Abstract

The present study investigated acculturative understanding of Korean social psychology of interpersonal interactions among Western sojourners in Korea. We examined 1) how the Western sojourners perceive social psychological characteristics of Koreans and 2) what types of individual differences influence this perception; we looked at the acculturation strategies (integration, separation, assimilation, & marginalization), the duration of stay, and Korean language proficiency. The acculturative understanding of Korean social psychology was assessed through critical incidents (CI) method. Eight CIs were constructed based on previous study and presented to 50 Western sojourners. The responses to the CIs were compared to those by Korean collegians. Response of Westerners who stayed more than six months was more similar to the response of Koreans than those who stayed less than six months. Westerners have a better comprehension for CIs that deal with issues concerning vertical relationships in Korean society than for CIs that deal with we-relationships (cheong, woori). Only those with some Korean language proficiency showed better understanding of cheong interactions. Four types of people using different acculturation strategy did not show any meaningful difference in their response to the CIs. Possible reasons for this no-difference were discussed.