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Bicultural Identity, Bilingualism, and Psychological Adjustment in Multicultural Societies: Immigration‐Based and Globalization‐Based Acculturation
Author(s) -
Chen Sylvia Xiaohua,
BenetMartínez Verónica,
Harris Bond Michael
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00505.x
Subject(s) - psychology , acculturation , neuroticism , multiculturalism , cultural identity , social psychology , neuroscience of multilingualism , biculturalism , mainland china , personality , immigration , mainland , identity (music) , context (archaeology) , developmental psychology , ethnic group , sociology , china , anthropology , linguistics , pedagogy , philosophy , feeling , law , history , archaeology , acoustics , biology , paleontology , political science , physics , neuroscience
The present investigation examined the impact of bicultural identity, bilingualism, and social context on the psychological adjustment of multicultural individuals. Our studies targeted three distinct types of biculturals: Mainland Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong, Filipino domestic workers (i.e., sojourners) in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese college students. Individual differences in Bicultural Identity Integration (BII; Benet‐Martínez, Leu, Lee, & Morris, 2002) positively predicted psychological adjustment for all the samples except sojourners even after controlling for the personality traits of neuroticism and self‐efficacy. Cultural identification and language abilities also predicted adjustment, although these associations varied across the samples in meaningful ways. We concluded that, in the process of managing multiple cultural environments and group loyalties, bilingual competence, and perceiving one's two cultural identities as integrated are important antecedents of beneficial psychological outcomes.