Managing Life Overseas: The Mastery phase of cultural adaptation

In the blog last week, we explored the steps required to achieve the recovery phase of the adaptation process when living overseas for an extended period. Now, this week, we shall define the meaning of the final phase of mastering the host cultural context while also evaluating the reasons why many sojourners never attain this level of cross-cultural competency.

Challenges to the achievement of cultural mastery

Not everyone committed to any new developmental experience archives an ability even approximating a mastery level of competence. Indeed, the possibility of the sojourner attaining this ultimate phase of the adaptation process will depend on a complex assortment of largely practical and personal factors.

First, in terms of practical considerations, the length of stay is a significant factor that influences the possibility of developing full mastery competencies, though the amount of time required to reach this position will vary from one individual to another.

Moreover, a further practical issue is the purpose and location of the sojourn experience. For example, on one occasion, I was living in China working for a joint Chinese and British university venture that was strictly English medium. My accommodation was also within the university site where there were several shops and small restaurants. Therefore, on this occasion, the need to interact with the wider local community was minimal.

In contrast, on other contracts, I lived in an apartment that was embedded in the local community, within which I completed most of my shopping and social networking while my university was some distance from my home. Put simply, these later experiences motivated me towards attempts to master the cultural context on the basic of both interest and practical necessity.

Then, at the personal level, an issue that can profoundly influence the development of mastery competencies is the unique pattern of individual personality traits that we briefly covered in the previous blog. With specific reference to the Five-Factor model of personality, it is generally agreed that the trait of openness encourages curiosity and creativity, while extroversion facilitates social interaction. Consequently, some combination of these two traits can positively promote progress towards the achievement of mastery competencies while a neurotic disposition will inevitably inhibit both personal and cultural development.

The two levels of mastery competencies

Even the early emergence of some mastery competencies signals a palpable transformation of the host experience to the extent that almost everything in the daily routine will now feel comfortable. Furthermore, the sojourner will have become totally at ease when navigating cultural nuances. This ability is of profound significance when attempting to develop strong meaningful relationships with both colleagues from the host nation and members of the local community.

Moreover, this gradual movement towards the mastery phase additionally highlights that the sojourner has already acquired a significantly deeper understanding of the culture facilitating a feeling of confidence in their ability to positively thrive in their new home from home.

Then, at an even more sophisticated level of competence, some people are now able to instigate informal conversations with locals while also finding that deeply culturally rooted conversational expressions such as humour, jokes, and irony now start to make increasing sense.

Finally, for a few, it becomes possible to acquire full fluency in both the transmission and interpretation of complex body language signalling without the need for verbal explanations in what the Japanese call an ability to read the air.

To conclude, for many sojourners mastering the cultural context is not only an adjustment phase too far, but also not a requirement to be perfectly comfortable in the host context. Moreover, as we shall explore in more detail over the next few blogs, perhaps paradoxically, those who achieve mastery adjustment often experience the greatest challenge during re-entry to the home context due to what is called reverse or re-entry culture shock.

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Question 1

Why might a prior achievement of mastery not guarantee success in a different cultural context?

Question 2

To what extent does full mastery competence in a host culture also depend on linguistic abilities?

Question 3

What are the challenges faced by sojourners when planning to re-enter the home context?

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We shall begin to explore Question 3 in Part 1 of the blog on this topic next week.