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Intercultural Encounters 387

again. Evidently, culture shocks are environment-specific. For every new
cultural environment there is a new shock.

Ethnocentrism and Xenophilia

There are also standard types of reactions within host environments
exposed to foreign visitors. The people in the host culture receiving a
foreign culture visitor usually go through another psychological reaction
cycle. The fi rst phase is curiosity—somewhat like the euphoria on the side
of the visitor. If the visitor stays and tries to function in the host culture,
a second phase sets in: ethnocentrism. The hosts will evaluate the visitor
by the standards of their culture, and this evaluation tends to be unfavor-
able. The visitor will show bad manners, as with the English Elchi; he or
she will appear rude, naive, and/or stupid. Ethnocentrism is to a people
what egocentrism is to an individual: considering one’s own little world
to be the center of the universe. If foreign visitors arrive only rarely, the
hosts will probably stick to their ethnocentrism. If regularly exposed to
foreign visitors, the hosts may move into a third phase: polycentrism, the
recognition that different kinds of people should be measured by different
standards. Some will develop the ability to understand foreigners accord-
ing to these foreigners’ own standards. This is the beginning of bi- or
multiculturality. 6
As we saw in Chapter 6, cultures that are uncertainty avoiding will
resist polycentrism more than cultures that are uncertainty accepting.
However, individuals within a culture vary around the cultural average,
so in intolerant cultures one may meet tolerant hosts, and vice versa. The
tendency to apply different standards to different kinds of people may also
turn into xenophilia, the belief that in the foreigner’s culture, everything

is better. Some foreigners will be pleased to confirm this belief. There is a
tendency among expatriates to idealize what one remembers from home.
Neither ethnocentrism nor xenophilia is a healthy basis for inter cultural
cooperation, of course.

Group Encounters: Auto- and Heterostereotypes

Intercultural encounters among groups rather than with single foreign
visitors provoke group feelings. Contrary to popular belief, intercultural
contact among groups does not automatically breed mutual understand-