The role of discordant acculturation attitudes in perceived threat: An analysis of host and immigrant attitudes in Germany

The present research examines discordant acculturation attitudes of host society members and immigrants as an antecedent to intergroup threat. Based on integrated threat theory and the concordance model of acculturation, we posited that discordance on culture maintenance and on desire for contact would predict intergroup threat beyond the influence of other antecedents of threat, such as in-group identification, knowledge, and negative contact. A study with 202 German host society members and 151 Turkish and Italian immigrants was conducted. In line with our assumptions, path analyses revealed that culture discordance and contact discordance contribute independently to the prediction of realistic threat, symbolic threat, and intergroup anxiety for host society members and immigrants. Moreover, differences in threat between cultures were mediated by the discordance in acculturation attitudes.     

Understanding transnational political involvement among Senegalese migrants: The role of acculturation preferences and perceived discrimination

In political debates, migrants’ political involvement in their countries of origin and successful adaptation to receiving countries are often portrayed as incompatible. We address this concern by examining the links between acculturation preferences, perceived discrimination, and migrants’ transnational political involvement in their country of origin. In line with collective action research, a cross-sectional questionnaire study (N = 84) among Senegalese migrants in Paris (France) and Geneva (Switzerland) examined three pathways to transnational political involvement (motivations and actual behaviour). Perceived discrimination, the grievances pathway, was positively related to both transnational motivations (but only when desire to adopt the receiving culture was low) and political behaviour in Senegal. Desire to adopt the culture of the receiving society as an acculturation preference, the embeddedness pathway, was also positively linked to transnational motivations and political behaviour. Finally, desire to maintain the culture of origin as an acculturation preference—the collective identification pathway—was unrelated to transnational political involvement. These findings underscore the compatibility of transnational political involvement in countries of origin and adaptation to receiving societies. We discuss the pivotal role of political psychology in bringing together acculturation psychology and transnationalism studies.     

Personal reactions to ‘strange’ situations: Attachment styles and acculturation attitudes of immigrants and majority members

A growing number of studies examine the influence of individual factors on acculturation attitudes of immigrants, but few studies focus on majority members’ attitudes. In this paper, two studies are reported on the relation between attachment styles and acculturation attitudes of both immigrants (N=177) and majority members (N=243) in the Netherlands. Until now very few studies have associated cultural adjustment with attachment styles. This is remarkable, because attachment theory refers to interaction with others in new situations. Four different styles of attachment (the secure, dismissing, preoccupied and fearful attachment styles) are related to Berry's classification of acculturation attitudes. People, both immigrants and majority members, with a secure attachment style were positive towards integration, whereas people with a dismissing attachment style were not. Dismissing immigrants were more positive towards separation. Whereas both immigrants and majority members with a secure attachment style showed a similar pattern of correlations between attachment and acculturation, they seem to react quite differently, and even in opposite ways, when they have a preoccupied attachment style. Yet, the different reactions may be caused by the same psychological process: The existential ambivalence of preoccupied people may lead to diverse reactions.     

Ethnic categorization of immigrants: The role of prejudice, perceived acculturation strategies and group size

People usually perceive immigrants from different national origins as similar to each other, and thus as belonging to a limited number of ethnic out-groups [Sporer, S. L. (2001a). Recognizing faces of other ethnic groups: An integration of theories. Psychology, Public and Law, 7, 36–97, Sporer, S. L. (2001b). The cross-race effect: Beyond recognition of faces in the laboratory. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 7, 170–200.]. In this study, we examine how host nationals (i.e., Italians) categorize immigrants and how prejudice and perceived acculturation strategies influence this process. In our research, photographs of male faces of members of 16 immigrant groups were shown to the participants (N=305). They were asked to identify the national origin of each person on the photographs. In line with the expected over-inclusion into more numerous and more devalued out-groups, the researchers found that (a) participants who perceived Albanians or Moroccans to be the most numerous, were most likely to categorize immigrants as belonging to these groups; and (b) this over-inclusion effect was most pronounced when participants were prejudiced toward these groups and when they perceived them as wanting to maintain their cultures of origin.     

Breaking the chains of two dimensions: The tridimensional process-oriented acculturation model TDPOM

This paper considers the acculturation process and the ways in which it can unfold. The main focus is directed towards the possibility of creating novel ways of acting and living as a form of acculturation. Although this possibility has been acknowledged by researchers, it has been mostly integrated into typologies of biculturalism based on John Berry’s bidimensional acculturation model, and considered to belong to integration strategy. It is argued that such an approach poses logical and methodological problems, and that the form of acculturation, where something novel is created, goes beyond the bidimensional conceptualization of acculturation. A new model extending Berry’s model is proposed. It includes a third dimension which refers to the possibility of creating new ways of acting and living to the process which will be subsequently referred to as cultural creation. Distinctions and relationships with other tridimensional models and/or models including cultural creation process are discussed. Subsequently, another layer to the model is introduced which relates to the understanding of culture providing foundation for the model. Familiarity, unfamiliarity and novelty are proposed as reference points for the model’s dimensions, enabling the model to move away from the systemic conception of culture and integrate the constructivist understanding of culture. The potential mechanisms responsible for the creation of novelty within the acculturation process are discussed in context of two theoretical approaches: the creative cognition approach and the practice approach.     

Authoritarianism, perceived threat and exclusionism on the eve of the Disengagement: Evidence from Gaza

Major political events such as terrorist attacks and forced relocation of citizens may have an immediate effect on attitudes towards ethnic minorities associated with these events. The psychological process that leads to political exclusionism of minority groups was examined using a field study among Israeli settlers in Gaza days prior to the Disengagement Plan adopted by the Israeli government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005. Lending credence to integrated threat theory and to theory on authoritarianism, our analyses show that the positive effect of religiosity on political exclusionism results from the two-staged mediation of authoritarianism and perceived threat. We conclude that religiosity fosters authoritarianism, which in turn tends to move people towards exclusionism both directly and through the mediation of perceived threat.     

The role of perceived cultural distance,personal growth initiative,language proficiencies,and tridimensional acculturation orientations for psychological adjustment among international students

We investigated the acculturation process of international students (N = 319, 162 female) from 62 countries who were residing in the Netherlands, using the acculturation framework by Arends-Tóth and Van de Vijver (2007). We applied SEM to test the model that acculturation conditions (perceived cultural distance [PCD], personal growth initiative [PGI], proficiency in English and the host language, and length of residence) in conjunction with acculturation orientations as mediators (host, heritage, expatriate) predict psychological adjustment as acculturation outcome (acculturative stress, satisfaction with life, mental health problems). We found direct and indirect effects of acculturation conditions on adjustment; high PGI, high English and Dutch proficiencies, and low PCD were associated with better adjustment. Host orientation (predicted by high PGI, Dutch proficiency, and low PCD) was positively associated with adjustment. Heritage orientation (predicted by low English proficiency) was negatively associated with adjustment. As a novel aspect, we included expatriate orientation - an orientation towards other expatriates in the host community. Expatriate orientation was predicted by low Dutch proficiency and was positively associated with adjustment. We also observed direct links between acculturation conditions and outcomes: positive associations between PCD and acculturative stress and between length of residence and acculturative stress; and negative associations between PGI and mental health problems and between English proficiency and acculturative stress. We provide evidence that including expatriate orientation is relevant among international students: It is stronger than both host and heritage orientations, thereby underlining the importance of studying acculturation in a contextualized way.     

Majority group opposition to minority political entitlements: The Social Dominance Paradox

We propose and test the Social Dominance Paradox of majority opposition to minority political entitlement in a national sample of the European majority group in New Zealand (N = 4628). The paradox arises because for the majority ethnic group, Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) should simultaneously and differentially predict support for, and resistance to, minority political interests through opposing ideological mechanisms: Color-Blind Ideology (subjectively egalitarian ideology which functions to maintain inequality by de-emphasising group membership) and Ethnic System Justification (which recognises ethnicity and asserts that ethnic relations are fair). We argue that for the majority group, SDO should predict increased ethnic group salience, and should thus predict decreased Color-Blindness. However, SDO should also lead people to view existing hierarchical arrangements between ethnic groups as legitimate, leading to increased Ethnic System Justification. These dual ideologies should in turn both predict opposition to minority political entitlements. Predictions were supported, and occurred in addition to the strong direct effect of SDO on opposition to minority political entitlement. These findings provide an important, and theoretically predicted, paradox evident for those high in SDO; and emphasise the subtlety and explanatory power of Social Dominance Theory for understanding support for minority political entitlement.     

The effect of vertical-horizontal individualism-collectivism on acculturation and the moderating role of gender

Based on a sample of 131 Chinese international students in Germany, the study examined (1) the influence of vertical-horizontal individualism-collectivism (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998) on mainstream and heritage acculturation and (2) the moderating role of gender on these relationships. It was hypothesized that both vertical-horizontal individualism would enhance mainstream acculturation and both vertical-horizontal collectivism would enhance heritage acculturation. From a gender role and a value-motivation perspective, a moderating effect of gender was also hypothesized. Since the vertical dimension is related to power and achievement values which is more important for men, men who scored high in this dimension would be more likely to acculturate than women. Since the horizontal dimension is related to universalism and benevolence which is more important for women, women who scored high in this dimension would be more likely to acculturate than men. The hierarchical regression analysis shows that (1) women's mainstream acculturation was higher than men's, but no gender difference was found in heritage acculturation; (2) the influence of horizontal individualism on mainstream acculturation was stronger for women than for men, but adopting vertical individualism has an equally positive effect on acculturation for both gender groups; (3) vertical collectivism had a positive influence on heritage acculturation for men but not for women, while horizontal collectivism had a stronger influence on heritage acculturation for women than men. These findings were discussed using a gender role perspective and the possible changes in cultural transitions.     

Traumatic experiences,acculturation, and psychological distress among Syrian refugees in Turkey: The mediating role of coping strategies

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world. So far, many studies investigated the mental health problems among Syrian refugees in Turkey and other hosting countries. However, little attention has been paid to the acculturation process of Syrian refugees in Turkey. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 409 Syrian refugees in Mardin, Turkey. Results showed that traumatic experiences depleted problem-focused, emotion-focused, and maladaptive coping strategies. Emotion-focused coping strategies mediated the relationship between traumatic experiences and maintenance of the heritage culture and adoption of the destination culture. To conclude, our findings underscore the importance of traumatic experiences and emotion-focused coping strategies for integration of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Psychosocial interventions enhancing emotion-focused coping capacities might mitigate the adverse impact of traumatic experiences on integration. We discussed the strengths and limitations of the study considering the current literature.     

Being tolerated and minority well-being: The role of group identifications

In recent decades, a norm of tolerating group differences has been promoted by laypeople and leaders as a way to manage cultural and religious diversity. But whether such a policy is beneficial for the targets’ sense of group belonging and well-being is unknown. This research investigates how being tolerated differs from being discriminated against and being accepted in its associations with affective well-being and ethnic and national identification of ethnic minorities. We test whether being tolerated is related to well-being through its association with both group identifications. With a sample of ethnic minority group members in the Netherlands (N = 518) we found that being tolerated is related to higher well-being through increased national identification, but not as strongly as being accepted. Being tolerated is different from experiencing discrimination against and being accepted, and its relations to well-being and group belonging often fall between those of discrimination and acceptance. Toleration is associated with higher well-being, but only to the extent that its targets feel included in the overarching national category.     

Acculturation preferences and perceived (dis)loyalty of Muslims in the U.K.: Two vignette-based experimental studies

Muslims in the U.K. who maintain their religious culture are often viewed as a suspect community. This pre-registered experimental research examined the mediating role of perceived (dis)loyalty as underlying process and the moderating role of acculturation expectations. A total of 334 non-Muslim White British participants in Study 1 and 810 in Study 2 were asked to indicate their acculturation expectations towards Muslims. They were then randomly assigned to read a text that described Muslims in a fictional town as either (a) maintaining their religious culture or (b) adopting the mainstream British culture, or they read (c) a neutral control text. As expected, in Study 1, when Muslims were presented as maintaining their religious culture, trust decreased compared to the control group. Conversely, when described as adopting the mainstream culture, trust increased while support for surveillance of Muslims decreased. Both effects were mediated by the perception of Muslims being disloyal or loyal to the U.K in both studies, respectively. Perceived loyalty to their religious group did not significantly mediate any effect. We replicated these findings in Study 2. Moreover, we showed that describing Muslims as maintaining their religious culture decreased trust and increased support for surveillance especially among participants who expected Muslims to give up their religious culture. Moderated mediation analysis showed that these effects were partly mediated by perceived loyalty to the U.K. We discuss the societal implications of the findings for policymakers and Muslim leaders along with recommendations for future research.     

Social network sites and acculturation of international sojourners in the Netherlands: The mediating role of psychological alienation and online social support

Acculturation of short-term international sojourners, such as expats and international students, has received considerable attention from scholars in the past decades. Acculturation is commonly defined as the interplay between cultural maintenance, the sojourner’s desire to maintain their home culture identity, and host country participation, their desire to initiate contact with members of the host society. The present paper focuses on the role that Social Network Sites (SNS) play in the acculturation process of this group. Through a survey, we examined how 126 short-term sojourners in the Netherlands use SNS to interact with relations in both home and host country, and how this affects their cultural maintenance and host country participation. Furthermore, we examined psychological alienation and online social support as possible mediators. Our results show that on the one hand SNS contact with home country relations is positively related to online social support. On the other hand, it is also related to psychological alienation, which in turn is related to cultural maintenance. This shows that sojourners who keep in touch with friends and family at home also experience more loneliness and homesickness, and place more emphasis on their own cultural heritage. Finally, we found that SNS contact with host country relations predicts host country participation. Through online activities, sojourners are able to foster social interaction and strengthen friendships with locals.     

A latent class analysis of acculturation and depressive symptoms among Latino immigrants: Examining the role of social support

Drawing upon Berry’s (1980) bi-dimensional model of acculturation and using data from a community-based sample of adults in Miami-Dade, Florida, the current investigation compared various immigrant acculturation profiles in their levels of depressive symptoms and assessed the mediating role of social support in explaining mental health differences across these acculturation profiles. Latent class analysis specified separated, partial separated, bicultural and marginal profiles of acculturation among Latino immigrants. Notably, our findings identified a small, albeit significant, marginal class among Latino immigrants, and both bivariate and multivariate findings demonstrated that those in marginal class reported the poorest mental health. Our findings further revealed that the observed mental health disadvantage among the marginal class relative to other immigrants was due to their disadvantage in family support . Overall, this investigation further underscores the importance of family support as an element of immigrant acculturation experience and mental health. From a policy perspective, social support, specifically family support, is critical for immigrant mental health, and a lack of family support may increase the risk for developing a marginal experience and mental health problems among a growing population of Latino immigrants in the United States.     

“Please extinguish all cigarettes”: The effects of acculturation and gender on smoking attitudes and smoking prevalence of Chinese and Russian immigrants

Acculturation, assessed in several ways, predicted smoking attitudes among 364 male and female Chinese and Russian immigrants to the US. Four aspects of smoking attitudes, using the Smoking Attitude Scale, as well as smoking prevalence were measured. Acculturation level and gender were predictors of attitudes toward smoking. In general, the more years living in the US and the greater the use of English, the more negative the attitudinal dimension, in particular the interpersonal relations subscale. Acculturated immigrants were less likely to want to befriend, date or marry smokers. However, acculturated Chinese and Russian females held a more positive smoking attitude and were more likely to smoke, similar to native-born American females. Implications for smoking cessation campaigns suggest that ethnicity, acculturation level and gender factors should inform the design and placement of such programs.     

Facilitating adaptation and intercultural contact: The role of integration and multicultural ideology in dominant and non-dominant groups

Research on acculturation has documented that adaptation to a receiving society is affected by both the immigrants’ acculturation strategies and the dominant group's expectations about how immigrants should acculturate. However, the acculturation expectations have received relatively less attention from researchers, and support for multiculturalism has rarely been examined from the perspective of immigrants. The present study used the framework of the Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies (MIRIPS) project to investigate the acculturation experiences and intercultural relations in Hong Kong by incorporating mutual views of both the dominant and non-dominant groups. It also tested the mediating role of the dominant group's tolerance towards different cultural groups and the non-dominant group's perceived discrimination. Two community samples were recruited, including Hong Kong residents (N = 181) and immigrants from Mainland China (N = 182). Among Mainland immigrants, the integration strategy predicted both psychological adaptation and sociocultural adaptation. Multicultural ideology predicted psychological adaptation and played a significant role in intercultural contact with Hong Kong people through the mediation of lower perceived discrimination. Among Hong Kong residents, the integration expectation predicted psychological adaptation. Multicultural ideology indirectly affected intercultural contact with Mainland immigrants through the mediation of greater tolerance. These results suggest that the integration strategy and expectation are more important to intrapersonal functioning, whereas multicultural ideology may be more crucial in facilitating social interactions between members of the society of settlement and immigrants in culturally plural milieus. Future research should test the proposed models of dominant and non-dominant groups in other cultures.     

Host society's dislike of the Islamic veil: The role of subtle prejudice, values, and religion

The wearing of the Islamic veil by Muslim women has become a source of tensions in Western European countries. In order to investigate majority members’ attitudes towards the veil, the present two studies (Ns = 166 and 147), carried out in Belgium, integrated three lines of research that have focused on (a) the role of subtle prejudice/racism on the host society's attitudes towards immigrants, (b) the role of values on acculturation, and (c) the role of religious attitudes on prejudice. Results revealed the effects of subtle prejudice/racism, values (self-enhancement values and security versus universalism), and religious attitudes (literal anti-religious thinking versus spirituality), in predicting greater levels of anti-veil attitudes beyond the effects of other related variables such as age and political conservatism. The studies also suggest the importance of including religious attitudes as part of the intergroup-relation factors that predict attitudes towards immigrants, at least with regard to specific components of intercultural relations.     

Acculturation attitudes and adaptation among South Korean residents in Japan: The mediating role of coping strategies

Acculturation processes and intergroup experiences of minority groups have been little studied in East Asian societies, including Japan. The number of migrants in Japanese society is steadily increasing, suggesting that the country is a new immigration destination in the 21st century. Therefore, further research on the acculturation processes of immigrants in Japan is warranted. This study examined the relationships among acculturation attitudes, coping strategies, and psychological adjustment in a sample of South Korean newcomers living in Japan. The results of this study support the integration hypothesis, which states that balanced acculturation attitudes that favor engagement in both the host and home cultures lead to higher levels of psychological and sociocultural adaptation. Assimilation attitudes did not contribute significantly to adaptation. Different coping strategies employed by individuals during interethnic discrimination mediated the links between individual acculturation attitudes and the two aspects of adaptation. By linking acculturation attitudes and relevant social behaviors, this study sheds light on the role of coping strategies as mediators of the relationships between acculturation attitudes and psychological and sociocultural adjustment in ethnic minority groups.     

Acculturation and academic achievement of rural to urban migrant youth: The role of school satisfaction and family closeness

China's 'tidal wave' of rural to urban migration has had a tremendous impact on the educational outcomes of its children. It remains unexplored how and when do migrant children’s experience of acculturation following arrival in the place of settlement influence their academic achievement. This study used a stratified cross-sectional sample of 2412 Chinese migrant children and adolescents aged 10–18 (Mean = 14, 45 % female) to investigate the role of school satisfaction and family closeness in the relationship between acculturation patterns and academic achievement. Acculturation patterns are derived from the bidimensional model proposed by Berry (2005). The results indicated that integration had a positive association with concurrent academic achievement. School satisfaction was a mediator between integration and academic achievement. Furthermore, the full mediation of school satisfaction was only supported when there was a high level of family closeness. Findings from this study underline the usefulness of the bi-dimensional model in understanding the individual differences in academic achievement and suggest greater attention to the cultural variations in interpersonal functioning at the family and school context.     

Cultural adaptation and societal context: The role of historical heterogeneity in cultural adaptation of newcomers

In today’s global world, it has become increasingly important for individuals moving to a different country for work, study, or permanent relocation to successfully adapt to this new culture. Responding to recent calls in the literature for more ecological approaches to the study of cultural adaptation, we examine the effect of host country historical heterogeneity—or, the extent to which a country’s current inhabitants descended from a diverse pool of ancestors—on newcomers’ cultural adaptation to that country. Across two studies, we find that higher levels of host country historical heterogeneity predict higher rates of cultural adaptation among newcomers. This relationship persists even when accounting for individual characteristics of the newcomers and sociocultural/economic characteristics of the home and host countries. These results suggest that a country’s historical levels of diversity may contribute to the successful adaptation of newcomers above and beyond their personal characteristics, their home country environment, or current conditions in the host country, including current levels of diversity. These results have practical implications for facilitating newcomers’ successful cultural adaptation.