Intercultural Adaptaion

Intercultural Adaptation

Introduction

Many of us have travel or lived abroad always wondering which will be the correct way of behavior or the proper manners to successfully communicate with others. We wonder if it’s better to bow or to give a hand shake, to give a kiss or a hug. This and many other questions are presented upon us because each and every country has a different cultural background. This paper will explore into the intricate process in which people may or may not successfully adapt when performing in and cross-cultural environment. We will specifically look at the Intercultural Adaptation Model (IAM).

I.A.M.

Let’s first explore the main concept of cross-cultural interaction. First, intercultural adaption is understood as a process in which a person changes or adjusts his/her normal or habitual way and manner of communication in order to successfully communicate with other in a cross-cultural encounter. Cross-cultural encounters is define as interaction between two or more person who posses significantly different communication behavior due to different cultural background. This does not necessary implicates that they are from different countries, but have different set of norms, values and beliefs instead.

The Intercultural Adaptation Model (IAM) focuses on the first interaction between individuals. Specifically the first speech and subsequent response that occur during initial cross-cultural interaction. The Intercultural Adaptation Model (IAM) states that the rate of success of the current cross-cultural interaction is influence by previous positive and negative experiences. Therefore, experience with interaction of cross-cultural communication is key element of succeeding success. The more differences between two cross-cultural individual the higher the chances of intercultural adaptation and positive communication normally lead to positive adaptation while negative ones impel to ineffective or withdrawal of interaction.

For intercultural interaction to take place one individual needs to perceive a relative difference in cultural background. This perception can come either from initial interaction like physical cues such as skin color, voice quality and tone, as well as previous knowledge of an upcoming interaction with a cross-cultural person. Although in this last case we usually tend to adjust or modify our initial message beforehand rather than to modify it along the way of acknowledgment a cultural differences. Therefore for an intercultural interaction we must have cross-cultural individual, otherwise adaptation is not likely to occur. When cross-cultural interaction takes place individual tend to evaluate the extent of foreignness of the other and that directly affects the perception of share knowledge that each individual has over the other. Consequently, as this perception of share knowledge increases, the chances of miscommunication increases, and this will subsequently decrease understanding.

After an individual assess whether their initial message was understood or not, it is highly probable that he will adjust his adaptive effort based on previous experiences. And each individual’s knowledge and skill for an effective adaptation is based mostly on previous cross-cultural experience. These previous experiences can be either negative or positive. Negative are considered the ones in which understanding was not achieved between parties, and positive the ones that were. A great example of use of previous experience to engage in intercultural adaptation is whenever a UofL Panama branch