ABSTRACT
The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) was created by Mitchell Hammer (1998; Hammer & Bennett, 1998; Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003) based upon Milton Bennett’s Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) (Bennett, 1986). The DMIS focuses on processes of intercultural adaptation viz. six orientations that people appear to move through as they develop intercultural competence. The first three orientations-Denial, Defense, Minimization-are ethnocentric (i.e., perceiver’s own culture is central to how reality is constructed), and the latter three orientations-Acceptance, Adaptation, Integration-are ethnorelative (i.e., perceiver’s own culture is interpreted in the context of other culture) (Paige, Jacobs-Cassuto, Yershova, & DeJaeghere, 2003). As summarized by Hammer, Bennett, and Wiseman (2003) concerning these six DMSI stages: “Denial of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as the only real one. . . . Defense against cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as the only viable one. A variation on Defense is Reversal, where an adopted culture is experienced as superior to the culture of one’s primary socialization (“going native” or “passing”). . . . Minimization of cultural difference is the state in which elements of one’s own cultural worldview are experienced as universal. . . . Acceptance of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as just one of a number of equally complex worldviews. . . . Adaptation to cultural difference is the state in which the experience of another culture yields perception and behavior appropriate to that culture. . . . Integration of cultural difference is the state in which one’s experience of self is expanded to include the movement in and out of different cultural worldviews” (pp. 424-425).
