Beyond cultural learning and preserving psychological well-being: Chinese international students’ constructions of intercultural adjustment from an emotion management perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper reports an ethnographic study of a group of Chinese international students’ emotion-management experiences in intercultural adjustment in a UK university context. Drawing on a social constructionist paradigm, it investigates students’ constructions of their emotion-management strategies, and the effects of social interactions on the emergence of these strategies. The findings suggest that emotion management in intercultural adjustment goes far beyond a linear cultural learning process, and that the value of affective intercultural adjustment includes, but is not limited to, preserving psychological well-being. Furthermore, emotion-management strategy construction is shaped or impinged upon by various interpersonal and structural considerations, conditions, or limits. The study contributes to the existing understanding of affective intercultural adjustment by shedding light on the uniqueness, fluctuations, dynamics, and multiple facets of the adjustment process, as well as its implications in both individual and social terms. The study highlights the importance of adopting a holistic and integrative perspective when conceptualizing affective intercultural adjustment. The findings also raise practical implications, by proposing the necessity to incorporate an emotion-management dimension into intercultural education, and to provide emotional support that is responsive to international students’ specific concerns.