Sociocultural Approach: Acculturation

Question 1

Berry (2000) - What is acculturation?

Answer 1

• the process in which people who move into another culture begin to adopt the norms and behaviors of the majority culture
• individual level: involves changes in a person’s behavior
• globalized world - contact with other cultures
• voluntary: expatriates
• involuntary: refugees

Question 2

Berry (1974) - what are the 4 acculturation strategies?

Answer 2

1. assimilation
2. integration
3. separation
4. marginalization

Question 3

Berry (1974) - What is assimilation?

Answer 3

• when an individual abandons their own culture and adopts the cultural behaviors/values of the new culture

Question 4

Berry (1974) - What is integration?

Answer 4

• when there is an interest in adopting the behaviors/values of the new culture, whilst maintaining their own culture

Question 5

Berry (1974) - What is separation?

Answer 5

• when migrants maintain their own culture and minimize contact with the new culture

Question 6

Berry (1974) - What is marginalization?

Answer 6

• when it’s not possible to maintain one’s own culture, but due to exclusion/discrimination, it’s not possible to assimilate into the new culture

Question 7

Berry (1974) - what is acculturative stress?

Answer 7

• moving to a new culture often results in a personal battle between enculturation – maintaining one’s cultural identity – and acculturation, changing one’s culture in order to fit in
• as we are social animals who have a need to belong, not feeling a part of a group can be very stressful
• the result of this tension is known as acculturative stress - the psychological, somatic, and social difficulties that may accompany acculturation, often resulting in anxiety, depression, and other forms of mental and physical stress
• it is a reduction in the mental health and well-being of ethnic minorities that occurs during the process of adaptation to a new culture
• acculturative stress is often referred to as “culture shock”

Question 8

Berry (1974) - what are acculturation gaps?

Answer 8

• generational differences in acculturation and how this leads to conflict within the family
• immigrant parents and their children live in different cultural worlds
• as a result of the school system, children of immigrants will have more contact with the new culture than their parents - they will usually develop language skills faster and acculturate more quickly to the values of the new culture
• for immigrant children, it can be difficult to live with the expectations and demands of one culture in the home and another at school
• children may not turn to their parents with problems and concerns, believing their parents do not know the culture; instead, they will turn to peers or adults in the new culture for advice

Question 9

Evaluate acculturation

Answer 9

• acculturation research is a holistic approach to understanding human health and wellness
• the model is in one direction: immigrants need to fit into the mainstream culture - this is hierarchical and doesn’t recognize that culture changes over time
• it also labels people as having “a strategy” whereas strategies may be context-dependent: ie. a university student may feel very comfortable in their own culture when celebrating traditional rituals or discussing family but may be unable to relate to their own culture when discussing political ideas
• overall, the argument is that the model is helpful, but it is overly simplistic

Question 10

Lueck & Wilson (2010) can be used for…

Answer 10

acculturation & assimilation

Question 11

Lueck & Wilson (2010) - aim

Answer 11

• to investigate the variables that may predict acculturative stress in a nationally representative sample of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans
• around half of the sample were first-generation immigrants who were 18 years or older when they came to the US
• the rest were born in the US to first-gen immigrant parents
• sample consisted of Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese people

Question 12

Lueck & Wilson (2010) - procedure

Answer 12

• researchers carried out semi-structured interviews
• interviewers had similar cultural/linguistic backgrounds as sample
• randomly selected sample was contacted to validate the data taken from the interviews
• interviews measured level of acculturative stress and impact of language proficiency, preference, discrimination, social networks, family cohesion, and socioeconomic status on acculturative stress

Question 13

Lueck & Wilson (2010) - findings & conclusion

Answer 13

• most participants had acculturative stress

contributions to stress included:

lower acculturative stress:
- bilingual language preference (networks of support within and outside community)
- sharing similar beliefs/values as family
- those satisfied with economic opportunities in the US

higher acculturative stress:
- English speaking preferences
- Asians who don’t know their native language well (family communication)
- negative treatment (xenophobia, harassment, threats)

Question 14

Lueck & Wilson (2010) - evaluation

Answer 14

strengths:
- the researcher asks follow-up questions when they get an interesting or unclear response; this avoids the problem where an individual did not understand the question or wrote something ambiguous/undeveloped

limitations:
- interviews are open to interviewer effects - where characteristics of the interviewer may lead the interviewee to disclose less (or more) information
- constructs of acculturative stress and level of acculturation are relatively subjective
- measuring the extent to which one shares values with one’s family assumes that the values of Asian culture are the same for all families
- economic satisfaction is subjective, so it is not a problem that it is self-reported - however, it is difficult to say that a reported level of economic satisfaction by one person is equivalent to that same level of reported satisfaction by another person

Question 15

Kraeh et al (2016) can be used for…

Answer 15

acculturation

Question 16

Kraeh et al (2016) - aim

Answer 16

• to see if there is a relationship between a refugee’s level of acculturation and their mental and physical health

Question 17

Kraeh et al (2016) - procedure

Answer 17

• correlational study: data was collected both by surveys and by carrying out medical examinations on the refugees
• sample: North Korean refugees ages 30 and older, mostly female, and had lived an average of 3 years in Seoul
• refugees were given two surveys
• 1st survey: asked questions about their level of acculturation to South Korean society
• 2nd survey: asked about their mental health – rating their levels of depression and anxiety
• medical exams measured resting heart rate and blood pressure

Question 18

Kraeh et al (2016) - findings & conclusion

Answer 18

• results showed a positive correlation between the level of acculturation and psychological health and a negative correlation with resting heart rate
• researchers also found that the relationship between physical and mental health was an example of spiraling causality - acculturation to the high-stress life of Seoul initially reduced physical health; however, being outside of North Korea increased their mental health
• as mental health improved, physical health also improved
• researchers found that if refugees were employed, they were better adjusted to their new culture and had better overall health

Question 19

Kraeh et al (2016) - evaluation

Answer 19

strengths:
- relatively large sample size and used a highly standardized approach

limitations:
- use of surveys may result in demand characteristics
- studies are often cross-sectional, meaning that they do not observe change over time
- difficult to operationalize and measure the level of the four outcomes in Berry’s model
- the transferability of the findings is limited: although there are clearly political and economic differences, the cultural differences may not be as great as moving to a Western culture