The Neglected C of Intercultural Relations. Cross-Cultural Adaptation Shapes Sojourner Representations of Locals

Abstract

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We investigated, by means of the Reverse Correlation Task (RCT), visual representations of the culturally dominating group of local people held by sojourners as a function of their degree of cross-cultural adaptation. In three studies, using three different methods (reduced RCT, full RCT, conceptual replication) with three independent samples of sojourners and seven independent samples of Portuguese and US-American raters, we gathered clear evidence that poor adaptation goes along with more negative representations of locals. This indicates that sojourner adaptation is reflected, at a social-cognitive level, in the valence of outgroup representations.

Keywords

• cross-cultural adaptation
• outgroup representations
• reverse correlation task
• stereotype valence
• intercultural relations