Well, I just got some things done around home and was going to go for a walk (for my fibromyalgia exercise) when I realized how late it was and I don't like to take my dinner meds too late, so I'm having my usual light dinner and doing my regular 45-minute stimulator session at the same time.
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Picking up where I left off last time in the text...
We're still in the main section "Propositions for Future Research," but we're moving on to the sub-section "In-Country Adjustment" and the sub-sub-section "Individual Factors."
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"The following three categories of individual factors relating to in-country adjustment were presented in the review article by Mendanhall and Oddou (1985): (1) self-oriented, (2) others-oriented, and (3) perceptual-oriented." (p. 307)
Most of the rest of this sub-sub-section of the paper deals with each one of these factors in sequence, so I'll comment on them as we go on.
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"One of the underlying issues of the various self-oriented skills discussed by Mendenhall and Oddou (1985) was the ability to believe in oneself and one's ability to deal effectively with the foreign surroundings, even in the face of great uncertainty. This idea is quite similar to what Bandura (1977) and others have consistently referred to as self-efficacy. According to the research on self-efficacy, individuals with higher levels of self-efficacy tend to persist in exhibiting new behaviors that are being learned, even when those efforts are not successful, longer than do individuals with less self-efficacy. The more individuals attempt to exhibit new behaviors in the foreign situation, the more chances they have of receiving feedback, both positive and negative. These individuals can then use this feedback to reduce the uncertainty of what is expected of them and how they are doing, and they can correct their behavior to better correspond to the expectations...
Proposition 5: Self-efficacy will have a positive relationship with degree of adjustment.
Proposition 5A: Self-efficacy will have its strongest relationship with adjustment for individuals who also have a high need for feedback." (p. 307-308)
Because of my background - my experiences, education and other efforts to prepare myself for mission work in Eastern Europe - I think I had a very high feeling of self-efficacy, although I knew I wasn't as strong in secretarial experience. However, I didn't have a great need for feedback, I don't think, although in my trying to figure the mission out feedback would have been one of the things I'd have paid attention to. By far feedback on my work was positive; the only thing I can think of that might have been corrective in nature is when I temporarily took over for a secretary at the U.S. office while she was out on maternity leave, and in learning the position I may have needed correction about something or the other I wasn't doing quite right, but if so (I can't remember specific instances) they were minor things, maybe like not answering the phone exactly as instructed or the like.
There is another factor that these propositions and the text doesn't mention that would have been an intervening variable in my experience with the Vienna mission, and that was the issue of trust and values (actually 2 variables, but I'm lumping them together as being closely related in this situation). The things that I disagreed with in Vienna or that I thought were questionable enough I couldn't go along with, so my self-efficacy actually might have disallowed me from doing things the mission otherwise might have wanted me to do. I supposed this might be presented as an intervening factor between my self-efficacy and the what the mission wanted/expected of me.
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"Black (1988) found a positive relationship between percentage of time spent with host nationals and general cross-cultural adjustment.
Proposition 6: Relational skills will be positively related to degree of in-country adjustment." (p. 308)
As I said before, I spent as much time as I could with the Austrians, given my other obligations, such as working with the mission, a certain amount of socializing with them, and getting settled in, for example.
In thinking about it though - in a panoramic perspective of my two years with the mission (not counting the time in the middle spend in the States) there was, I think an inverse relationship between time spend with Austrians and my satisfaction with my extracurricular life, and the only reason I pulled back from Austrian involvement was because I'd become worn down trying to repel the mission's pressures to control me. Giving in to them in this way, I think, greatly decreased my sense of self-efficacy, which is something they would have liked early on if they were using debasement as a socialization strategy when I first arrived (i.e., spending my work time reading the software manuals). The mission, in the end, succeeded in colonizing my lifeworld, in the words of Habermas.
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"Proposition 8: High levels of self-efficacy will be associated with modes of adjustment what are directed as changing the environment (e.g., the work role), whereas low levels of self-efficacy will be associated with modes of adjustment characterized by changing the individuals." (p. 308-309)
At the beginning of my time in Vienna, as I said before, I had high levels of self-efficacy and I entertained hopes that I might lead by example or the mission would value me and open itself to unfettered discussion about my concerns. But those were all pipe dreams and ill-conceived aspirations. Maybe it was when I began to recognize that the likelihood of my having any influence (and began to understand the expendability of individuals within the organization) that my sense of self-efficacy also began to wane. I hadn't really thought of it like that before, but that would put the beginning of my fall (from self-efficacy eventually to being crushed in spirit) about 5 months into my stay with the mission.
I think for most people that wouldn't have been a fall, because they would have seen the light, so to speak, and succumbed to the mission's ways. But I never had that epiphany, so I held on to my beliefs (that I disagreed with the mission regarding) but got crushed in the process.
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That's all for now. It's still light out and I'm going to go for a walk and then get some exercising in.
