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Cultural adaptation in Poland, which stages are you falling into? [11]
The idea of posting such a topic is comes from my recent thoughts. I am Chinese and grew up in Chinese culture background; I do deeply love my culture and also like enjoying different culture especially since I live in Poland. There are people from different countries in Polish Forum, from the posts I have read during few months, I realize that the cultural difference sometimes may bring misunderstanding and even conflicts. I think this is also one reason why there are sometimes many offensive words appear which toward other culture or nations they are not involved.
I am interested in philosophy and culture, I had studied philosophy in China and got my BA, soon I will finish my MA in Poland. I just post some basic things about culture adaptation here, if someone feels it is interesting and you can have a look. I also would like to make friends with those who are interested about philosophy and culture (you always can send me message from PF).It’s my pleasure to discuss sth about philosophy and culture.
Here are:
Cultural adaptation is not off/on phenomenon. Like many other human abilities it develops through stages. A good form of developmental thinking can be illustrated with the concept of cultural shock. This concept gained complexity as it was described in terms of U or W curves extending through time.
Ethnocentric and Ethno relative Stages are divided into 6 parts: Denial, Defense, Minimization, Acceptance, Adaptation, and Integration.
DENIALPeople at the denial stage are unable to make cultural differences in complex way. Either they do not perceive cultural differences at all or they can conceive only of broad categories such as ‘foreigner’, ‘people of colour’, ‘Africans’.
DEFENSEPeople at the defence stage have more ability to construe cultural difference, but they attach negative evaluations to it.
People in defence consider themselves under siege. Their defence is characterised by the polarization of a denigrated ‘them’ with a superior ‘us’.
MINIMIZATIONPeople at the minimization stage try to bury cultural differences within already-familiar categories of physical and philosophical similarity. They recognize and accept superficial cultural differences such as eating custom but they assume that deep down all people are essentially the same-just human. As a consequence of this assumption, certain cultural values may be mistaken for universal desires.
ACCEPTANCEPeople at the acceptance stage enjoy recognizing and exploring cultural differences. They are aware that they are cultural beings. They are fairly tolerant of ambiguity and are comfortable knowing there is no right answer (although they are better answers for particular contexts).
At this stage, people have moved beyond ethnocentric rules for behaviour and may not yet have developed ethnorelative principles for taking action.
ADAPTATIONPeople at the adaptation stage use knowledge about their own and others’ cultures to shift into a different cultural frame of reference. Most people at this stage are intercultural sensitive; they can apply skills of empathy and adaptation of behaviour to any cultural context.
Sometimes they are good at shifting between the two cultures they have internalized but they cannot apply the same skills to other culture (or groups they do not consider cultures-e.g.-gay).
INTEGRATIONPeople at the integration stage are attempting to reconcile the sometimes-conflicting cultural frames that they have internalized. They are inclined to interpret and evaluate behaviour from a variety of cultural frames of reference, so that there is never a single right or wrong answer. People in integration face the unending task of guiding their own behaviour along the ethical lines that they themselves have created.
According to my small investigation of my polish friends and friends from other countries, Majority of my friends fall into the ACCEPTANCE and MINIMIZATION stage, and then ADAPTATION. But the result may be different if make an investigation among common society.
So, which stages are you falling into?
