| Abstract [eng] |
Cultural shock is not a new term but only recently started to gain more attention. One of the reasons is globalization process in the world, which makes individuals think more seriously about cultural experience in other countries. Global companies, student exchange programs, new business opportunities, traveling and trying to find solutions to global problems such as terrorism, climate warming, nuclear weapons and many other, bring nations together. Communicating not only with neighbours, but also with the most distant countries becomes vital in today‘s life. Experiencing something new usually is followed by feelings of uncertainty, confusion and unpredictability. Settling up in a new culture has the same aspects as experiencing new things but, moreover, in a different cultural environment, which makes things even more complicated. Most people go through different adaptation stages that are called cultural shock stages, until they become fully adjusted in a new environment. This Thesis Paper first of all explains the main concepts of cultural shock: the stages of cultural adaptation, the reasons, the symptoms, the consequences and possible solutions how to minimize negative effects of it. The second part of the paper is more related to people‘s daily life and describes how do small things affect them when they move to another culture. Daily routines are analyzed using the method of psychologist Abraham Maslow‘s Basic Needs Pyramid Theory and applying it in cross-cultural setting. For the purpose of theory‘s illustration, research was done in five different countries where Lithuanian emigrants live or used to live and who shared their life experience there. Third part of the paper is telling about the influence of thinking and mentality of people in different countries. The main purpose of the section is to look for the ways to improve immigrants’ well-being in strange, unexpected or even unacceptable situations by modifying thinking skills and developing positive thinking. The hypothesis of this Thesis is saying that cultural shock is inevitable, even though the world is more and more becoming a big “global village”. The main goal was to prove that this problem still exists. One of the tasks was to analyze the reasons, what exactly happens when individuals confront the other culture and why it was still an issue. The other important task was to find the ways to reduce the impact of cultural shock and to help people to overcome it easier and with better understanding. Since it is evident that culture shock is more severe in more distant countries, Nigeria was chosen to be a country to furnish the paper with examples from expatriates’ life there. Both, personal experience and interview with people from different countries, living in Nigeria, were used to achieve the set goals. The results of the interview hardly differ from the theories explained in the paper. In contrary, they prove again, that cultural shock is inevitable but survivable, provided individuals take corresponding measures to overcome them, such as good preparation, trying to enroll themselves in a new culture, coping with the differences and improving positive thinking skills. |
