Acculturation

Integration, assimilation or culture shock?

You move to a new culture - the
Favalese culture - one that is very
dissimilar to your own culture (and
actually doesn’t exist!)
1. What reasons would you have to
become more Favalese yourself?
2. How would you go about
“becoming more Favalese?”
3. What might be something difficult
to adjust to in your new culture?
ACCULTURATION
ENCULTURATION: used to describe the process of first-culture learning
Example: what do boys roles/reponsibilities/behaviors verses girls, personal
dress, religion, work, ethics, norms, values
ACCULTURATION: is the process of social, psychological, and cultural change
that stems from blending between cultures.
The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both the original
(native) and newly adopted (host) cultures.
SOCIAL Acculturation: often results in changes to culture, customs, religious
practices, diet, healthcare, and other social institutions.
Most noticeable: food, clothing, & language
INDIVIDUAL Acculturation: individuals adopt the values, customs, norms,
attitudes, and behaviours of the dominant host culture
ACCULTURATION can be thought of as second-culture learning
BERRY’S TWO DIMENSIONAL ACCULTURATION MODEL

John Berry (2003) has a model for acculturation describe how

people adapt to a new culture.
Individuals’ experiences and family experiences and conflicts are
important to understand
 1. How much does the person seek to maintain connection with
the culture of origin? (What is the attitude toward his/her heritage
culture and identity?)
2. How much does the person want to learn and adopt the new
culture (What is the attitude toward learning and interacting with
the new culture?)
BERRY’S TWO DIMENSIONAL ACCULTURATION MODEL

Important Concepts to Understand:

1. Assimilation
People who consider their culture of origin to NOT be important and who WANT to
identify and interact mainly with the new culture are said to be using an
ASSIMILATION STRATEGY. (upper right quadrant of the table)
2. Separation
People who value their heritage culture and DO NOT WANT to learn about the
new culture fall in the lower left quadrant of the table. These people are adopting a
SEPERATION STRATEGY to acculturation.
3. Marginalization
People who neither identify with their heritage culture nor with the new culture are
pursuing a MARGINALIZATION STRATEGY.  (lower right quadrant)
4.Integration (Biculturalism)
People who seek to maintain their heritage culture and learn from and interact with
the new culture are considered to be using the acculturation strategy of integration,
or bicultural strategy. (upper left quadrant)
BEST APPROACH PSYCHOLOGICALLY

Assimilation ⇒ Embrace host culture/lose culture of origin

Integration ⇒ Embrace host culture/maintain culture of origin (☺

best psychological outcomes)

Separation ⇒ Maintain culture of origin/reject host culture

Marginalization ⇒ Lose culture of origin/reject host culture (☹

worst psychological outcomes)
ACRONYM: BERRY 2003

A: Assimilation
I: Integration
M: Marginalization
S: Separation
BERRY’S ACCULTURATION MODEL
KEY VOCABULARY
Acculturative stress

The psychological impact of adaptation to a new

culture
As with any type of stress, long term acculturative
stress also may lead to reduced mental and physical
health
Another term for acculturative stress is “culture
shock.”
KEY VOCABULARY
Acculturation gaps (acculturation dissonance) Parent
verses Child

These are differences in understandings and values

between parents and children as they go through
the process of acculturation.
This occurs when parents have a different
acculturation strategy from their children (see
Berry’s model).
KEY VOCABULARY
Reverse culture shock
The feeling of surprise, disorientation, confusion,
alienation or frustration experienced when people
return to their home culture after living in another
culture, and finding that they do not fit in as they
used to
REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK

The participant is a 45+ year old male who had grown up

overseas and attended an international school:

Britain was horrendous.  I hadn’t realized, but what had clearly

happened, is that X had become home, without any effort on my

part.  It was all I knew.  I was supposed to be English.  I don’t

look foreign, I don’t sound foreign and yet I am foreign. I felt

disassociated from where I was and from these people who

seemed to represent values different from those I had.  If I’d

gone to any other country, it would have been fine, because

that’s what you expect; but I didn’t go to any other country.  I

went to the one that was supposed to be mine, and it wasn’t.  It

was quite a shock. It’s like an earthquake.

MIRANDA & MATHENY (2000)
Aim: to see what factors would decrease the level of
acculturative stress in Latino immigrants to the USA.
Sample: 197 immigrants
Procedure: All filled in a questionnaire which tested their
level of acculturative stress
What do you predict would be the findings of the study?
PROTECTIVE FACTORS AGAINST ACCULTURATIVE STRESS

Proficiency in English
Effective coping skills
Strong family structure
The amount of time spent in the USA
LUECK & WILSON (2010)
Aim: to see what factors would decrease the level of
acculturative stress in Asian immigrants to the USA.
Sample:
of 2095 immigrants
1271 first generation
824 born in the US
Method: Semi-structured interviews
What do you predict would be the findings of the study?
PROTECTIVE FACTORS AGAINST ACCULTURATIVE STRESS

Bilinguals had low acculturative stress

The preference for only speaking English is a predictor of high
acculturative stress
Negative treatment leads to acculturative stress
Sharing values with one’s family lowers acculturative stress
Those who were economically satisfied had lower acculturative
stress