The measurement of culture shock

This paper describes the development and evaluation of a new questionnaire to measure culture shock. The population was young British volunteers working in a variety of cultural settings overseas (N = 380). Core culture shock items were derived from a consensus statement from the literature on culture shock. Additional items were obtained from an analysis of reports by previous volunteers. Internal consistency of items, as determined by correlation coefficients and factor analysis, was satisfactory; this also lends some empirical support to the concept of culture shock. External criterion validity was established by reference to the country of destination and correlation with a measure of cultural distance. A 12-item questionnaire to measure culture shock is offered for further use and evaluation.