In the latest researches that study individuals moving temporarily abroad, some prefer to use the term expatriate (e.g. Ali, Van der Zee & Sanders, 2003;
Selmer & Lauring, 2009), whereas other researchers prefer the term sojourner (e.g. James, Hunsley, Navara & Alles, 2004; Masgoret, 2005). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the noun ‘expatriate’ and the abbreviation
‘expat’ means a person who lives in a foreign country, and the verb ‘to expatriate’ means moving to live in a foreign country, especially by choice.
‘Sojourner’ is defined as a temporary resident or a visitor, whereas ‘immigrant’
is used to refer to a person who migrates to another country as a settler. Berry, Poortinga, Breugelmans, Chasiotis & Sam (2011, 364) consider ‘sojourner’ to have an equivalent meaning to ‘expatriate’. Yet another term used is ‘free mover’, which refers to the new forms of cross-border migration. Phalet &
Kosic (2006) include to this category individuals who move to Brussels, London or Amsterdam in order to pursue a professional career in Europe. The term ‘free movers’ indeed applies to quite a few respondents in this study, but
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since it does not apply to all individuals, I have chosen to use the term
‘expatriate’.
The core interests of this study are Finnish expatriates’ and expatriate spouses’2 adaptation to Brussels’ multicultural environment, the connection of values to different components of adaptation, and the role of empathy in the process of adaptation. In this study the research frame deviates from previous cross-cultural adaptation studies, amongst which quantitative methods are the most commonly used method to measure adaptation. I am studying adaptation to a multicultural environment through conceptualizing the target persons’ own understanding of adaptation. Using this procedure I intend to bring new insights to the components of adaptation and to processes leading to adaptation. Values and empathy are studied using quantitative measures.
Mixed methods are applied in order to combine the results.
I will briefly present four theoretical concepts that are the main interest of this study. They are multiculturalism, cross-cultural adaptation, individual values and empathy.
1.3.1 MULTICULTURALISM AND CROSS-CULTURAL ADAPTATION The concept of multiculturalism has at least three different definitions. First, multiculturalism can refer to a demographic composition, describing the polyethnic composition of a society. Second, multiculturalism can refer to a specific policy toward cultural diversity. Third, multiculturalism as a psychological concept refers to an attitude of accepting and supporting the culturally heterogeneous composition of the population of a society, (Van de Vijver, Breugelmans & Schalk-Soekar, 2008). When I discuss the multicultural nature of Brussels in this study, I refer to the demographic composition.
Multiculturalism has been studied from a number of different perspectives.
Berry’s (1997, 2001) work on acculturation strategies concerns individuals, and acculturation policies deal with societies. Acculturation strategies describe to what extent immigrants maintain their own ethnic heritage and to what extent they adapt to the settlement culture. Acculturation policies describe the intergroup relations and government policies in plural societies.
Attitudes toward multiculturalism have received at least as much attention as acculturation (see e.g. Dandy & Pe-Pua, 2010; Leong & Ward, 2006; Schalk-Soekar, Van der Vijver & Hoogsteder, 2004; Zick, Wagner, Van Dick & Petzel, 2001). The effects of multicultural environments on individuals have been investigated especially in studies on identity (e.g. Chen, Benet-Martinez &
Bond, 2008; Sparrow, 2000).
2 In the following chapters, I will briefly refer only to expatriates, subsuming expatriate spouses into the same concept, except when the division is required in order to discuss differences.
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In cross-cultural studies that concentrate on adaptation, various factors or dimensions are usually proposed to describe different parts of adaptation (reviewed in chapter 2). The most commonly used division is Ward and her colleagues’ (e.g. Searle & Ward, 1990; Ward & Kennedy, 1999) division into psychological and sociocultural adaptation. While some studies concentrate exclusively on either one of them (e.g. Gudykunst & Nishida, 2001; Masgoret, 2005), quite often both aspects are included in the same model or theory (e.g.
Adler, 1975; Black, Mendenhall & Oddou, 1991; Hammer, Gudykunst &
Wiseman, 1978).
Regarding studies of adaptation to a cross-cultural environment and the factors and competencies needed for adaptation, little has been said about the multicultural environment as a place of settlement. Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven’s (2000, 2001) multicultural personality questionnaire (MPQ) and its dimensions is one of the few which refers explicitly to adaptation to a multicultural environment. Therefore, the results concerning adaptation in the present study primarily refer to the multicultural personality questionnaire’s factors. Even though other studies and theories concerning adaptation do not discuss multiculturalism in particular, the best known of them are reviewed in the theoretical part. This is done in order to be able to point out possible general similarities that are found in this study, and their relation to cross-cultural studies in general.
1.3.2 VALUES AND EMPATHY IN ADAPTATION
Schwartz and his colleagues (e.g. Fischer & Schwartz, 2011) have defined individual values as “abstract beliefs about desirable goals, ordered by relative importance, that guide individuals as they evaluate events, people, and actions” (p. 1128).3 The studies have shown that values are connected to personality (Bilsky & Schwartz, 1994; Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz & Knafo, 2002), to the choices individuals make in their lives (Boneva & Frieze, 2001;
Schwartz, 2005), to people’s motivations (Tartakovsky & Schwartz, 2001) and also to social contacts (Sagiv & Schwartz, 1995). Value priorities also change along with life circumstances and life experiences (Bardi, Lee, Hofmann-Towfigh & Soutar, 2009; Bardi & Goodwin, 2011; Rohan, 2000). In cross-cultural studies the individual values have been connected to several issues:
motivations to emigrate (Boneva & Frieze, 2001; Tartakovsky & Schwartz, 2001); display rules within cultures (Koopman-Holm & Matsumoto, 2011);
individuals’ styles of communication in different cultures (Gudykunst et al.
1996); and multicultural personality questionnaire dimensions (Bobowik, Van Oudenhoven, Basabe, Telletxea & Páez, 2011). As the move to a foreign environment is a major life change, it can be presumed to affect individual
3 Schwartz’s theory of individual values (1992) and confluences with cross-cultural studies are presented in chapter 3.
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values. In addition to values rank order with expatriates, I want to investigate how individual values are connected to different components of adaptation in order to further illuminate different aspects of adaptation.
Another focus of this study is empathy and its connection to adaptation.
The concept of empathy is included in all the best-known adaptation theories.
Davis’s (1994) model of empathy4 describes four different aspects of empathy, of which two can be considered similar to various descriptions of empathy found in cross-cultural adaptation theories. These two aspects are perspective taking and personal distress. For example in Hammer, Bennett & Wiseman’s (2003) intercultural development inventory the fifth orientation is “the state in which the experience of another culture yields perception and behavior appropriate to that culture” (p. 425), describing the same issue as perspective taking. In Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven’s (2000, 2001) multicultural personality questionnaire, the third factor is emotional balance, the reverse counterpart of Davis’s (1994) personal distress. Despite the similarities in Davis’s aspects of empathy and cross-cultural adaptation studies, I failed to find any cross-cultural studies where empathy would have been studied with Davis’s empathy questionnaire. Since Davis’s (1994) empathy model fits conceptually well to the adaptation research, I chose to include this empathy measurement scale in this study.