Intercultural communication and psychological health of Turkish workers in an American-German workplace in Germany.

Abstract

The hypotheses were evaluated in relation both to the respondents' communication with and feelings about dealing with Americans and their communication with and feelings about dealing with Germans.

Kim's (1988, 1991, 1995a, b, 2001) integrative theory of transcultural communication was used as the theoretical basis of the study. Kim's theory asserts that a number of factors, including host communication competence and host interpersonal communication, work together to determine the speed and success of intercultural adaptation.

These results partly supported Kim's (1988, 1991, 1995a, b, 2001) theory of intercultural adjustment. Host receptivity is another element which Kim's theory says impacts on adaptation, and low perceived host receptivity is suggested as a factor that may help explain why no correlation was found among key variables in relation to participants' communicating and working with Germans.

This study investigated the cultural adaptation of Turkish workers living in Germany and working in an American military support environment. The study sought to determine whether host interpersonal communication and host communication competence were positively correlated with the psychological health of the workers.

The study had the following null hypothesis: H0: An individual's host communication competence and host interpersonal communication do not have a relationship to the individual's level of psychological health in an American-German workplace.

To evaluate the hypotheses, fifty individuals from the population of individuals of Turkish heritage residing in Germany and working in an American military support environment were selected and interviewed. A survey was administered measuring host interpersonal communication, host communication competence, and psychological health. Additional open-ended questions were asked to help give a more complete understanding of the intercultural experiences of the participants.

The results of the open-ended questions tended to confirm the statistical results that the participants generally had less positive feelings about working with Germans than Americans. Replies to the questions also suggested that there was considerable dissatisfaction among the participants with the degree of host receptivity of the German culture.

Statistical analysis of the questionnaire results showed that participants felt significantly more positively about working with Americans than with Germans on several dimensions of psychological health, including happiness, confidence, satisfaction, and comfort. In addition, positive correlations were found between host interpersonal communication and psychological health and between host communication competence and psychological health, both in relation to interacting with Americans. No correlations were found between the independent variables and the dependent variable in regard to the participants' communication and interaction with Germans. Since these results partly supported hypotheses 1 and 2, the null hypothesis was rejected.

This hypothesis would be rejected if either of the following hypotheses were supported: H1: The greater an individual's host interpersonal communication, the greater the individual's psychological health. H2: The greater an individual's host communication competence, the greater the individual's psychological health.