Culture Shock

Today in my consumer behaviour class, we were looking at consumer values. Since there are only 2 Americans in my class, we were asked to list the strongest and weakest attributes to the American culture/identity while the Australians were asked to list theirs as well.

Since being in Australia, we've been asked numerous times to discribe the 'American Identity'. At first, it was hard to answer because the  American identity varies often varies from an individual identity. But after being away from the US for 4 months now, it's quite clear that a few of the stronger values in our country are: status, financial security, education, reputation, happiness, family, and faith. Obviously there are many more, but those are just a few of the bigger ones.

After the Australians gave their response to what they thought their countries strongest values were (which consisted of: mate ship, individualism, non traditional lifestyles,equality, experience), we listed ours - and all was well.

Once our professor asked us to list what we valued least, many of the kids in my class became frustrated with me because I explained that most of what they valued the most would not be ranked that high in American culture. One value in particular, equality, really angered people. I said that while I do believe equality is important, I agree with the statement "to each, their own" and that people should have to work for certain things in life, weather it be happiness, status, success, maintaining relationships, ect. My professor really appreciated my input, and Gavin (the other American) also understood what I was getting at, but the rest of the students in my class were really annoyed with my 'ignorance' as someone whispered.

The purpose of this isn't to prove that I'm right or wrong with my views on American values, but it did show me that although Americans and Australians look the same, act the same, and speak the same language (mostly), our cultures and values are significantly different.

The good news is that it was the last class session so I don't have to see any of the kids again, but it was interesting to see America's values contrasted with another countries, as well as witness some of attitudes Australians have towards Americans.