Living in Multicultural Worlds

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Living in Multicultural Worlds
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Acculturation

• Research on acculturation is very important but
  difficult to do. Ideally, studying how people
  acquire new cultures would be conducted
  longitudinally, but this is rarely done.

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• People move to many different kinds of contexts -
  cultural ghettos, homogenous neighborhoods,
  expatriate communities, or cultures which
  actively discriminate against them.
• Cultures vary in their similarity to peoples
  heritage culture.
• Furthermore, people have different
  personalities, goals, and expectations that
  affect how they acculturate.
• Hence, peoples experiences vary tremendously and
  there are few universal acculturation findings.

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What Happens When People Move to a New Culture?

• Moving to a new culture involves psychological
  adjustment, and psychological adjustment can
  often be associated with stress.
• One common pattern of acculturation is captured
  by a U-shaped curve.

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• The U-shaped curve is quite common, although some
  people never experience the Honeymoon phase.

• In more homogenous cultures the adjustment phase
  of the curve is sometimes not experienced. For
  example, one study of immigrants to Japan showed
  an L-shaped curve (Hsiao-Ying, 1995).

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Who Adjusts Better?

• There are many variables that predict how likely
  it is for a person to have an easier time
  acculturating to a particular culture.

• A parallel phenomenon exists for learning another
  language.
• Languages can be categorized by how recently they
  shared a common linguistic ancestor. Those which
  have a more recent common linguistic ancestor,
  are more similar in terms of their grammar and
  morphology.

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Average Scores on TOEFL by Native Tongue
Teutonic
Indo-European Languages
Romance
Other I-E
Non-Indo-European Languages
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• The more similar ones native tongue is to
  English, the easier it is to learn English.

• Sojourners who have greater cultural distance
  from the host culture tend to show more distress,
  have more medical consultations, and have more
  difficulty in making friendships with people from
  the host culture.
• For example, Malaysian exchange students who
  studied in culturally-similar Singapore showed
  more successful adjustment than those who studied
  in more culturally distant New Zealand (Ward
  Kennedy, 1995).

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• One example of this can be seen in Canada, by
  looking at the success that various First Nations
  tribes have adjusted since Western
  colonialization began.
• Three distinct tribes were assessed in terms of
  their cultural similarity to Western culture, and
  in the hardships that they faced.

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• The Tsimshian of the Northwest BC coast
  traditionally relied largely on subsistence
  practices (mostly fishing) that allowed them to
  accumulate large quantities of food and establish
  permanent highly stratified settlements.

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• The Eastern Cree from Northern Quebec were
  migratory, did not accumulate many resources, and
  had little stratification.

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• The Carrier, of Northeastern BC were intermediate
  in terms of their resource accumulation, and
  social stratification.

• Paralleling the cultural similarities with
  colonial culture, the Tsimshian acculturated to
  mainstream Canadian culture with the least
  acculturative stress, the Eastern Cree showed the
  most difficulties, and the Carrier were
  intermediate.

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• An individuals personality is also predictive of
  their motivations to migrate elsewhere ands in
  their acculturative success.
• Extraversion should foster acculturative success,
  because extraverts communicate more with others,
  and are thus socialized more quickly to new
  cultural norms.

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• Extraversion might universally predict who is
  more likely to move to new environments.
• However, extraversion does not universally
  predict acculturation success. What is more
  important is whether the individuals personality
  matches with that of the dominant host culture.
• Extraverts fare well in a largely extraverted
  culture, such as the US, but extraverts have more
  problems fitting in in less extraverted cultures,
  such as Singapore (see Armes Ward, 1989).

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• People vary in the acculturation strategies that
  they use.
• The two key variables are how positive are
  peoples attitudes towards their host culture,
  and how positive are there attitudes towards
  their heritage culture.

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• However, research finds mixed evidence where both
  the integration and the assimilation strategy
  yield the most positive outcomes.

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• The marginalization strategy is the least
  common strategy, and it has the fewest positive
  outcomes. Some suggest that this really isnt a
  strategy, but reflects neuroticism.
• Assimilation and separation strategies are
  intermediate in frequency.

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• Societies vary in the model of multiculturalism
  that they pursue.

• What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses
  of these two models?

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• In the process of adapting to a new culture, one
  needs to begin to see things in a new way.
• There can be some particular benefits to learning
  how to see things differently.

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Do Multicultural Experiences Foster Creativity?

• Creative insight might be fostered by adjusting
  to a new cultural environment, where you learn to
  see things differently. If you are used to
  looking at life from more than one perspective,
  you might be more likely to have creative
  insights.
• Many famous artists and writers had multicultural
  experiences.

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How could you attach the candle to the wall so
that it burns properly, and doesnt get wax on
the floor, using only these objects?
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• MBA students were more likely to solve the candle
  task if they had spent time living abroad (see
  Maddux Galinsky, in press).

• An alternative explanation is that it might be
  that creative people are more likely to live
  abroad. That is, perhaps having a creative
  personality leads one to be more interested in
  adapting to new cultures.
• To address this, its necessary to manipulate
  adaptation.

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• To address this, in another study, multicultural
  people (i.e., MBA students who had lived in more
  than one culture) were randomly assigned to a
  number of conditions.
• Participants in an Adaptation prime condition
  were asked to imagine adapting themselves to a
  foreign culture.
• In an Observation prime condition, participants
  were asked to imagine observing a foreign
  culture.
• And participants in a control condition received
  no priming materials.
• In the creativity task, participants were asked
  to draw an alien. They were to imagine they had
  gone to a planet very different from earth.
• Coders rated the similarity to earth creatures
  and the number of sensory atypicalities.

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Creativity of Alien Drawings

• Participants who thought about adapting to a new
  culture were more creative in their drawings
  compared to the other conditions.
• Thinking about observing another culture didnt
  yield the same effects. It seems to be that
  adaptation to other cultures is what is key to
  enhanced creativity.

Rated Creativity
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• Adapting to a new culture is not only associated
  with positive outcomes.
• One way that acculturation can be negative, is
  when immigrants come to pick up the less
  desirable characteristics of a culture.
• Many immigrants live in the poorest
  neighborhoods. The crime rate and the drop-out
  rate in these neighborhoods can be quite high.

• Ironically, those immigrants who are especially
  adept at fitting in with their new surroundings,
  are more likely to drop out of school and engage
  in criminal activities.

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Obesity of Americans

• Immigrants adapt to American life in a number of
  ways. The longer theyve lived in the US, the
  more likely they are to have picked up the eating
  habits and resulting obesity levels.

Percentage Obese
Recent Long-Term
National Immigrants Immigrants Average
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• Some of the effects of discrimination are direct.
  People might not get hired, banks might not lend
  money, and they might be the victim of harassment
  and violence.

• Other harmful effects of discrimination are more
  indirect. People may internalize stereotypes,
  which shape their expectations, and ultimately
  come to act in ways consistent with those
  stereotypes.
• Stereotype threat is the fear that one might
  confirm a negative stereotype about ones group
  (see Steele Aronson, 1995).

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• Stereotype threat is a powerful explanation for
  the persistence of negative outcomes among
  minorities who are discriminated against.
• For example, African-Americans underperform
  European-Americans at university, even after
  controlling for their level of preparation.

• Stereotype threat explains this because of the
  negative stereotype that exists about
  African-American academic performance. Whenever
  an African-American student encounters a
  difficult academic challenge, they will be
  reminded of the negative stereotype. This leads
  to worse performance, so in the end, the student
  has proven the stereotype.
• Much research shows how subtle reminders of ones
  group can activate stereotype threat.

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• One classic study by Steele and Aronson had
  African-American and European-American students
  at Stanford take the GRE verbal test.
• In one condition they took the test as is, in
  another condition, they took the test after first
  checking a box to indicate their race.

• African-American students answered fewer items
  correctly when they were asked to indicate their
  race compared with when they were not.
• European-Americans performance was unaffected by
  indicating their race.
• Subtle primes can elicit stereotype threat and
  have dramatic consequences.

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• There have been various efforts made to reduce
  stereotype threat.
• For example, just being aware of the existence of
  stereotype threat reduces its impact (Johns,
  Schmader, Martens, 2005).
• We conducted a study to investigate whether the
  perceived source of a stereotype influences its
  ability to impair performance (Dar-Nimrod
  Heine, 2006).

• One common negative stereotype is that women
  struggle with math.
• We investigated whether women would have more
  difficulty with math if they learned that the
  source of the stereotype was due to genetic
  factors or to experiential factors.

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• We randomly assigned UBC female students into one
  of four conditions
• Control condition, where they learned that there
  are no sex differences in math.
• Standard Stereotype Threat condition, where
  they were reminded of their sex.
• Genetic Account condition, where they were
  informed that scientists had identified math
  genes on the Y chromosome.
• Experiential Account condition, where they were
  informed that scientists had discovered that
  childrens early experiences with teachers
  provided boys and girls with different math
  expectations.
• We then gave them a very difficult math test and
  assessed how many questions they correctly
  answered.

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Womens Math Performance

• Women who were reminded of their sex performed
  worse than a control condition.
• Women who were informed of genetic accounts of
  math performance and sex performed the same as
  those who were just reminded of their sex. This
  suggests that womens default way of explaining
  sex differences in math is genetic.
• Women who were informed of experiential accounts
  did not show any stereotype threat. Apparently,
  people feel that they can overcome their
  experiences.
• If these results can be generalized, they suggest
  that the harmful effects of stereotype threat
  across races is because people view racial
  differences in genetic terms.

Number of Correct Answers
Standard Stereotype Threat
Control
Genetic
Experiential
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Multicultural People

• If peoples self-concepts and ways of thinking
  are shaped by their cultural experiences, then
  what kind of self-concept do people have who live
  in more than one culture?
• There are two ways that multicultural experiences
  impact the self-concept, and there is some
  evidence for both.
• Blending - Peoples self-concepts reflect a
  hybrid of their two cultural worlds.
• Frame-switching - People maintain multiple
  self-concepts and switch between them depending
  on context.

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Evidence for Blending

• Do the self-concepts of multicultural people look
  intermediate between the self-concepts of
  monocultural people from different cultures?
• In most cases, the answer appears to be Yes.
  For example, Asian-Americans show evidence of
  ways of thinking in between those of Americans
  and Asians for a wide variety of phenomena.
• We have investigated the self-esteem of people
  with exposure to both Canadian and East Asian
  cultures.

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Self-Esteem Change After 7 months

• In one study we assessed the self-esteem of
  people longitudinally across two points in time
  prior to moving to a new culture and then again 7
  months after moving.
• When Japanese had lived in Canada for 7 months,
  their self-esteem increased significantly over
  that period.

• In contrast, when Canadians had lived in Japan
  for 7 months, their self-esteem decreased
  significantly over that period.

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• In another study we compared the self-esteem of
  people with exposure to East Asian and Canadian
  culture cross-sectionally.
• We had a very large sample (about 5000) that we
  divided in terms of peoples exposure to North
  American culture along a continuum. Starting
  with the least exposure we had
• Never Been-Abroad Japanese, who had never left
  Japan.
• Been-Abroad Japanese, who had spent some time
  in the West.
• Recent East Asian Immigrants, who had been in
  North America for less than 7 years.
• Long-Term East Asian Immigrants, who had been in
  North America for more than 7 years.
• 2nd-Generation East Asian Canadians.
• 3rd-Generation East Asian Canadians
• European-Canadians

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Self-Esteem and Exposure to North American Culture

• Never Been-Abroad Japanese have self-esteem
  scores that approach the midpoint of the scale,
  whereas the self-esteem of European-Canadians is
  much higher.
• With increasing exposure to North American
  culture the self-esteem of East Asians increases
  accordingly.
• The self-esteem of 3rd Generation Asian-Canadians
  is indistinguishable from European-Canadians. If
  this result can be generalized, it suggests that
  three generations is necessary for complete
  acculturation.

Self-Esteem Scores
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Evidence for Frame-Switching

• Rather than blending two self-concepts, an
  alternative account is that people switch between
  two different self-concepts.
• The blending evidence might reflects the
  proportion of individuals who are currently
  thinking in a Western style or in an East Asian
  style.
• Evidence of frame-switching is clear in language.
  Bilinguals do not speak a blended language like
  Spanglish. Rather, they switch between speaking
  in Spanish and speaking in English, depending on
  context.
• There is much evidence for frame-switching.

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• For example, the sociologist Elijah Anderson
  describes how inner-city African-Americans need
  to switch between the code of the decent and
  the code of the street. Different contexts
  require different ways of speaking and
  interacting with people.
• This demonstrates that people are responsive to
  contextual cues about how they act and present
  themselves to others.
• Does frame-switching extend to domains that are
  unrelated to self-presentation? Do people switch
  between different ways of thinking that might not
  be conscious to them?

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• One study investigated whether biculturals would
  show thinking styles more characteristic of their
  two cultures if they were primed with cultural
  ideas (Hong et al., 2000).
• Students from Hong Kong were shown images that
  were either neutral, or primed Western ideas, or
  Chinese ideas.

• They were asked why is the front fish swimming
  ahead of the others? Is it something about the
  fish (internal attribution) or about the school
  (external).

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Explaining the Behavior of Fish

• Participants who saw American primes were less
  likely to explain the fishs behavior in terms of
  the group of fish compared with the other
  conditions.
• Participants who saw Chinese primes were more
  likely to make external attributions for the
  fishs behavior compared with the other
  conditions.
• Apparently, the Hong Kong participants have
  access to both Western and non-Western ways of
  making sense of the fishs behavior, and which
  one they use depends on which cultural context
  has been activated for them.

Likelihood of Making an External Attribution
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• Other kinds of primes have shown similar evidence
  for frame-switching.
• In particular, the language of the study appears
  to effectively prime different cultural thoughts
  among bilinguals.
• When bilinguals switch languages they also appear
  to be switching their self-concepts as well.

• These studies raise the question of whether
  biculturals are the only ones who show
  frame-switching.
• Indeed, much research finds that priming ideas in
  anyone, monocultural or multicultural, leads to
  the activation of associated networks. However,
  multicultural people show more pronounced
  frame-switching.

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