Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)

The Bennett scale, also called the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), was developed by Dr. Milton Bennett. The framework describes the different ways in which people can react to cultural differences.

Organized into six “stages” of increasing sensitivity to difference, the DMIS identifies the underlying cognitive orientations individuals use to understand cultural difference. Each position along the continuum represents increasingly complex perceptual organizations of cultural difference, which in turn allow increasingly sophisticated experiences of other cultures. By identifying the underlying experience of cultural difference, predictions about behavior and attitudes can be made and education can be tailored to facilitate development along the continuum. The first three stages are ethnocentric as one sees his own culture as central to reality. Climbing the scale, one develops a more and more ethnorelative point of view, meaning that one experiences one's own culture as in the context of other cultures. By the fourth stage, ethnocentric views are replaced by ethnorelative views.

In his theory, Bennett describes what changes occur when evolving through each step of the scale. Summarized, they are the following:

...
Wikipedia