Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152

DOI 10.1007/s10447-010-9095-z

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Influence of Family Perceptions of Acting White

on Acculturative Stress in African American
College Students

Keisha V. Thompson & Nicole L. Lightfoot &

Linda G. Castillo & Morgan L. Hurst

Published online: 10 April 2010

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract This study examined family-oriented stressors on acculturative stress in 83

African American college students attending a predominately White university. Results
showed that family pressure for participants not to acculturate, pressure to maintain ethnic
group language, perception of Acting White, and acculturation level were related to higher
acculturative stress for participants. After controlling for acculturation and general stress,
family pressure to maintain the ethnic group’s language and perception of Acting White
accounted for a statistically significant proportion of the variance in acculturation stress.
The findings emphasize the need to recognize culture-specific stressors of college students.
Implications for mental health providers are discussed.

Keywords Acculturative stress . African American college students . Acting White .

Intragroup marginalization

Introduction

Acculturative stress is the stress experienced by individuals as they move from their culture
of origin toward another culture (Joiner and Walker 2002). As African American students
typically attend colleges that are outside of their cultures of origin, it becomes imperative to
gain an understanding of the role acculturative stress plays in their lives. African American
students are often socialized based on African American culture and the university setting is
typically comprised of White American values and beliefs (Castillo et al. 2004). The
incompatibility of these two sets of values and beliefs produces acculturative stress (Castillo
et al. 2008). Acculturative stress is different from the stress normally associated with
college students in that it is composed of the difficulties and stressors that are associated
with the adaptation process of acculturation (Anderson 1991). In order to gain an
understanding of acculturative stress for African American college students, the process of
acculturation must first be understood.

K. V. Thompson (*) : N. L. Lightfoot : L. G. Castillo : M. L. Hurst

Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4225, USA
e-mail: keisha.thompson@neo.tamu.edu
Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152 145

Acculturation is the process of adapting to a new culture. Historically, this construct has
been applied to immigrant populations. However in societies such as the United States
(U.S.) where there is a distinct dominant culture and group (White, European American),
the construct can also be applied to the experiences of African Americans and other
minority group members (Landrine and Klonoff 1994). Evidence from cross-cultural
psychology suggests that the influences and expectations of one’s culture, greatly impacts
on behavior (Berry et al. 1992). African Americans, as well as other ethnic groups, often
shoulder the responsibility of undertaking complex negotiations between the dominant
culture and their own, in order to establish a socially acceptable pattern of behavior.
Acculturation can occur at the level of the entire ethnic group or at the individual level.
Acculturation exists at the group level when the ethnic group collectively shifts to adopt the
changes in culture; whereas psychological acculturation is the adoption of differential
cultural values at the individual group member’s psychological level (Berry 1997).
Therefore, acculturation can be viewed as both a personal and/or collective process, which
provides at least a partial explanation why levels of acculturative stress can vary across
ethnic groups as well as within group members because it is essentially a by-product of the
stressors uniquely associated with the process of acculturation.
Anderson (1991) contends that many Black Americans have not completely assimilated
into U.S. American society. Though superficially they appear to share a common language,
behavior patterns, and core values with U.S. culture (dominant culture), there is still
Afrocentrism in Black culture that stands in stark contrast to the prevailing Eurocentric
ways of the mainstream U.S. American culture. Subsequently, the strength of the degree to
which the individual identifies with heritage Afrocentric principles may play a role in the
acculturative process and the acculturative stress that often follows.
The beliefs, values, and practices that many African Americans are socialized into can
be remarkably different from those of the institution they enter for college. Participating in
majority White cultural institutions, such as university, often requires African American
students to engage in values, beliefs and practices that may be different from their culture of
origin. Thus, many African American college students undergo an acculturation process
when they begin college (Landrine and Klonoff 1994). Because of the discrepancy in
cultural norms, stress is often associated with this transition and has been referred to in the
literature as acculturative stress (Joiner and Walker 2002).
Acculturative stress for African Americans is in addition to and distinct from general life
stress (Joiner and Walker 2002). Acculturative stress is defined as the sources of tension
that are associated with acculturation factors (Anderson 1991). As previously discussed, the
college environment typically adopts the norms of White, European American values and
beliefs (Castillo 2010). For some African American students, acculturative stress occurs as
a result of feeling pressured to adopt university cultural norms that may differ from their
own cultural values. For example, White American culture values individualism and
cultural group members are expected to become independent from their families, whereas
African American cultural norms tend to be more collectivistic in nature and family
interdependence is expected regardless of age (Belgrave and Allison 2006). African
American students who perceive these cultural beliefs and expectations as oppositional to
their own may find it problematic to find a balance between the cultures (Walker 2007).
Scholars contend that African American students who experience acculturative stress are
also at risk for suicide (Joiner and Walker 2002; Walker 2007). Walker (2007) contends that
many African Americans experience threats to their racial identity and to culture-specific
values and patterns of living due to the acculturation process. Furthermore, as indicated in a
study by Landrine and Klonoff (1996), acculturated African Americans who are more
146 Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152

assimilated to White American culture show a decrease in traditional support networks and
rely on the support of co-workers and friends rather than family and relatives. Thus, it
would seem that the exposure to acculturative stress and erosion of cultural protective
factors may increase the suicidal risk of African Americans.

General Stress

General stress can be viewed as a by-product of challenging life circumstances that are
present throughout an individual’s life. Monat and Lazarus (1991) defined stress as “any
event in which environmental demands, internal demands, or both, tax or exceed the
adaptive resources of the individual” (p. 3). The individual’s adaptive resources influence
how they may perceive an event; and determine if the demands of the event surpass their
ability to effectively cope. The ability to adapt and successfully cope with internal and/or
external stressors is of paramount importance. Research shows that appraisals (Walker et al.
2007), emotional regulation (Martin and Dahlen 2005), self esteem (Smokowski and
Bacallao 2007) and social support (Taylor et al. 2007) can be mediating factors in the
individual’s ability to respond to stressors.
Stress has been shown to be a major source of concern for the African American
community and has a profound impact on one’s mental and physical health (Townsend et al.
2007). Some research suggests that stress takes a greater physical than psychological toll on
African Americans, as they have higher rates of stress related death and disease than White,
European Americans (Williams et al. 1997) but equivalent or lower rates of psychiatric illness
and suicide (Vanderwerker et al. 2007). Inherent in Black culture, scholars speculate that there
may be cultural mechanisms that buffer the psychological effects of stress, but still leave
African Americans vulnerable to physical ailments (Anderson 1991).
What is not clear in research is why African Americans experience high levels of stress
and the consequential conditions. Anderson (1991) posits that models of stress should be
broadened to consider the unique experiences and sources of stress of African Americans.
Specifically, he states that in order to gain an understanding of stress and coping among
African Americans, the nature, structure and dynamics of the cultural experiences of
African Americans should guide research. Although general stress can certainly coexist
with acculturative stress, the work of Joiner and Walker (2002) and Anderson (1991) has
demonstrated acculturative stress to be a distinct entity present in African Americans. Thus,
following Anderson’s contention, the present study seeks to examine acculturative stress in
African American college students particularly as it relates to factors such as threats to
culture-specific values and group identity and how these factors may create an enhanced
vulnerability for acculturative stress.

Acting White

Cultural groups generally have specific expectations for members of their group, and group
members generally behave in ways that are consistent with such cultural expectations
(Berry et al. 1992). For instance, Ogbu (1999) conducted a 2-year ethnographic study and
found that within the African American community there is a linguistic expectation that
Black English should be used as the exclusive means of everyday communication within
the Black community. Failure to comply with the linguistic expectations of the community
evoked anger and accusations of acting White from community members who believed that
such behavior was evidence of the individual adopting White attitudes of superiority, trying
to hide being Black, and a loss of Black language within the community.
Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152 147

Heritage cultural group members’ reactions to an individual who does not comply with
the group norms is also demonstrated in a study of Black adolescents. Neal-Barnett (2001)
conducted a qualitative study with six focus groups of 35 Black adolescents to explore
adolescents’ conceptualizations of what is meant by acting White. The results of the study
found two levels of what is meant by acting White. The first level was a surface definition,
which consisted of behavioral characteristics such as speaking Standard English or wearing
‘Abercrombie & Fitch’ clothing. The second level consisted of emotions and cognitions of
being accused of acting White, such as feelings of being disowned, hurt, and angry at the
accusations that questioned that they were not Black. Furthermore, results indicated that
participants perceived as acting White experienced sanctions from their same-race peers,
which ranged from questioning the individual’s ethnic group loyalty to social ostracism.
Neal-Barnett concluded that reactions to participants perceived as acting White had “little to
do with being White and everything to do with what it means to be Black” (2001, p. 81).
Intragroup marginalization theory provides an explanation for why accusations of acting
White occur (Castillo et al. 2007). Intragroup marginalization is defined as the perceived
distancing by members of the heritage culture when an individual displays cultural
characteristics of the dominant group. The construct of intragroup marginalization is
predicated on social research theory. Ethnic groups have their own distinct cultural identity
and as a group member’s behavior begins to move away from the maintenance of that
cultural identity and begins to approximate that of the dominant culture, the acculturating
member may perceive that other group members are imposing social sanctions against
them, thus marginalizing them from the group. When a member of said group is observed
displaying behaviors or attitudes outside of the group norm, other members may perceive
this behavior as a threat to the group’s distinct identity (Castillo et al. 2007). Interpersonal
distancing ranges from questioning of loyalty to the ethnic group to social ostracism.
Research has found that intragroup marginalization is associated with acculturative stress
for Latino college students (Castillo et al. 2008). Castillo et al. conducted a study to
examine the influence of family conflict and intragroup marginalization on acculturative
stress of Latino college students. Their study found that even after controlling for the effects
of income and family conflict, intragroup marginalization significantly predicted accultur-
ative stress. Although Castillo et al. (2008) found that familial intragroup marginalization
was a significant predictor of acculturative stress, to date there have been no studies on this
phenomenon with African American college students.
There has been a growing interest in the role of acculturation and acculturative stress in
African Americans. In order to gain a better understanding of African American students’
experiences with acculturative stress, it is imperative to examine family-oriented stressors.
The purpose of this study was to explore the role of family perceptions of acting White on
acculturative stress for African American college students. We predicted that family
pressure not to acculturate and to maintain the culture of origin would create significantly
higher acculturative stress for participants.

Method

Participants and Procedures

African American college students were recruited through an introductory psychology

course as well as an African American graduate student listserv at a predominately White
university in the United States. All participants were directed to a web page to complete the
148 Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152

survey anonymously. The web page provided a description of the study, a statement of
institutional review board approval, and the researcher’s contact information. Of the 83
students who volunteered to participate in the study, there were 50 female and 33 male
respondents. A majority of the participants were undergraduate students (n=62; graduate=
21). The ages ranged from 17 to 46 (M=22.38; SD=6.63).

Measures

Demographics

A demographic questionnaire was used to obtain background information of the research

participants, such as age, sex, parental income and college status.

Stress

General stress was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen and Williamson
1988). The PSS is a well-established, 10-item scale that measures the degree of self
appraised general life stress. Participants respond to a series of statements designed to
evaluate the degree of stress experienced on a 5-point response format ranging from never
(0) to very often (4). Cohen and Williamson (1988) reported an internal reliability of .78.
Alpha for this study was .82.

Family Intragroup Marginalization

Perceived intragroup marginalization was measured using the Intragroup Marginalization

Inventory Family Scale (IMI-Family; Castillo et al. 2007). The IMI-Family evaluates the
extent to which an acculturating individual experiences interpersonal distancing by family.
The IMI-Family uses a 7-point response format ranging from “never/does not apply” (0) to
“extremely often” (6). Items on the IMI-Family consist of statements such as “Family
members tell me that I act White”. Higher scores indicate higher perceptions of intragroup
marginalization.
The IMI-Family has four subscales that measure: Homeostatic Pressure, Linguistic
Expectations, Accusation of Assimilation, and Discrepant Values. A study on the IMI-
Family’s construct validity with Latino, Asian American, and African American students
found that it is moderately correlated with established measures of social negative exchange
with family members (Castillo et al. 2007). Internal reliability estimates for this study’s
sample for Homeostatic Pressure, Linguistic Expectations, Accusation of Assimilation, and
Discrepant Values were .75, .88, .86, and .61, respectively.

Acculturation

The Psychological Acculturation Scale (PAS; Tropp et al. 1999) is a self-report 10-item
instrument that assesses an individual’s sense of psychological attachment to and belonging
within the Anglo-American and Latino cultures. The PAS was modified for use here with
African Americans by changing the response anchor from “only with Latinos/Hispanics” to
“only with my ethnic group.” The modified PAS utilized a 9-point response scale ranging
from “only with my ethnic group” (1) to “only with Anglos (Americans)” (9). A sample
item is “In what culture do you feel confident that you know how to act?” An acculturation
score was calculated by summing all item scores, with higher scores indicating higher
Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152 149

levels of psychological acculturation to Anglo culture and midrange scores indicating

biculturalism. A study with African American participants found internal consistency for
the PAS of .92 (Ghorpade et al. 2006). Coefficient alpha for this study was .91.

Acculturative Stress

The revised Social, Attitudinal, Familial, and Environmental Acculturative Stress Scale
(SAFE-R; Fuertes and Westbrook 1996) is a 21-item self-report measure that assesses
participants’ acculturative stress. This scale measures four aspects of acculturative stress,
including social, attitudinal, family and environment. The SAFE-R uses a 5-point response
format ranging from “not stressful” (1) to “extremely stressful” (5). A sample item is “It
bothers me that I have an accent”. Scores range from 21 to 105, with higher scores
indicating higher levels of acculturative stress. Studies have found the internal consistency
estimate to range from .87 to .89 with African American participants (Perez et al. 2002;
Joiner and Walker 2002). Coefficient alpha for this study was .92.

Results

Participants’ mean scores on stress (M=18.59, SD=6.43) indicated that they were
experiencing some stress. Participants’ level of acculturation was “slightly bicultural
oriented” (M=38.47, SD=14.55). In addition, participants’ scores on the IMI-Family
subscales suggested that as a whole, participants reported some interpersonal distancing by
Homeostatic Pressure (M=3.74, SD=3.94), Linguistic Expectations (M=2.08, SD=3.70),
Accusation of Assimilation (M=3.58, SD=4.68), and Discrepant Values (M=6.11, SD=4.28).
Before the main analyses were conducted, we tested for group difference on the main study
variables by gender and also by college status. Gender and college status were dummy coded as
male=0 and female=1, and undergraduate status=0 and graduate status=1, respectively.
ANOVA analyses indicated that there were no significant differences between male and
female participants and undergraduates and graduates for any of the main study variables
(acculturation, stress, acculturative stress, homeostatic pressure, linguistic expectations,
accusation of assimilation, and discrepant values).
Correlations among the predictor variables and acculturative stress were examined.
These relationships are depicted in Table 1. Linguistic expectations and accusations of
assimilation were related to higher levels of acculturation. Furthermore, homeostatic

Table 1 Intercorrelations of variables and hierarchical regression analyses for variables predicting
acculturative stress (N=83)

Scales 1 2 3 4 5 6 B SE B β

1. Acculturation .05 .09 .05

2. Stress .16 .18 .22 .08
3. Homeostatic pressure .13 .35** .51 .39 .14
4. Linguistic expectations .29** .30** .48** 1.09 .47 .28*
5. Accusation of assimilation .32** .33** .34** .57** .82 .35 .27*
6. Discrepant values .14 .12 .21 .30** .25* –.22 .32 –.07

**p<.01, *p<.05
150 Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152

pressure, linguistic expectations, and accusation of assimilation were significantly related to

higher stress scores. Finally, experiences of intragroup marginalization from family as
demonstrated by the pressure not to acculturate (r=.39, p<.01), pressure to maintain ethnic
group’s language (r=.52, p<.01), and accusations of acting White (r=.51, p<.01) were
significantly related to higher acculturative stress. Stress (r=.30, p<.01) and high
acculturation (r=.24, p<.01) were also related to more acculturative stress.
A hierarchical regression analysis was employed to determine the relative effect of the
predictor variables on acculturative stress. Results are reported in Table 1. The specific
order of variable entry was selected so that each predictor contributed to the explanatory
variance of the dependent variable (i.e., acculturative stress) after controlling for the
variance explained by the previous variables. As level of acculturation is a known predictor
of acculturative stress, it was entered in the regression equation first. To determine the
unique contribution of general stress to acculturative stress, this was entered next into the
regression model. The four factors of family intragroup marginalization were entered last
into the equation since we were interested in the amount of variance in acculturative stress
over and above that accounted for by acculturation and stress.
In model one of the regression, acculturation level contributed 5% of the variance in
acculturative stress [R2 =.6, adjusted R2 =.05, p<.05]. The addition of stress into the regression
(model two) resulted in an additional 7% of the variance being explained [ΔR2 =.07, p<.01].
Model three included all of the predictor variables. This model accounted for 32% of the
variance in acculturative stress [R2 =.37, adjusted R2 =.32; F (6, 82)=7.29, p=.0001]. Even
after controlling for the effects of acculturation and stress, family intragroup marginalization
accounted for a statistically significant proportion of the variance in acculturative stress
[ΔR2 =.24, p=.0001]. Examination of the beta weights in the full model indicated that only
linguistic expectations (β=.28; t=2.30; p<.05) and accusation of assimilation (β=.27;
t=2.30; p<.05) had a statistically significant contribution to acculturative stress, with
linguistic expectations contributing a larger amount of the variance.

Discussion

The overall goal of this paper was to examine the relationship between family pressure
and acculturative stress in African American college students. Our prediction was that
family pressure to not acculturate to the dominant culture and to maintain the culture of
origin would be related to higher levels of acculturative stress in participants. Initial
findings indicated that the participants were experiencing some stress and that
participants also reported some interpersonal distancing from their families based on:
family pressure to not change, pressure to maintain ethnic group’s language, the
perception of acting White, and the belief that values were becoming different than the
family’s values.
After further analyses we found that family pressure for participants to not acculturate,
pressure to maintain ethnic group’s language, perception of acting White, and acculturation
level were related to higher acculturative stress for participants. Stress and high
acculturation were also related to more acculturative stress. When controlling for
acculturation and general stress, family pressure to maintain the ethnic group’s language
and perception of acting White accounted for a statistically significant proportion of the
variance in acculturation stress.
As college students, African Americans in the university setting are not only dealing
with the stress of school but also with the acculturative stress that occurs when African
Int J Adv Counselling (2010) 32:144–152 151

American students are expected to adopt the dominant cultural norms that differ, and often
conflict, with their own (Castillo et al. 2004). The stressors that are associated with the
adaptation process of acculturation may greatly impact the level of achievement in African
American students. This study indicates that acculturative stress impacts African American
students so it is imperative to understand the dynamics of acculturative stress on students as
well as the implications. The findings emphasize the need to recognize culture-specific
stressors of college students.

Implications and Future Research

The findings in this study show the relevance of including cultural factors when providing
mental health care services in the university setting. Particularly for African American
students, acculturative stress should be assessed to determine whether or not it is a factor
contributing to their overall stress. Mental health providers in general and counselors in
particular should be aware of the acculturation process and the familial pressures that affect
African American college students while at the university setting. To gain a better
understanding of factors in general stress for African American students, further study
investigating racial discrimination, perceived racism and other race-related stressors should be
examined. Another factor to be considered is racial identity status. Treatment may differ
depending on how students identify with Black culture. These factors should be considered
when working with an African American student who is struggling with acculturation stress.
There are some limitations of the current study that should be noted. First, all of the
participants were recruited from an introductory psychology course. Due to this, the results
of the study may not generalize to all African American students at predominantly white
universities. Second, the data were collected from a self-report questionnaire. Since some of
the information may have been retrospective it may not have been accurate.
The research of acculturative stress on African American college students in
predominantly white institutions is limited. Replications of this study may be helpful in
determining the most appropriate way to work with African American students struggling
with stress created by the acculturation process while in the university setting.

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