Living in a Multicultural Society: The Right Mix of East meets West
Nicole Ariel Teo (13194747)
Living in a Multicultural Society
With globalization, it is very easy for different nationalities and cultural backgrounds to interact on a regular basis. This is exceedingly obvious in multicultural countries (i.e. Singapore). Furthermore, so many individuals are placed in societies of a different culture from them due to work or school. Some even grow up in a different culture from their parents. There is an infinite number of ways that Eastern and Western cultures can come into contact and evolve into a new form of culture.
Cultural Psychology
Culture is often defined as a “shared system of learned meanings, encompassing the values, norms, beliefs and assumptions embraced” by individuals. However, culture was often explained only from the Western point of view, and it failed to identify cultural differences and peculiarities, hence insufficiently explain human experience and behavior worldwide. (Renner & Salem, 2014) With “melting pot” countries, many individuals of cultural backgrounds interact daily, however, a common question is how harmonious are these interactions considering how they are all very different and sometimes even contradictory. Cultural differences can be explained with implicit theories such as “self-views, causal theories, theories of mind, and ways of dealing with ambiguous and contradictory information”. (Paletz & Peng, 2008) A big problem with culture as explored by Berry (2015) is that when individuals live, work or operate in other cultures, they have already been shaped by their origin culture and hence have pre-existing assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, motives, prejudice, stereotypes and values. A study by Paletz & Peng (2008) explored how an article had blamed a culture of discouraging innovation for Japan’s lac of Nobel Prize-winning scientist, however another magazine had focused on how the Japanese created the most innovative products in the world. This study was a perfect example of how culture is very subjective.
The society that you identify with is already molded to have certain prejudice and biases towards other cultures. Unconsciously, or consciously, you would reject certain customs of other cultures if they do not fit with yours.
Intercultural Psychology
Hence, intercultural psychology studied the differences and similarities of different cultures and interaction between cultures. Intercultural interaction can help with strengthening diplomatic relations and international friendships and help to integrate individuals into a host society. A recent study by Kudo, Volet, & Whitsed (2017) found that these interactions are influenced by:
(1) Environmental constraints and affordances in relation to relationship prospects
(2) Personal blockers and enablers in constrained environments
(3) Personal blockers and enablers in intervention environments
(4) Cultural barriers and intolerance at individual and environmental levels
By understand these factors, the interaction gap between cultures can be bridged. However, it is difficult to apply as most cultures have existed for hundreds of years and the contrasts between cultures are obvious. It is difficult to bridge that gap in real life. An individual would have to have a valid knowledge base that consists of their own culture, other cultures and integration into global psychology. (Berry, 2015) With the number of cultures in the world, it is difficult for a person to be able to retain so many cultural practices. Even with the knowledge of the host culture, it is still difficult for an individual to fully understand another’s culture unless they actively immerse themselves in that culture.
Intercultural Relationships
To understand intercultural interactions better, a study by Berry (2015) exploring intercultural couple relationships in comparison to west relationships and east relationships found that:
(1) Westerners endorsed Family Responsibility standards less strongly than Chinese
(2) Intercultural couples endorsed both Couple Bonds and Family Responsibility standards to a level that was midway between Chinese and Western couples.
This suggested that intercultural couples had a combination of accommodation and selection effects with regards to their relationships. They had to create a good mix of both cultures to have a harmonious relationship. A study by Hiew, Halford, van de Vijver, & Liu(2015) investigated the differences in Chinese and Western cultures and found that there were many important differences in relationship standards. Chinese culture follows a more traditional gender-role ideology than Western cultures, which explains the importance of embeddedness and power distance as compared to Western cultures. Another factor that would contribute to intercultural relationship is the similarities and differences between the two cultures. Cultures that are more similar would be easier to assimilate in a relationship, whereas cultures that are very different would have more contradictory practices and hence make it more difficult to assimilate into a relationship. These factors would include language, social behavior, personality, values, and emotions. (Berry, 2015) Therefore, this tells us that it is possible for individuals of different cultural backgrounds to live harmoniously together by finding a good mix of the two cultures. Both partners have to be accepting of each others culture and want to immerse themselves in the other’s culture.
Global Psychology
In order to truly understand intercultural psychology, it is important to come up with a definition of intercultural interactions. There are a plethora of cultures and sub-cultures in both Eastern and Western culture. It is difficult to just categorize them as “east” or “west”. Futhermore, intercultural interactions can happen to anyone at anytime from youths and adolescence, university students, working adults (e.g. expatriates). (Yang, Ponerantz, Wang, Cheung, & Cimpian, 2016; Bennett, Volet, & Fozdar, 2013; Bakel, Oudenhoven, & Gerritsen, 2015) Many experiences can arise from intercultural interactions at the different stages. Some are more easily accepting than others with regards to assimilating into other cultures. This acceptance is increasingly notable in youths from both Eastern and Western cultures since they are exposed to more types of culture through social media. (Yang, Ponerantz, Wang, Cheung, & Cimpian, 2016)
Many universities are also exposed to intercultural interactions since most universities in the English-speaking population would have students from diverse national, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. A study by Bennet, Volet, & Fozdar (2013) explored the intercultural communication competency (ICC) which measures how much an individual understands other’s worldviews, their awareness of cultural differences, self-awareness of their own culture and the development of attitudes towards perceived cultural others. This is increasingly important with the very well connected world we live in where people are easily moved to different countries for work or school, and have to learn to assimilate and understand other cultures.
Intercultural Interactions amongst Youths and Expatriates
To further explore the problems with multicultural societies, is in important to understand the key differences and similarities in Eastern cultures and Western cultures. This essay will focus on two different stages of life (adolescence and adult – expatriates) since it is related to growing up in a multicultural society.
Youth
Youths growing up in multicultural societies often grow up with a mix of western and eastern culture. However, this mix of cultures can come off as contradictory at times.
In the West, a youth who reaches adolescence focuses on individuating from their parents to move towards establishing their own identity, and this involves them spending more time with their peers. Sometimes they even disregard family responsibilities. On the other hand, youths in the East are brought up with emphasis on filial piety, which means when they reach adolescence they move towards fulfilling responsibilities to their parents. They maintain engagement with their family members and do not disregard family responsibilities. (Yang, Ponerantz, Wang, Cheung, & Cimpian, 2016) However, youths that grow up in a multicultural society would then have contradicting values. They would expect themselves to be independent, but also fulfill responsibilities to their parents. Hence, a balance would have to be found between the two.
A study by Motos (2016) had pointed out that youths establish longer lasting relationships with similar individuals who share the same age, sex, ethnicitiy, behavior or academic performance. From an early age, children are inclined to choose friends like themselves based on physical characteristics. Another study by Bennett, Volet, & Fozdar (2013) on university students also investigated differences between relationships of monolingual local and multilingual international students. The international students maintained a culturally diverse relationship with other students off campus but they were split into “international” and “local” relationships. However they did not interact with local students in social or academic associations off campus grounds. These studies showed that most cultures bring up children to choose friends who are similar to them and hence this leads to many individuals growing up to be closer to individuals of similar cultural backgrounds as them. However, youths that grow up in multicultural societies are forced to interact with individuals of all cultures from a young age, some of them even being born as a multicultural individual (one Eastern parent, one Western parent).
Expatriates
Another interesting group of people that tend to be looked passed in intercultural psychology are expatriates. Having grown up in a family of expatriates, I noticed that many of us follow many customs from different cultures unconsciously. Each time we move and integrate ourselves into a new society, we learn a new culture. The culture-learning model states that expatriates can learn new cultures through observation or discussions with locals. Also, locals are a key source of social support for expatriates that just moved since most of their social network is left behind. (Bakel, Oudenhoven, & Gerritsen, 2015)
A few important factors for expatriates to settle down in a new culture include personal characteristics, developmental characteristics and motivation. Individuals with similar attitudes, values, economic status and personality are more attracted to each other. Another factor that affects intercultural friendships between expatriates and hosts is that the friendship is voluntary, expectations that the expatriate develop about the host and the timing of the contact. Lastly, expatriates have to be motivated to immerse themselves in the host culture, such as taking time to attend events. (Bakel, Oudenhoven, & Gerritsen, 2015) I think that it is also important to note that expatriates can live in a host country for any time between a couple months to tens of years, some (long-term expatriates) would be more willing to immerse themselves into the host culture more than others. Another important point to note is that culture is not easily learnt from a textbook, it is learnt by exposure and application in the host culture.
Conclusion
The study of cultural and intercultural psychology has always been tricky because of the numerous permutations of types of cultures and subcultures in a society. Furthermore, most people are brought up with certain prejudices and biases towards other cultures. One way to explore the long-term effect of intercultural interactions is through observations of intercultural couples, as done in a study by Berry(2015), where it was noted that intercultural couples adopt certain customs from their partners and create a mixture of the two cultures.
I also analyzed studies of youths and expatriates who are exposed to intercultural interactions regularly. Youths in the West see adolescence as the first step to independence, whereas youths in the East see it as the stage to start fulfilling responsibilities to their parents. However, youths who grow up with both Eastern and Western roots tend to have a mix of both cultures in their lives. Expatriates also have similar experiences. Depending on their characteristics, they could maintain their roots or immerse themselves into a different culture, picking up new customs that they end up following for months or years.
Future considerations
One of the biggest problems with intercultural psychology is finding a general definition. Most studies have a hard time defining intercultural psychology because culture is a very vast term. There are too many different cultures in the world, both in the Eastern and Western world, for a general explanation of what culture is defined as.
Also, most studies are very vague with what defines the East and the West. The would compare larger countries against each other, forgetting that within that larger country contains many different cultures as well.
Lastly, I noticed that there were very limited studies on mixed(multicultural) individuals and intercultural interactions in multicultural countries and societies.
References
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Bennett, R. J., Volet, S. E., & Fozdar, F. E. (2013). “I’d Say it’s Kind of Unique in a Way”: The Development of an Intercultural Student Relationship . Journal of Studies in International Education , 17 (5), 533-553.
Berry, J. W. (2015). Global psychology: implications for cross-cultural research and management . Cross Cultural Management , 22 (3), 342-355.
Hiew, D. N., Halford, W. K., van de Vijver, F. J., & Liu, S. (2015). Relationship Standards and Satisfaction in Chinese, Western, and Intercultural Chinese–Western Couples in Australia . Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology , 46 (5), 684-701.
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Yang, Q., Ponerantz, E. M., Wang, M., Cheung, C., & Cimpian, A. (2016). Conceptions of Adolescence: Implications for Differences in Engagement in School Over Early Adolescence in the United States and China . J Youth Adolescence , 45, 1512-1526.