Integrative perspectives on acculturation

Comments on the original article, "Rethinking the concept of acculturation: Implications for theory and research," by S. J. Schwartz, J. B. Unger, B. L. Zamboanga, and J. Szapocznik (see record 2010-08987-001). Schwartz et al are to be commended for their attempts "to propose an expanded, multidimensional model of acculturation and of the demographic and contextual forces that can influence the acculturation process" (p. 238). In their article, they called attention to key factors such as the generational status of immigrants and their children; the role of location, particularly in ethnic enclaves; and the context of reception that immigrants enter, including the potential discrimination they may face. These variables are the crucial backdrop for the authors' call to "focus on the higher order construct of receiving-culture acquisition as well as on the individual dimensions of this higher order construct-practices, values, and identifications" (p. 246). As a sociologist trained in social psychology, I am pleased by their incorporation of some of the sociological literature on these processes. However, I was surprised by important gaps in their discussion of Portes and Rumbaut's (1996, 2006) work and by their neglect of one of the most widely used terms employed by sociologists to hypothesize outcomes for the very questions Schwartz et al were posing.     

Holding on and letting go: identity and acculturation among Chinese immigrants

This study addresses the general question of whether ethnic identity and general acculturation would prove unique discriminators of quality of life for Chinese immigrants. Eighty-three Chinese immigrants served as participants. Survey data were collected regarding acculturation, Asian identity, and quality of life; observers provided ratings of certain home environment characteristics; and participants responded to open-ended interview questions about their immigration experiences that allowed for qualitative data analysis on perspectives of culture. Significant analysis of covariance and post hoc comparison results revealed meaningful main effects and interactions between acculturation and Asian identity in explaining the immigrants' quality of life and ecocultural aspects of their home environments. Interview responses illuminated important distinctions between groups distinguished by level of acculturation and ethnic identity. Findings are discussed in terms of methodological and conceptual issues in studying acculturation and ethnic identity in immigration experiences and practical implications for immigrants and those working with them.     

Immigrant acculturation attitudes and host country identification

This study assessed the efficacy of a model predicting the host country identification of members of immigrant groups. The model proposed that host country identification is primarily determined by the positivity of the immigrants' acculturation attitude towards living according to the standards and values of the host country, followed by the degree of acceptance by members of the dominant cultural group, the success immigrants experience in the new country, and the extent to which they choose to live within their ethnic environment rather than the wider society. The study included 602 adult immigrants from a number of countries (Vietnam, People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and New Zealand), which varied in their cultural similarity to the host country, Australia. Results from a multiple regression analysis of participants' questionnaire responses revealed good support for the model. As expected, acculturation attitude towards Australia was the strongest predictor of host country identification, followed by acceptance by Australians, while extent of ethnic involvement was a significant negative predictor. The results also revealed ethnic identification as a significant positive predictor of host country identification. The importance of the relationship between acculturation attitudes and identification is discussed, together with immigrants' identification processes towards their ethnic group and the host country. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Minorities' acculturation and social adjustment: The moderator role of meta‐perceptions of majority's acculturation attitudes

Two studies addressed the role of Black meta‐perception of acculturation attitudes on the relation between minority acculturation attitudes and their social adjustment (school achievement and perceived quality of intergroup relations). Participants in both studies were Black Lusophone adolescents living in Portugal. Study 1 (N = 140) indicated that participants' attitude regarding the host culture was positively correlated with their school achievement and to their evaluation of intergroup relations. It also indicated that participants' meta‐perception of majority attitude add to the explained variance of participants' social adjustment. Study 2 (N = 62) manipulated the perceived majority high/low support of immigrants' learning the host culture. The dependent variable (DV) was perceived quality of intergroup relations. Only in the low support condition were participants' attitudes towards the host culture positively related to perceived quality of Black–White relationships. These results suggest that perceived social context is central to understand the relationship between minority adolescents' acculturation attitudes and key dimensions of their adjustment to host societies.     

Perfectionism and eating disturbances in Korean immigrants: Moderating effects of acculturation and ethnic identity

Korean society highly values personal appearance. Given the established links between perfectionism and eating disorders in Western countries, the present project investigated such links and the extent to which these were moderated by the acculturation patterns of the participants. Korean immigrants to New Zealand (N = 123) completed measures of perfectionism, ethnic identity, eating disorders, and social desirability. Positive and negative perfectionism were associated with eating‐disorder symptoms. For males, but not females, negative perfectionism was more strongly associated with increased body satisfaction only among those who identified strongly as Korean.     

When attitudes do not fit: discordance of acculturation attitudes as an antecedent of intergroup threat

Recent research has shown that the perspectives of both minorities and majorities should be taken into account to reach a deeper understanding of the acculturation process and its consequences for intergroup relations. The authors report two experiments that investigated the impact of discordant acculturation attitudes on perceived threat. In Study 1 (N=183), Germans were asked for their attitudes toward Turks and Italians. Different levels of concordance of acculturation attitudes were induced by presenting participants with newspaper articles describing the acculturation attitude of the respective out-group and perceived threat was measured. In Study 2 (N=100), two fictitious immigrant groups were used as target groups. Results in both studies showed that discordance of acculturation attitudes leads to higher perceptions of intergroup threat than concordance of acculturation attitudes. Furthermore, both studies supported the assumption that a similar out-group is perceived as less threatening than a dissimilar out-group.     

Asian Australian acculturation and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help

Research with 112 Asian Australian university students found that adherence to Asian cultural values inversely predicted attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Students completed demographic questions, the Asian Values Scale, the Suinn – Lew Asian Self‐Identity Scale, (which is a measure of acculturation), and the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale. There was a significant positive relationship between the Asian Australian students' level of behavioural acculturation and their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Significant differences were found between male and female participants in their attitudes, with female participants indicating greater willingness to seek help. Results also demonstrated a significant difference in gender on acculturation level as well as a significant difference in generational status and acculturation level.     

Greek Cypriot attitudes toward Turkish Cypriots and Turkish immigrants

The authors examined the attitudes of 106 Greek Cypriots toward Turkish Cypriots and Turkish immigrants on Cyprus. The authors examined Greek Cypriot attitudes, willingness to cohabit with Turkish Cypriots and Turkish immigrants, and the reasons behind their attitudes in terms of their social-identity perceptions, victimization experiences, and human-rights concerns. A series of repeated measures analyses of variance showed that Greek Cypriots were more willing to cohabit with and had less negative attitudes toward Turkish Cypriots than they were with and toward Turkish immigrants. Women felt more victimized by Turkish Cypriots and Turkish immigrants than did men. Perceived differences in social identity predicted unwillingness to cohabit with Turkish Cypriots. Feelings of victimization predicted negative attitudes toward Turkish Cypriots. Differences in social identity and victimization experiences predicted unwillingness to cohabit with Turkish immigrants. Differences in social identity predicted negative attitudes toward Turkish immigrants. The authors discussed the findings in terms of support for realistic group conflict theories of attitudes and their implications for the coexistence of these ethnic groups in Cyprus and of other ethnic groups in multicultural societies.     

Structural model of acculturation attitudes and related psychosocial variables: Empirical evidence in native Spaniards

This work falls within the framework of the study of acculturation processes of natives and immigrants. Its goal is to test an explanatory multi‐group model of natives' acculturation attitudes as a function of diverse psychosocial variables: Prejudice and natives' appraisal of their own culture (in a direct way) and inter‐group contact and perceived inter‐group similarity (in an indirect way). Participants were 499 Spaniards surveyed for their attitude towards Romanian immigrants and 493 towards Ecuadorian immigrants. The indicators used took into account three socio‐cultural spheres: peripheral, intermediate and central areas. This multi‐group model shows an adequate fit to the data.     

Perceived intergroup threat and attitudes of host community members toward immigrant acculturation

The authors expected the extent to which host community members (a) perceive immigrants as threatening, (b) believe that the immigrants are able to assimilate to the host community (permeability), and (c) consider their presence in the host community as legitimate to predict attitudes towards immigrant acculturation. The authors designed Study 1 to examine attitudes of Germans toward Turkish immigrants. Participants were 227 German white-collar and blue-collar workers. As expected, ethnocentric acculturation attitudes positively correlated with perceived threat and negatively correlated with perceived legitimacy and perceived permeability. However, only perceived threat contributed uniquely to the prediction of the attitudes. In Study 2, the authors applied an experimental manipulation of perceived threat. Before answering attitude questions, participants read magazine articles with a threatening, enriching, or irrelevant content. The manipulation had the predicted impact on the self-reported attitudes toward immigrants. However, the salience of threatening or enriching aspects of the Turkish culture did not affect implicitly measured attitudes.     

Evidence for a sensitive period for acculturation: younger immigrants report acculturating at a faster rate

Though recent adult immigrants often seem less acculturated to their new society than people who immigrated as children, it is not clear whether this difference is driven by duration of exposure or exposure during a sensitive developmental period. In a study aimed at disambiguating these influences, community and student samples of Hong Kong immigrants to Vancouver, Canada, completed the Vancouver Index of Acculturation, a measure that assesses respondents' identification with their mainstream and heritage cultures. A longer duration of exposure was found to be associated with greater identification with Canadian culture only at younger ages of immigration, but not at later ages of immigration. Conversely, identification with Chinese culture was unaffected by either age of immigration or length of exposure to Canadian culture. These findings provide evidence for a sensitive period for acculturation: People are better able to identify with a host culture the longer their exposure to it, but only if this exposure occurs when they are relatively young.     

Prejudice from thin air: The effect of emotion on automatic intergroup attitudes

Two experiments provide initial evidence that specific emotional states are capable of creating automatic prejudice toward outgroups. Specifically, we propose that anger should influence automatic evaluations of outgroups because of its functional relevance to intergroup conflict and competition, whereas other negative emotions less relevant to intergroup relations (e.g., sadness) should not. In both experiments, after minimal ingroups and outgroups were created, participants were induced to experience anger, sadness, or a neutral state. Automatic attitudes toward the in- and outgroups were then assessed using an evaluative priming measure (Experiment 1) and the Implicit Association Test (Experiment 2). As predicted, results showed that anger created automatic prejudice toward the outgroup, whereas sadness and neutrality resulted in no automatic intergroup bias. The implications of these findings for emotion-induced biases in implicit intergroup cognition in particular, and in social cognition in general, are considered.     

Relating ethnic identity, acculturation, and attitudes toward treating minority clients

This study assessed the relationship among the ethnic identity, acculturation, and self-concepts of minority health care professionals and their attitudes toward treating minority clients and using alternative therapies. The sample consisted of 150 medical students of Indian descent. Strong ethnic identity and acculturation related to high self-esteem, self-clarity, the likelihood of treating more minority patients, and the use of alternative therapies. The more "Westernized" participants expressed less of a preference for serving minority patients and believed themselves to be less effective in serving minorities. Gender differences in some aspects of ethnic identity and attitudes were found. The results imply that a focus on acculturation and ethnicity in all client-clinician psychological research is critical, and especially in cases of cultural matching.     

Coordinating perspectives: De se and taste attitudes in communication

The received picture of linguistic communication understands communication as the transmission of information from speaker's head to hearer's head. This picture is in conflict with the attractive Lewisian view of belief as self-location, which is motivated by de se attitudes – first-personal attitudes about oneself – as well as attitudes about subjective matters such as personal taste. In this paper, I provide a solution to the conflict that reconciles these views. I argue for an account of mental attitudes and communication on which mental content and speech act content is understood as sets of multicentered worlds – roughly, possible worlds ‘centered’ on a sequence of individuals at a time. I develop a Stalnakerian model of communication based on multicentered worlds content, and I provide a suitable semantics for personal pronouns and predicates of personal taste. The resulting picture is one on which the point of conversation is the coordination of individual perspectives.     

Classical and modern racial prejudice: a study of attitudes toward immigrants in Sweden

In two studies we develop and validate a Classical — overt or direct — and a Modern — covert or subtle — Racial Prejudice Scale, concerning attitudes toward immigrants, for a Swedish (Scandinavian) context. Further, we examine whether these two forms of prejudice are distinguishable. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that, although highly correlated, classical and modern racial prejudice are distinguishable. This conclusion was also supported by various construct validations. The findings are discussed in relation to other studies that compare the content and structure of modern and classical racism. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prejudice and the function of attitudes relating to Muslim Australians and Indigenous Australians

The aim of the present study was to examine prejudice against Muslim Australians and Indigenous Australians and the function of those attitudes using previously identified functions, direct experiential–schematic and value expressive, and including a new indirect experiential–schematic function. Respondents were categorised into two groups: accepting and rejecting. For the Muslim data there was no difference between accepting and rejecting groups regarding the value‐expressive function, but acceptors reported the experiential–schematic function to a greater extent than did rejectors. For the Indigenous data there was no difference between groups on the value‐expressive or the experiential–schematic function. With both target groups, rejectors reported the indirect experiential–schematic function more than acceptors. The value‐expressive function was higher for the Muslim data and the experiential–schematic function was higher for the Indigenous data. The importance of taking into account the function of respondents' attitudes, the distinction between source and function of attitudes, as well as specific issues surrounding target groups themselves, is discussed.     

Being prepared for acculturation: On the importance of the first months after immigrants enter a new culture

We hypothesized that perceived communication effectiveness at arrival and initial friendships with members of the receiving society during the first months after arrival in a new country have a long‐term effect on the development of acculturation orientations and that this effect is pronounced for individuals with a high need for cognitive closure (NCC). We examined the hypotheses in a study with Spanish‐speaking immigrants in Switzerland (n = 146) and in Italy (n = 147). We asked participants to indicate their current attitude to contact with the receiving society and cultural maintenance and report retrospectively their perceived communication effectiveness at arrival and initial friendships. In line with the predictions, the perceptions of high communication effectiveness at arrival and friendships with members of the receiving society during the initial phase in the new culture were positively correlated with the current attitude to contact with the receiving society assessed 7 years after arrival on average. Also, initial friendships with members of the receiving society were negatively correlated with present cultural maintenance. Moreover, with an increase in NCC, these correlations increased.     

The acculturation of Chinese immigrants: perceived effects on family functioning of length of residence in two cultural contexts

In two studies, conducted in Australia and the United States, first- and second-generation adolescents of Chinese descent, together with adolescents from the host culture (Anglo-Australian or Euro-American) and from Hong Kong, were asked about their family environment. In both studies, an autonomy-promoting family style differentiated the host culture from the Hong Kong Chinese, with the Chinese immigrants occupying an intermediate position. Chinese immigrants of both generations reported more structured, controlling family environments than did the nonimmigrant groups. First-generation Chinese-Australians reported a more organized family pattern than that of their second-generation peers, whereas second-generation Chinese-Americans perceived more family regulation of adolescents than did the first-generation respondents. The two studies yielded remarkably similar results in spite of differences in the Chinese communities' positions in the host culture. There was evidence of somewhat rapid change in the first-generation families toward individualistic norms but little shift in family environment as a function of length of residence.     

Risk and protective factors for delinquency among male adolescent immigrants at different stages of the acculturation process

This cross-sectional study investigated a model of risk and protective factors of the family, school, and peer environment that predict adolescent delinquent behaviour. Three social groups were compared: newcomer ethnic German adolescent immigrants, experienced ethnic German adolescent immigrants, and native adolescents. Based on theoretical assumptions about processes of acculturation, it was hypothesized that the strength of associations between the variables in the theoretical model would vary between newcomer immigrants and native adolescents and also between newcomer and experienced immigrants, but would be similar for experienced immigrants and native adolescents; these hypotheses were supported. Findings suggest that certain risk factors, such as parental violence and involvement with delinquent peers, are more strongly related to delinquency among newcomer immigrants than among experienced immigrants and native adolescents, whereas certain protective factors, such as parental knowledge and school bonding, seem to be relevant for experienced immigrants and native adolescents only. Results seem to indicate that migration can be seen as phase transition with a stronger impact of risk factors on the development of delinquency among newcomer immigrant adolescents. This has implications for studying acculturation processes in immigrant groups as well as for group-specific intervention programmes.     

The role of immigrant acculturation preferences and generational status in determining majority intergroup attitudes

Two experiments (Ns = 220, 135) investigated the role of first and second generation immigrants' desire for Culture Maintenance and Intercultural Contact in affecting majority members' intergroup attitudes (2 × 2 × 2 design). Participants were presented with fictitious interviews through which immigrants' acculturation preferences and generational status were manipulated. Immigrants' desire for contact strongly affected host members' attitudes: those who were perceived to want contact elicited more favourable intergroup attitudes than those who did not. Desire for contact also moderated the relationship between immigrants' desire for culture maintenance and attitudes towards them: culture maintenance only stimulated favourable attitudes if the immigrant also expressed desire for contact. Immigrants' generational status and their desire for Culture Maintenance were found to interact, such that less favourable attitudes were shown towards second generation immigrants refusing their heritage culture. Psychological processes mediating these effects were investigated, finding evidence for symbolic threat, appreciation for multiculturalism and metastereotypes. Overall, the results suggest that both immigrants' generational status and acculturation attitudes should be taken into account when studying intergroup attitudes of dominant groups and in planning interventions for the improvement of intercultural relations.