Adjustment is about emotion. Dealing with uncertainty stress and conflict

Stress is a usual travel-mate in missions abroad. Why is it so? First of all, because international transitions imply life-changes that are typically stress provoking (Ward et al 2001:73). Indeed, life changes themselves are considered inherently stressful, even without any trans-cultural element (p 48). A new environment is by definition not decipherable, not predictable, and not completely foreseeable. And stress is nothing but our reaction upon estimating that we cannot handle a given situation.

But then, if cross-cultural transition is basically stress, what is adjustment?
For scholars working in the stress perspective adjustment occurs when we have overcome stress and are ‘psychologically fit’ again. Here adjustment is used in the sense of readjusting some inner psychological indicators to a desired level. Accordingly, to measure the level of adjustment, measures related to general psychological wellbeing areemployed, such as Zung’s (1965) Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZSDS) used by Ward and her colleagues.

What about individual differences in adjustment?
While many external factors influence adjustment, there are also individual differences, which mainly summarize in the different coping styles. Coping strategies are our ways to deal with psychological distress. Stress-researchers have identified a variety of different coping strategies, and the challenge is to find out which strategies are more employed amongst sojourners, and which result in better adjustment. Ward and Kennedy (2001) for instance found two coping styles that seem to support adjustment: “Using humour to cope with stress and employing an approach coping style, which included planning, active coping, and suppression of competing activities” (p 640). They also found that the avoiding strategy was particularly strong in predicting poor adjustment. This coping style implies “behavioral disengagement, denial, venting of emotions, the inability to see the potentially positive aspects of change, and mental disengagement” (p.640). While coping seems to dwell too deep into psychological phenomena, beyond the scope of intercultural competences, the correspondence between some coping strategies and adjustment can be instructive. E.g. the Ways of Coping Scale of Folkman and Lazarus (1985), which identifies 8: problem solving, wishful thinking, detachment, seeking social support, positive thinking, self-blame, tension reduction, and withdrawal.