Acculturation in Psychology:

From psychological anthropology to cultural psychology

Dr. R. G. Tonks Camosun CollegeMarch 26th 2002

Acculturation in Psychology:

From psychological anthropology to cultural psychology• Overview of systems in psychology

• From the early days of psychology & culture to contemporary studies

• Cross-Cultural Psychology• Cultural Psychology• An Eriksonian interpretation of

identity and acculturation

Systems of Psychology

• Classic styles of the history of psychology involve examining the systems or paradigms of psychology.

• Beyond the various specific theories and perspectives two broad worldviews are present.

Two worldviews: Tonks (1997)

• Natural Science• Objective • Deductive

Explanation (Erklaren)

• Literal • Univocal Laws• Universal(Etic)

• Human Science • Subjective• Interpretive

Understanding (Verstehen)

• Expressive• Equivocal Pluralism• Contextual (Emic)

Experimental-Behavioristic vs. Humanistic from Staats (1987)

• Experimental • Objective events• Atomistic • Laboratory

• General (nomothetic)

• Precision & Measurement

• Prediction & Control

• Humanistic• Subjective events• Holistic • Naturalistic Observation• Individual

(idiographic)• Qualitative Description• Understanding

Staats con’t

• Scientific Determinism

• Mechanistic in Causation

• Passive Respondent

• Conditioning & Modification

• Valueless Science

• Self-Determination & Freedom

• Spontaneity in Causation

• Originality, Creativity & Activity

• Self-actualization & Personal Growth

• Values in Science

Two Psychologies of culture

• Cross-cultural studies the ‘causal’ relationships to behaviour and cultural experience, with a focus on the generalisability(Berry et al., 1992)

• Cultural principles:

• Mediation through artifacts

• Historical Development

• Practical Activity

(Cole, 1996)

The early years and beyond

• Many views present at the turn of 20th century including . . .

• Psychological Anthropology• Völkerpsychologie• Cross-cultural psychology• Indigenous Psychologies

• Cultural Psychology

Psychological Anthropology

• Edward Burnet Tylor (1832-1917) proposed a quantitative approach to the study of institutions by looking at their common features

• William Halse Rivers (1864-1922) Studied sensory functioning in "primitives" and refuted theory of superior sensory acuity

Völkerpsychologie

• Lazarus & Steinthal (1860) Journal of Folk-Psychology and Philology

• Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) Historical studies of language, custom, myth, art, tools… - Four Ages of Mankind

• Frans Boas (1858-1942) historical & environmental influences on art and mythology, language and thought.

Indigenous Approaches

• Malinowski (1884-1942) - need to take the ‘natives’ perspective.

• Heelas & Lock (1981)Indigenous Psychologies: The anthropology of the self.

• Kim & Berry (1993) Indigenous psychologies: Research and experience in cultural context

Cross-Cultural Psychology

• Price-Williams (1979) identifies the roots of Cross-cultural psychology in anthropology but distinguishes it from sociology with an emphasis on the impact of the social setting on the individual.

• Berry et al. (1992) identify Cross-Cultural psychology with the following goals:

Berry et al. (1992) con’t

• Test and transport: testing theories and hypotheses as universal ‘etics’

• Explore and Discover: in overcoming testing ‘failures’ find new phenomena

• Integrate: bring together various studies to establish a universal theory of psychology explaining similarities and differences

Berry’s Acculturation Model

• Anthropological Roots

• Based upon Multicultural Ideology

• Framework - fourfold classification

• Related Characteristics

Inroads from Anthropology

• Redfield, Linton and Herskovits (1936) • Acculturation: "those phenomena

which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups" (p. 149, italics added).

Berry’s Multicultural Ideology

• Political activism in Australia• Trudeau’s 1971 multicultural policy• The assumptions for positive identity• 1 maintenance of cultural traditions• 2 fostering of positive inter-group contact• 3 development of tolerance for diversity • 4 learning of the two official languages

The policy…intends to ...

. . . break down discriminatory attitudes and cultural jealousies[where] National Unity, if it is to mean anything in the deeplypersonal sense, must be founded on confidence in one's ownindividual identity; out of this can grow respect for that ofothers and a willingness to share attitudes and assumptions. . . .and so contribute to a richer life for all. (Trudeau cited in Berry,1984, p.354).

The Frameworktradition maintenance & other group contact

• Yes to maintenanceYes to contact

•Integration

• Yes to maintenanceNo to Contact

•Separation

• No to maintenanceYes to contact

•Assimilation

• No to maintenanceNo to contact

• Deculturation• Marginalisation

Related Characteristics

• Integration almost universally demonstrates a "substantial relationship with positive adaptation" (1997, p. 24). . . And "integration seems to be the most effective strategy if we take long term health and well-being as indicators"(Schmitz cited in Berry, 1997, p. 25).

. . . Continued . . .

• Marginalisation consistently is found to be least successful in positive adaptation (Berry, 1997; Sam & Berry, 1996).

• Acculturative Stress has been characterised as: “one form of stress that is due to challenges in the process of acculturation...”

Acculturative Stress

• “lowered mental health status (especially anxiety, depression), feelings of marginality and alienation, heightened psychosomatic symptom level, and identity confusion.” (Berry et al., 1992, p. 284).

• Found to be higher amongst: involuntary migrants, nomadic peoples, women, more aged, middle phases,...

Acculturation & Identity

• Bridging Berry’s model with Marcia’s

• Traditional Cross-cultural approach• Methodological concerns• Applying the acculturation model

to the ‘cultures’ of psychology

Ego-identity Framework

• Yes to search• Yes to Commitment

• Achievement

• Yes to search• No to commitment

• Moratorium

• No to Search• Yes to Commitment

• Foreclosure

• No to search• No to commitment

• Diffusion

Methods

• SubjectsSample contained 111 females and 29 males

• Mean age was 21.37 years SD= 3.07• Mean years in Canada were 16.97, SD= 7.42

• Measures include updated version of Berry’s questionnaire (20 culture domains)

• EOMEIS-II - paper and pencil version of Marcia’s ego-identity interview

• Jean Phinney’s (1992) Ethnic Identity Development scale

Scale MeansVariable Mean Standard DeviationIntegration 81.14 8.18Assimilation 56.10 6.59Separation 59.87 6.27Deculturation 57.34 6.98Marginalisation 47.58 7.07

Ethnic IdentityAchievement

26.58 5.22

Achievement 65.79 9.53Moratorium 52.89 9.35Foreclosure 31.61 11.97Diffusion 48.59 9.80

Methodological Challenges

• Questionnaire form of EOMEIS-II doesn’t clearly distinguish Moratorium from Diffusion

• Participants expressed concern over double- barreled nature of acculturation questions

The Cultural Critique

• Misra & Gergen (1993) critique Cross-cultural psychology indicating that it is about variables, not culture and imposes western ‘etic’ dimensions

• Carl Ratner (1997) similarly suggests that it involves: Fragmentation (atomism) and Qualitative Invariance (reduction of qualitative differences to quantities)

Acculturation of Psychologists

• Paranjpe (1993) indicates that the debate between cross-cultural psychologists and cultural psychologists parallels the conflict over culture facing people in acculturation.

• Tonks (1996) follows this up, suggesting that an integrative approach might best serve both psychology and the individuals performing research on psychology & culture (i.e., Berry & Paranjpe)

An Integrative Approach

• Drawing from both traditions• General Approach to find common

themes and predictive trends• Specific Approach to find greater

meaning and personal experience

Metropolis Study on Immigrant Youth Identity

• Participants: 53 immigrant youth ages 15 - 25 with a mean age of 19.9 years from a variety of countries of origin.

• Measures: Immigrant Identity Interviewenables exploration of identity and acculturative styles along with stress and adjustment.

• Quantitative and Qualitative

History Making of Identity

• Built on Erikson’s notion of identity“A sense of identity means being at one with oneself as one grows and develops; and it means, at the same time, a sense of affinity with a community's sense of being at one with its future as well as its history--or mythology” (1974, pp. 27-28, italics added)

Hermeneutical methods

• Case history making through ‘clinical’ interview methods. Using disciplined subjectivity and grounding of case in community history and identity.

• Rennie (1999) Grounded theory uses:• Hermeneutics• Sociology of knowledge• Qualitative criteria

Elliot, Fischer & Rennie (1999)

• Provide a number of criteria, including:

• Owning one's perspective• Situating the sample• Grounding in examples• Coherence• Resonating with readers

Participants

• 36 females & 17 males from • Hong Kong (23)• Taiwan (16)• Asia (8)• World (6)

Age, Residence and Arrival vs. Acculturative

AttitudeAttitudes Length of

residenceAge ofArrival

Number

Separation 5.34 14.59 29

Assimilation 11.75 7.25 2

I ntegration 9.26 10.72 22

Correlations among Stress & Arrival, Residence &

Adjust. Age ofArrival

Length ofResidence

Years toAdjust

Stress atArrival

.538 -.498 .624

Probability .002 .005 .040

Number 30 30 29

• Vivian reported moderate (7) stress at arrival due to loss of friends, 2 years later (10)

• "I start dating my boyfriend [at age 15]. My mom get really, really, really crazy because my dad not living here. Kind of like there is a major problem . . . .mom like say kill me. She hate me so much she can't control herself. And there is times that I don't want to go home. I left home. I cry so many times. I find that while I still live here, I hate it here so much, and my mom too I think she gets so depressed, cause that time my mom didn’t get work. She stay home all the time. Like she has nothing to do.”

• Tony (age 14) reported great stress at arrival (9.5)"I didn't [that I] feel belong to both groups. . . But I totally didn't feel I belonged to the Canadian . . . [that] is one of the most difficult time for me because you really don't feel like you belong anywhere… I always missed my friends back in Taiwan. I missed them a lot. And I felt troubled that I couldn’t understand why that I didn’t have friends here. I guess one reason I acknowledge now is that I was too young. There was just too many things that I didn’t do now. I guess coming here at that young age, facing that kind of problem, I think would be difficult for most people. And of course there is so many other Asians living right here, I found that people find different ways to cope with that problem. Some of them sticks to their own groups, some of them who came a lot earlier don’t feel that transition as much as people who came at my age. And I mean there was a lot of confusion."

Percentage of people for Birth Place vs. Acculturation

Hong Kong Taiwan Asia other World Other

Separation 61 81 25 0

Assimilation 0 0 0 33

I ntegration 39 19 75 67

Percentage of people for Birth Place vs. Ego-Identity

Hong Kong Taiwan Asia other World other

Diff usion 0 6 0 0

Foreclosure 44 75 38 0

Moratorium 26 19 50 50

Achievement 30 0 12 50

Mean Age of Arrival & Residence across Birth

PlaceHong Kong Taiwan Asia 0ther World other

Age ofArrival

12.3 15.6 11.1 8.9

Length ofResidence

7.4 4.7 9.0 10.6

Number 23 16 8 6

Mean Age of Arrival & Residence across Family

TypeSatellite Astronaut I ntact

Age ofArrival

15.4 11.9 10.8

Length ofResidence

5.2 7.7 8.7

Number 19 16 19

Mean “Other” Stress across Family Type

Satellite Astronaut I ntact

"Other"Stress

5.5 8.3 8.1

Number 19 16 19

• Vivian talks about her mother: “ She stay home all the time. Like she has nothing to do.

• Like I talked to my dad like for many times but still like the problem wouldn’t solve that much. But like as times go by, I think it take like one to two years for our family to get more easier, get like, I don’t know how to say it but that time is just so dramatic. I don’t know how I handle it. . . . Yeah, very difficult.

• Yeah, when I get older and when she accept me that I have a boyfriend. I still have my boyfriend.”

• Marcus reports on his involuntary migration as part of a ‘satellite’ family…“Well, pretty bad . . . It’s not about like, like it’s two fold right. One is that my parents didn’t listen to me, didn’t listen to my feelings. That’s one thing because I’ve been living in Hong Kong for eighteen years and then . . . like they sent me here. Um, by that time I was really unsure about this place and also I was worried because I didn’t know whether I can get use to this life.

• That was one major problem because in particular like, well my parents, well I will respect them but I wasn’t very close with them because I was raised by a nanny. So…....I usually talk to my friends and stuff and more than my family.”

• Marcus reports feeling: • "just depressed. . . Well, feeling not [like I] very much

want to go out because I don't know the place. . . Well, I got depressed, I got depressed for other reasons now. . . I’m not just like exaggerating. I’m more pessimistic person [laugh] . . . . feeling negative all the time because things are not that good . . . . I still feel shy especially in class . . . I feel like uncomfortable just to say it out loud, like drawing peoples attention because I think its interrupting other people. . . . That’s why I think it’s important to know about English. That makes you a lot more confident about yourself."

Mean Stress Symptoms by Stress Reported

Family Employment Friendship Language

# of StressSymptoms

5.67 5.5 3.5 3.78

Number 6 2 14 9

• Helen reported having a boyfriend, a fact that her mother was enraged by. Her symptoms included

• “Losing hair was the main thing. And I was actually scared that I was going to be bald. [laugh]. Not that bad but then when you wash your hair you think, ‘wow this is too much.’ Actually, now it’s getting back and I have really thick hair and but I just lost almost half of it when I came

here.”

• Language (ESL) was also a great stress for her as she reports that ...

• “Basically I can say the counsellor wrecked my life because he wouldn’t look at my problems and I go into, I got into all regular classes just because my English teacher was a horrible teacher and he even criticised me by telling me that my English level in only in grade three. For me, English was my strongest subject in Hong Kong. I can’t say I’m really good but among a lot of student, I’m seventh position out of two hundred and thirty eight so that is not really bad over there.”

• “Then he put me into what they call communication English, you can’t go into university directly if you have that English because that is not ESL but it’s like not as higher level English. And so that is why right after high school I felt depressed and I’m like I’m not gonna ever get into

university.”

• “ . . . and then my parents was really upset cause for them university is a big thing. They think the only reason why I am bringing you here is to get a better education, to get a better life. Not only a better life, but like want you to become a better person. And if you can’t get into university and definitely I will be depressed, I will be a worse person [laugh] and my lifestyle is gonna be not as good. And basically for them, “it’s a mistake for bringing you over here.”

• “And one very thing for Chinese parents is they’ll never blame anyone else but their kids. If you say this teacher is a whatever, then they’ll say, “it must be you being bad.” It must be you, not hard working enough. That’s why you get

a ‘c’ or ‘d’.”

Mean Stress Symptoms by Person Talked to on “bad

day” No One Parent Sibling Friend Partner

# of StressSymptoms

4.2 3.5 1 2.36 5.4

Number 6 6 3 25 8

• Suni reports: "I don’t tell anybody of my bad things . . . I don’t do anything. I just have to sit there and clear my mind. That’s all I do. Or when I am stressed sometimes, I get angry for some reason. Like anything that makes me feel bad, I turn it into anger. And then I just like slam doors, yell at people. Like I wouldn’t yell at my friends. I would take it out on my family. Like even if my dad asked me like an innocent question like, “what are you going to be doing today?” I’m like “I don’t know!!!

• I feel bad, I do. And I still do that. I’m very irritable. I really don’t know why. You can ask anybody in my family

like they will know it – she’s really moody”

• Mary (19) from Taiwan also reports that: "I just keep to myself" and that the most stressful sources is "the control from my relatives and my parents and school work." She experiences some trouble sleeping.

• Diana (20) from Britain has lived in Canada for 8 years and reports having had severe ulcers when she was younger, not long after she first moved here. She Reports:

• "I can say it to myself, like I know if something is going wrong, like, 'this is not right,' but I don’t, like I would never tell my sister that something is going wrong. We’re pretty close but I wouldn’t go tell her something is going wrong. I would never tell my parents. I might tell (?) depending on what it was that was going on.

• That’s an English trait I think. I don’t think that British people talk about their feelings very much. So… But if something is going wrong, you wouldn’t admit it if you were English, privately to anybody.

• No, I don’t, if things go wrong I don’t tell anybody.”

• she responds to the following question:

• Q So what would you do, just sort of think about it?

• “Keep it inside. I had ulcers [laugh] for a long time.”

• After recovering from that earlier bout with stress she has adopted techniques to combat it, including writing it out and exercise, and she says that:

• "I think as I am becoming more Canadian, um…I talk more about that kind of stuff. But I still find it really hard to say something is going wrong. I do."

Gender Percentages reporting language & mean

“other” stress LanguageStress

No Lang.Stress

"Other"Stress

Female 30 70 7.72

Male 71 29 5.33