Intercultural Sensitivity

When individuals are faced with cultural differences, they have a surprisingly similar range of reactions and a tendency to make remarkably consistent statements within that range.

These six perspectives are not particular to any culture group but can be experienced globally. They represent the mind-sets that individuals bring to the experience of difference no matter what culture they are from originally, mind-sets that are described in the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS).

Intercultural sensitivity refers to how an individual construes or makes sense of cultural differences and the experience of difference based on those constructions. Higher levels of intercultural sensitivity are characterized by more complex understandings of difference such that the experience of culture now approximates the ways members of the culture group themselves understand and ...