Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theory

A Communication Phenomenon

The theory is built on the premise that a person is an open system that coevolves with the sociocultural environment. Plasticity, or the ability to learn and change through communicative exchanges with the environment, is one of the most profound characteristics of the human mind and the very basis on which individuals adapt to conditions of the environment. Cross-cultural adaptation is, thus, regarded in this theory as the unfolding of the natural human tendency to struggle to regain an internal equilibrium in the face of adversarial environmental conditions.

By placing adaptation at the intersection of the person and the environment, the theory explains cross-cultural adaptation essentially as a process that occurs in and through communication activities. Underscored in this view is that communication is the necessary vehicle without which adaptation cannot take place, and that some degree of cross-cultural adaptation, no matter how minuscule, occurs as long as the individual remains engaged with the host environment. This systemic, communication-based conception elevates the ontological status of cross-cultural adaptation to the level of a panhuman phenomenon that must be treated not merely as a specific analytic research unit (such as an independent or dependent variable), but as the entirety of the evolutionary process an individual undergoes in relation to an unfamiliar environment.

The theory addresses two central questions: (1) How does the cross-cultural adaptation process unfold over time? and (2) What are the key factors that help explain the different speeds with which individuals achieve adaptive changes?

Process

The first question concerning the unfolding of cross-cultural adaptation over time is answered in the form of a process model, a theoretical representation of the process of a person's evolution toward increased person-environment fit. The theory explains that this evolutionary process inevitably accompanies stress in the individual psyche, a kind of identity conflict rooted in the desire to retain the habitual mind, on one hand, and the necessity to seek congruence with the new milieu on the other. The experience of stress produces a state of disequilibrium, often manifested in emotional lows of uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, cynicism, hostility, avoidance, or withdrawal.

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