ABSTRACT
So far we have described culture contact in terms of learning and coping processes; that is, people exposed to unfamiliar cultural settings must learn culturally relevant social skills in order to survive and thrive in their new milieux. More recent formulations on the culture learning approach have recognised that culture contact is stressful and that the acquisition of intercultural skills depends to some extent on culture travellers developing coping strategies to deal with stress. The terms adjustment and adaptation have been used in connection with this approach which emphasises the psychological and emotional outcomes of intercultural interactions. As described in Chapter 2, both the culture learning and stress and coping perspectives can be incorporated into the broader acculturation literature which provides a major theoretical framework for contemporary research on tourists, sojourners, immigrants and refugees.
