001).

Figure 2 Relationships between the educational expectations of UK teachers and Chinese students.

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