Sojourner adjustment.

Abstract

Reviews literature related to the psychological adjustment of relatively short-term visitors or sojourners to new culture. Descriptive approaches (stages, curves of adjustment, types, culture learning); the nature and extent of problems encountered; and the background, situational, personality, and outcome variables related to sojourner adjustment are discussed. Issues and barriers in effective cross-cultural counseling of sojourner problems are discussed. Criticisms of the sojourner literature focus on limited, global methodologies, the nonlongitudinal nature of most studies, and a failure to attend to and apply contributions and implications of the literature on cross-cultural research and methodology. (7½ p ref)

Academic Adjustment Issues in a Malaysian Research University: The Case of Cambodian, Laotian, Burmese, and Vietnamese Postgraduate Students’ Experiences

“…Findings similar to those made by Church (1982) were confirmed by Tseng & Newton (2002) whose study on international students' adjustment problems found that international students' academic difficulties resulted from language barrier, financial constraints, mental health problem, new educational adaptation, and new social regulation. Tseng & Newton (2002) categorised adjustment problems into four main groups: namely academic adjustment, personal adjustment, religious accommodation, and financial adjustment.…”

Cultural adaptation in different facets of life and the impact of language: a case study of personal adjustment patterns during study abroad

“…This approach follows in the extensive psychological tradition (e.g. Church, 1982;Hotta & Ting-Toomey, 2013;Lysgaard, 1955) of using graphs to map psychological adaptation.…”

“…In a cross-sectional study of Scandinavian Fulbright scholars in the United States, he found that those who had lived in the country for between 6 and 18 months were noticeably less adjusted than those who had lived there for either a shorter length of time or a longer period. However, other researchers (e.g., Church, 1982;Ward et al, 2001) have pointed out that the empirical evidence for the pattern is weak, and recent research by Hotta and Ting-Toomey (2013) indicates that there is considerable individual variation. Other studies, including those carried out by researchers working within education and international business/management as well as psychology (e.g., Black & Stephens, 1989;Selmer & Leung, 2003;Shaffer, Harrison, & Gilley, 1999;Spencer-Oatey & Xiong, 2006;Templer, Tay, & Chandrasekar, 2006;Wilson, 2013), have provided empirical evidence for different domains of adaptation, such as daily life, social life and work/study life, with different levels of adaptation in each.…”

Successful female expatriates as agents: Positioning oneself through gender, hierarchy, and culture

“…In our case, we first contacted a few international companies in Belgium asking to bring us in contact with 'successful' female expatriates. Following other studies on expatriation, we defined success along three concrete criteria: (1) a successful female expatriate has completed an international assignment, (Black & Gregersen, 1991;Caligiuri, 1997;Tung, 1981); (2) she has been sent on different international assignments by the same parent company because of her job performance (Caligiuri, 1997) and trust in her (Janssens, 1994); and (3) she shows continued willingness to work internationally as a sign of being psychologically comfortable with living and working in another country (Black, 1990;Caligiuri, 1997;Church, 1982). Through relying on these three criteria, we can assume that not only the female expatriates judged themselves as successful but were also considered by others as such.…”