Deep Culture, Cognition and Intercultural Adjustment—Understanding The Hidden Challenges of Global Living

Interculturalists understand that culture influences us in subtle ways. Edward Hall argued that the most powerful elements of culture operate largely out of awareness. Recently, advances in cultural and cognitive neuroscience are shedding new light on these hidden elements of culture and mind, particularly as they relate to cognition, emotion, and identity. We are finding that our “autopilot” of unconscious cognition is programmed in important ways by culture.

Little research, however, has explored unconscious elements of culture in the context of intercultural adjustment. How are these deeper elements of self affected by intercultural experiences? Are some intercultural experiences relatively “deep” (affecting us at the unconscious level), while others are “shallow”? This question is important in the context of globalization, as we see an increase in superficial intercultural contact as well as rising intolerance.

This presentation reports on a study that explores these questions. Research methodology, using interviews of 24 long-term expatriates, is described. The study’s goal was to differentiate between “surface” and “deep” intercultural experiences, and to assess sojourner reactions to more implicit and unconscious levels of cultural difference. A conceptual model that takes deep culture and unconscious cognition into account was developed.

Results showed that many sojourners struggled with deep (implicit) cultural difference. Deep culture difference provoked both higher levels of psychological resistance, and more transformative experiences. This reinforces the notion that intercultural experiences can affect unconscious elements of self. It also helps explain why superficial intercultural contact may not mitigate intolerance. Mixed reactions, in which sojourners resisted deep cultural difference even as they enjoyed surface experiences, were also common. The conceptual model that emerged from this study is argued to provide new ways to approach intercultural education and training.