The concept of Acculturation.

The term `acculturation' was interpreted by Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits (1936, p. 146) as "the process of cultural change that occurs when individuals from different cultural backgrounds come into prolonged, continuous, first-hand contact with each other". The changes during this type of contact can be divided by individual-level changes, for example, values, attitudes, beliefs and identities, and group level changes, for example, social and cultural systems (Berry, 2003). Scientists distinguish the following forms of the acculturation process: antecedent factors (acculturation conditions), strategies (acculturation orientations), and consequences (acculturation outcomes) (Arends-Tуth & van de Vijver, 2006b).

Other classification which is associated with an individual- and group-level factors are acculturation conditions. Usually, under acculturation conditions people mean characteristics of the receiving society (e.g., perceived or objective discrimination), characteristics of the society of origin (e.g., political context), characteristics of the immigrant group (e.g., ethnic vitality) and personal characteristics (e.g., expectations, norms, and personality). The influence of these characteristics determines the circumstances in which acculturation process is set.

Besides, there are also acculturation orientations which are also known as acculturation strategies, styles, and attitudes in some literary sources. It includes the behavior of immigrants in the new society more known as cultural adoption and the way they used to conduct themselves in the country of origin, that on scientific language is called cultural maintenance. Acculturation orientations have closely interacted with acculturation attitudes or preferences. Considering that the orientations may vary greatly there are two main theories on acculturation which are related to acculturation orientations: dimensionality and domain-specificity (Arends-Tуth & van de Vijver, 2003).

The unidimensional model means that individuals can accept the culture of the new society or decline it and adhere to the cultural foundations of their place of origin. At the same time dimensionality is antipodal. It is building a bridge between cultural adoption and maintenance. However the unidimensional model denies the possibility of such a connection. A major critique of the unidimensional model was leveled at the main assumption that the acculturation process varies along a single continuum from identification with the country of origin to the country of settlement (Benet-Martнnez, 2012).

Still, there is also another group which is called bidimensional models. The bidimensional models have nearly the same meaning as unidimensional models. Still, they argue that maintenance and adoption are two different sides of the coin and they both show unstable dependance (Berry, 1997). Different studies which were held among native citizen provide us with information on how natives wanted immigrants to deal with the ethnic and mainstream cultures. Results have shown that there can be contradictions between the main population and immigrant in dimensionality for example, it is found to be unidimensional in majority group members and bidimensional in minority groups in the Netherlands. (Van Oudenhoven, Prins, & Buunk, 1998; Verkuyten & Thijs, 1999).

On the other hand, domain-specificity makes reference to the fact that immigrants can act differently in the variety of life situations which can occur in today's society. Scientists distinguish public and private life as the main criteria for the division of modern society into spheres. For example it was established that Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands and Belgium are used to separate acculturation strategies in the public area (preference of cultural adoption) and private area (preference of cultural maintenance) (Arends-Tуth & van de Vijver, 2003; Snauwaert, Soenens, Vanbeselaere, & Boen, 2003).

There is also a slight difference between psychological consequence or internal adjustment and behavioral adaptation or social, external adjustment (Van Oudenhoven, Judd, & Ward, 2008; Ward, Leong, & Law, 2004). The internal adjustment consists of the appropriate condition of the inner world of an individual who went through acculturation in another society, such factors as well-being and satisfaction with life in the new cultural context are also important. For another thing, external adjustment can be understood as the level of interaction with the new culture that is expressed in the obtain of culturally useful knowledge and skills.

Such factors as the understanding of culture, cultural distance, cultural identity, language proficiency, time of living in the new culture, and amount of contact with natives play a great role in acculturation according to Ataca & Berry (2000) Galchenko & van de Vijver (2007). It is argued that acculturation results are usually related to acculturation behaviors. Famous scientist Sam (2006) named behavioral adaptation a long-term result of acculturation whereas acculturation behaviors according to his opinion is a short-term acculturation consequence. Arends-Tуth and van de Vijver (2006a) thought that in addition to the social adaptation to the dominant culture, sociocultural competence in ethnic culture must be considered as it is an integral result of acculturation. Still, sociocultural adjustment is engaged more in studies than maintenance in the sociocultural domain.

Acculturation Outcomes. Berry's Theory.

One of the primary functions of any culture is to provide people of the same culture with well-established scripts and codes of behaviour that guide and control their social choices, attitudes, social inclinations in communicative situations and overall behavior.

For each layer of culture (in our case it can be social life, work life, etc.) there is a specific set of notions, beliefs and behavioural expectations that trigger people to act in particular culturally previsted strategies. Since the person is born into a society, over the time they grow up they are constantly exposed to their home culture and, therefore, they unconsciously learn how to behave in certain settings within their culture, thus, simply deriving cultural codes from their day-to-day interaction.

Each script of actions, responses, and behavioural schemas in each situation is triggered by cultural stimulus cues. These social clichйs created by culture are automatically reached by brain and conscious of people. Since different cultures have different values and, therefore, codes of behaviour, when entering a new culture, previous modes of reasoning and behaviour appear to be inadequate to the acculturation person. Their ways of viewing and reacting to the world are quickly seen inappropriate as they encounter new norms, values and basic assumptions and concepts. As it is stated in sociology, when moving from one social group to another, an individual experiences stress as their behaviour will be seen as non-fitting to the new group members (as well as the individual himself will expect the change of values). This stress will trigger the person's conscious to switch from automatic mode to the attentive mode so that they could easily and quickly examine new patterns of communication. It is easily done of the context lies in the same culture (as social stimulus cues will be of the same base), however, it is much harder to perceive cultural stimulus cues in a new culture.

We suggest that cultural stimulus cues can be divided into three groups from the point how they are given and perceived:

· existent and evident

· existent and misunderstood or misinterpreted

· non-existent

The first two groups, i.e. existent and evident and existent and misunderstood, are different due to both home and host cultures involvement and following clash. These are two extremums that happened to be so due to the value distance of the culture.

Value distance theory has been vague in its formulation, nevertheless, it has been suggested that big value distance and dissimilarity of cultures can make it difficult for individuals to achieve positive acculturation ends (e.g. full integration) as well as it is believed to increase acculturative stress that hinders to adequately perceive cultural stimulus cues .

When it comes to the notion of value distance, it can be seen from previous studies that it has not been unanimously formulated yet. In the framework of our paper we take value distance as a continuous variable that alternates due to the constant comparisons of host and home cultures by an individual on the basis of impressionistic criteria as well as of geographical proximity of cultures.

Existent and evident cultural stimulus cues refer to the case that occurs when an individual enters a culture whose values, traditions, and practices are similar to the ones of the individuals. And as it has been stated earlier, it can be due to geographical proximity. For example, a person from Belarus will not see much difference in culture, if he comes to Russia. Nevertheless, positive and negative discrimination shall not be overlooked which we will demonstrate in the second part of the chapter when examining different culture.

The second case which refers to `existent and misunderstood' can also be found when an individual's culture whose values, traditions, and practices are similar to his home culture, and, therefore, he perceives that his acculturation is going well, however it can be absolutely different from the point of the society where he tries to acculturate in.

This takes us to the two more variables in our theory of density of culture; these are called `acculturation expectations' and `perceived and objective cultural fit\performance'.

Acculturation expectations can be seen from two points the first one is from the point of the individual who is acculturating, and then, according to M. Navas, it refers to personal expectations and desire to what extent they feel they are able to acculturate (Navas, 2007). The second one is from the point of the society that sees a person entering their environment. The host culture members react to his behaviour and the way he interacts with society, and, therefore, host society members can either `help' the acculturation process or hinder it. We suggest that acculturation expectations of the whole society by the language, official policies on multiculturalism or migration of the state, and overall mass media images. The way acculturation expectations of the host culture works is examined in the second part of the chapter.

The second term is cultural performance or cultural fit. There are two types of cultural performance: objective and perceived.

Objective cultural or objective cultural performance refers to the positive or negative assessment by the host culture society of the behaviour and practices performed by an individual answering the host culture. The positive assessment results in decreased acculturative stress and relieved communication. The negative assessment results in the increased acculturative stress and further music miscommunication and, therefore, difficulties in acculturation.

Perceived cultural fit is usually very subjective and given by an individual who is going through the acculturation process. If perceived cultural fit doesn't coincide with the objective cultural fit then it proves to be false and therefore will eventually lead to miscommunication. Inevitable miscommunication increase acculturative stress.

The last case is non-existent cultural stimulus cues. Nonexistent excuse Acuras when the whole society doesn't hold any particular policy, expectations, or images present in the mass media sear about foreigners entering the society as full-scale member over the society.

As earlier in the text we referred to official state policy on multiculturalism and immigrations, different types of discrimination and foreigners' image in the mass media, we are now going to address this notions in a logic that is supposed to make the relations between the above-mentioned and the impact it has on acculturation process.

We start with official policies that may be endorsed by state. As we see it, governmental policies on immigrants and multiculturalism within a society can be of three types first of all:

· non-existent (when there are no any documents stating official stance on multiculturalism, immigration, etc)

· positive (when there are documents where the state endorses multiculturalism, secures the rights of immigrants and codes of rules to embrace or guide the new-comers)

· negative (when there are documents restricting foreigners coming to the country for a longer stay than touristically motivated OR documents that somehow restrict immigrants. e.g. ban from certain jobs)

· mixed (when there are features of both positive and negative types; e.g. China encourages foreigners to teach in their higher education institutions but wouldn't let in any Islam-related actors)

One of the types of policy - positive policy on multiculturalism can be later divided into two types:

· motivated

· non-motivated

Motivated policy means that the need to introduce the policy was due to the idea that immigrants and those who want to stay in the country for a long period of time will benefit the country (i.e. will contribute to the workforce, improve certain industries, etc.)

Non-motivated policy is one that was imposed to the country by outer organisations (e,g. the way the European Union poses the idea of multiculturalism as a part of being a member of the union).

The difference between these two notions is that of degree of conformity to the idea of multiculturalism and the extent to which there is a promotion of the above-mentioned idea, including creation of facilities, organisations and channels of immigration.

One more point that needs clarification is the positioning and representation of foreigners within the society and culture (e.g. the language means used to talk about foreigners). Just like in the previous classification it can be positive and negative, thus, paving the way to positive and negative discrimination and stereotypes and by this way hindering the acculturation process.

At this point it is also important to note the way different cultures perceive holder of a different culture. While for some culture it is `we vs they', in others, with more individualist approach, host culture member are likely to evaluate a foreigner from the position of `I vs he\she', where a host culture member refers to the stranger's culture only in the case some obvious differences occur. These two approaches to foreigners are likely to happen in mononational and multinational societies respectively.

The last point that we want to discuss as one of the factors influencing acculturation process is the presence of expatriate communities in the country and overall number of foreigners. That factors does matter due to several reasons we are explaining below in the text.

People do not live isolatedly in a social vacuum even when facing new social realities: there is inner need to interact with others via shared practices and values. In psychology, accountability refers to "the need to justify one's thoughts and actions to significant others in accord with these shared values" (Tetlock, 2002). If there is no accountability pressure, an individual is likely to fall out from the values existing in the society they are in, as well as they can unconsciously abandon their heritage culture values. Thus, in order to maintain one culture and retain another, an individual must feel the pressure, which, as pointed by some psychologist, can come from inside or outside.

A social group an individual refers to when facing an accountability pressure can help him relieve the acculturative stress and the stress caused by the psychological need to be accountable for their values and practices. This referent group also influences the way an individual acquires new culture patterns. If take theory on migration between two social groups existing one society, it is made clear that there is such a thing as integrative complexity, which in psychology is defined as `the capacity or willingness to acknowledge the legitimacy of competing perspectives on the same issue and forge conceptual links among these perspectives (Suedfeld & Bluck, 1993). In we put this term into intercultural realities, cultural intergrative complexity is likely to be defined as the extent to which an individual realises the feasibility of various cultural perspectives on how to function in a society (= host culture), both at personal level and at macro level (implying organizational level, institutional, etc, and, therefore is motivated to nurture social scripts and schemas that are to help him at the moment of cultural blend situations or when there is a need to holistically analyse a new culture communicative or any other social situation.

Even though there has never been full scale research on how expatriates society affects the acculturation process of a person, a small piece of writing can be found in the works social psychologist Novakovic (1997), he stated that the cultural belongingness of the closest friends or members an individual refers to can predict the way acculturation process revolves, impacting acculturation outcomes. As an example, Novakovic gave the case where Yugoslavian children who were taken by their parent to Australia, were quicker to become bicultural when playing with the kids of the same background, who had been brought to Australia earlier than them. In other words, we believe that if an individual can find somebody to whose experience they can relate to with their own feelings and worriedness, it is easier for them to cope with acculturative stress and (1) develop needed socio-cultural skills and overall competence to function in the host culture, (2) maintain their home culture (especially, if there is an expatriates community of his culture).

Introduction to Cultural Density Model.

Now we would love to suggest our extensions to the cultural environments presented by M. Navas. Even though, we described RAEM's theory in the first chapter of the work, below we give the list of social spheres by M. Navas one more time:

· worklife: work procedures carried out and type of work relations

· political life: political views

· economic and consumption behaviour

· social: social relations and friendship

· cultural: family, religion, basic thinking principles and values.

We are willing to adopt the idea that acculturation process is rather fluid as an individual moves from one of the mentioned context to another the more they stay in the host culture environment. However, we would love to point out that not only individual's experience and attitudes are not fixed, but also the spheres of culture are fluid and tend to overlap.

Thus, we would love to present one more model that describes acculturation process context.

The biggest context that overlaps with all the rest social environments is societal layer: it refers to the to the level acceptance of diversity (imposed by state policies of different types that were described above), it also refers to the socio-political climate of the host culture and it mainly defines how the host culture members perceive migrants and to what extent they are ready to help them (the presence of certain organizations and institutions). In this context cultural stimulus cues are not very well explicit for a migrant.

The next environment is the general social environment, it includes two levels: first layer is first-hand contact, and the second layer involves daily-routine communication (including worklife, education interaction, etc). The third layer is closer (romantic) relationships, family, and friendship. The next layer is political life, and then the nuclear layer is beliefs and norms.

In contrast to the model of context of acculturation, proposed by Maria Navas, where neither the individual nor the environment of acculturation are capable of moving around the scope of the acculturation (i.e. within the context), and where the only changeable variable is the expectations of the individual on their acculturation outcomes as they keep being exposed to the host culture, in our model, both individual and the context of the acculturation are capable of varying.

In the model of M. Navas, the spheres of culture touch each other, following one after another, forming the central and peripheral spheres.

We assume that the context of acculturation includes several layers of culture, which are superimposed on one another other, form a special environment (see picture 1). Thus, since each layer has its own socio-cultural stimulus cues (illustrated as patterns in the picture), then when these layers are overlapped, the "density" of these stimulus cues, increases in the corresponding way. The further a person enters a culture, the greater the number of stimulus cues he is exposed to and, ideally, expected to respond and by this way form scripts and schemas for further interaction with culture. However, as previously discussed, each individual is not always able to respond to the stimulus cues to the variables that have been previously described.

It is important to mention that these layers can change their positions on the basis of channels via which an individual enters a host culture (e.g. education, marriage, long-term business presence, migration, etc). Each layer may be seen as an easier one to acculturate in from one country to another due to the impact of societal level that can make cultural stimulus of each layer to be more or less explicit. For example, the US policy on science and work-contributors migrants is that of full support of people who come into the country by invitation. It means that there will be special guidelines for them which definitely ease the process of acculturation. The second important mention includes the idea that some layers can be left unentered in certain cases of acculturation process. For example, not all immigrants may fall in love in with somebody in the host culture context or receive education in their host culture or participate in political life.

Picture1. Culture layers

Cultural Density Model Application.

In before we start analyzing cultures with the use of the model, we believe in the need to mention that the countries were chosen by random not-biased way.

Norway.

Statistics suggest that Norway has less experience with receiving immigrants in comparison to any other European country, including Scandinavian area. It can be explained in the framework of the history of the country as it is given that almost by the end of the 20th century more people left the country, then came in: the nation had had a lot of emigration to North America and it was so until 1967 when net immigration went over the net emigration (Hugeland, 2005).

Norwegian migration policy, that implies integration or assimilation, is fully motivated as in the previous century the country experienced lack of qualified workforce. Nowadays there are several organisations and legally supervised procedures that create general and targeted support for migrants.

General Support of the country refers to:

· general adoption of multiculturalism at secondary and high schools

· there are several officially endorsed funding organizations that are involved in aid in help for work migrants;

· there is an official statement on the financial of bilingual education and minority mother-tongue instructions

Targeted support programmes:

· state organisations and counselors that provide help those who have come to Norway via work-related channels (language training, coping stress seminars, etc.);

· official courses of requalifications for those who have come to the country via familial channels (reunite with family or marriage) to settle and seek job support;

Negative factors:

· no dual citizenship allowed

· no official statement on multiculturalism has been released so far; the term rarely appear in Norwegian political discourse

· non-beneficial social perk for those who got their higher education in Norway, without getting foreign work experience

· no bilingual education at primary schools

· negative discrimination towards those who went through requalification process; as stated in they are likely to be offered a low-paid job.

· expatriate communities are almost non-existent

Host culture members expectations: in the survey of 2015 with 1300 participants, almost a half (44%) came to conclusion that immigrants "must strive to become as similar to Norwegians as possible", while only 30% of the participants agreed that immigrants can still fit the society without abandoning their heritage culture traditions and values (Ellingsen, 2009).

Positioning and representation of foreigners within the society and culture: as stated in several reports done by Broadcasting Act (1999) and the Media Ownership Act (2007) there is no any reference to ethnic representation in the mass media or licensing (Ellingsen, 2009).

Value distance and the language: according to the European Language Report (2011) only 13% of grown-up Norwegians are able to communicate in English well (perceived B2-level), mentioning that 67% of that part are involved in medium and big businesses. Value distance is suggested to be measured by geographical proximity.

If we analyse Norwegian culture with application of our Cultural Density Model, we have the following:

1) Societal layer:

The practice of multiculturalism is supported by the government via several above-mentioned institutions. There is targeted support of certain channels of acculturation.