About the research

Cross-cultural or intercultural transition refers to a set of very concrete phenomena: how we feel, behave, and change when we find ourselves in a new cultural environment.
The mere fact of being “abroad” in a new cultural space implies that we have to decode signs we are not used to, continuously fine-tune our expected scenarios, our representations of the new place as we find our old expectations falsified. The notion of “culture shock” (Oberg 1955) summarizes the often dramatic effect of the experience. As a consequence, we automatically set in motion a series of psychological mechanisms to help us regain comfort, a feeling of security and good thoughts about ourselves. The main objective of the research is to explore what happens in such adjustment processes, what makes it difficult, and why some people have it easier than others.

Please click on "participation" (menu on lefit side) to find out how you can participate or check some background theories under "theory". You can also find some interesting reading recommendations under "bibliography"

Participation in the collection of critical incident cases

Cases of culture shock or critical incidents are very rich materials. They are examples of suddenly becoming awarane of cultural differences between the interactants.

How to proceed: try to recall the situation of the incident as it happend, as you lived it, and write it down as concretely as possible.
Please also add the following details:
- time and place (country, city or region) of the event,
- nationality of the protagonists
- relationship of the protagonists (e.g. colleagues, strangers, local vs. visitor etc.)
These are important so I can get as close to understanding the situation as possible.

The cases you send will be confidential. This means that even if they are used as examples in articles, the names of characters, involved companies or organisations will not be recognized.

Please send your the text to intercultural.research@gmail.com

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