Culture Shock

Culture Shock

1 Definition of Culture

Culture as the most complex terms has countless different definitions

ranging from complicated phrases to the simple statement describing

culture as "the way we do things around here". The widely used

definition of culture is that of Meads (1951), "A body of learned

behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a

group of people and successively learned by people who enter the

society"(Joynt and Warner, 1996, P. 33). Hofstede(1980) created the

very illustrative definition of culture as "the collective programming

of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category

of people from another". Again to Hofstede's option, culture is

learned not inherited, it is not impossible to learn new cultural

traits and to unlearn old ones (Manz, 2003, online). Therefore, it

must be feasible to integrate cultural differences.

Culture has significant influence on the behaviour of individuals. In

general, a person's perceptions, attitudes, motivations, values,

learning experience and personality are shaped by culture. The

importance of culture lies in the fact that it provides the body of

knowledge and techniques that enable people to act, both physically

and socially, in the world and make sense of the people and around

world . (Forester, 2000, p.63)

Culture items 'above the waterline' include language, food, festival,

clothing and dress, architecture and art. Those ''below water line'

are much more numerous and include business ethics, values, morality,

facial and body language, male/female relationships, family fidelity,

learning style, work motivation and emp...

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(Editors): "Handbook of Intercultural Training", Thousand Oaks, 1996