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Cultural Adjustment: Understanding American Values

From NAFSA's International Student Handbook and American Ways: A Guide for Foreigners in the United States
by Gary Althen

America's population reflects remarkable racial and ethnic diversity. More than 20 percent of the population of two major cities, Los Angeles and New York, were born in another country. Such terms as "Asian- American," "Italian-American," and "Arab-American" are often used to reflect the existence of various ethnic heritages within the United States.

Diversity of religions, educational and socioeconomic levels, political beliefs, and occupations is another reality of America's population. So given all this diversity, can one usefully talk about "Americans"? Probably so - if one is careful.

How Americans See Themselves
Americans do not usually see themselves, when they are in the United States, as representatives of their country. They see themselves as individuals who are different from all other individuals, whether those others are Americans or foreigners. If you ask them to tell you something about "American culture," they may be unable to answer and they may even deny that there is an "American culture".

Nevertheless, there are certain common values that are part of American culture such as the ones listed below:

• Individualism and Privacy
• Equality
• Informality
• Orientation Towards the Future, Change, and Progress
• Goodness of Humanity
• Time as a Resource to be Used
• Achievement, Action, Work, and Materialism
• Directness and Assertiveness

Being aware of these as well as your own cultural values during your interactions with Americans may help you to better understand many aspects of American behavior and thinking that otherwise may not make sense. Some of these values are described in more detail below:

Individualism and Privacy
The most important thing to understand about Americans is probably their devotion to "individualism." They have been trained since very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies. They have not been trained to see themselves as members of a close-knit, tightly interdependent family, religious group, tribe, nation, or other collective unit.

Closely associated with the value they place on individualism is the importance Americans assign to privacy. Americans assume that people need some time to themselves or some time alone to think about things or recover the psychological energy they expend. Americans have great difficulty understanding foreigners who always want to be with another person, who dislike being alone.

Informality
Americans' notions of equality lead them to be quite informal in their general behavior and in their relationships with other people. People from societies where general behavior is more formal than it is in America are struck by the informality of American speech, dress, and posture. Idiomatic speech (commonly called "slang") is heavily used on most occasions, with formal speech reserved for public events and fairly formal situations. People of almost all socioeconomic classes can be seen in public wearing jeans, sandals, or other informal attire. People slouch down in chairs or lean on walls or furniture when they talk rather than maintaining an erect posture.

Time as a Resource
For Americans, time is a "resource" that, like water or coal, can be used well or poorly. "Time is money," they say. "You only get so much time in this life; you'd best use it wisely." The future will not be better than the past or the present, as Americans are trained to see things, unless people use their time for constructive, future-oriented activities. Thus, Americans admire a "well-organized" person, one who has a written list of things to do and a schedule for doing them. The ideal person is punctual (that is, arrives at the scheduled time for a meeting or event) and is considerate of other people's time (that is, does not "waste people's time" with conversation or other activity that has no visible, beneficial outcome).

The American attitude toward time is not necessarily shared by others, especially non-Europeans. Non-Americans are more likely to conceive of time as something that is simply there around them, not something they can "use." One of the more difficult things to which many foreign businessmen and students must adjust in the U.S. is the notion that time must be saved whenever possible and used wisely every day.

Directness and Assertiveness
Americans generally consider themselves to be frank, open, and direct in their dealings with other people. Americans will often speak openly and directly to others about things they dislike. They will try to do so in a manner they call "constructive", that is, in a manner which the other person will not find offensive or unacceptable. If they do not speak openly about what is on their minds, they will often convey their reactions in nonverbal ways (without words, but through facial expressions, body positions, and gestures). But understand that Americans are often less direct and open than they realize. There are, in fact, many restrictions on Americans' willingness to discuss things openly.

Americans are not taught, (as people in many Asian countries are), that they should mask their emotional responses. They do not think it improper to display these feelings, at least within limits. Many Asians feel embarrassed around Americans who are exhibiting a strong emotional response to something. (On the other hand, Latins and Arabs are generally inclined to display their emotions more openly than Americans do, and to view Americans as unemotional and "cold".)

Americans are much less concerned with "face" (that is, avoiding embarrassment to themselves or others) than most Asians are. To them, being "honest" is usually more important than preserving harmony in interpersonal relationships.