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This work adopts a perspective that construes acculturation as a dynamic intergroup process, and social contact with members of the new community as a key mechanism underlying cultural adaptation. We argue that migrants' initial self-reported mainstream cultural orientation constitutes an important antecedent of early social participation in the new community. Results from two longitudinal studies of newly arrived international students ( N = 98 and N = 60) show that more positive initial mainstream cultural orientations prospectively predict higher social participation, specifically in the mainstream group, over the following months. This relation held after controlling for important alternative predictors, namely, extraversion/shyness, mainstream language proficiency, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a physiological index of social engagement capacity. These studies focus on the very initial stages of the temporal dynamics of acculturation, contribute to bridging research on acculturation and on intergroup relations, and establish a link between cultural orientations, a subjective attitudinal construct, and concrete social engagement behaviors.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying the development of migrants' second language (L2) competence in naturalistic settings is a pressing concern for receiving societies. Several studies have established a positive relation between people's self-positioning with respect to the L2 ethnolinguistic group and their L2 competence, but the mechanisms underlying this relation are relatively unexplored. Using path analysis, this study investigates the hypothesis that migrants' experience with the L2 mediates the positive association between mainstream cultural orientation and self-assessed L2 competence among 123 multicultural recent immigrant students to Montreal, Quebec. As such, this study applies notions from L2 motivation and sociocultural L2 learning to an acculturation context. This study also unpacks L2 experience by examining L2 use and L2 social contact (namely, friendships in the mainstream group) separately. In addition, this study takes into account the important role of the social context by selecting a setting that maximizes the centrality of individual differences in cultural orientations. The hypotheses were fully supported: model fit for the hypothesized model was excellent and better than for alternative models.

Migrants and members of cultural minorities must negotiate their identification with multiple cultural groups. Many studies have investigated associations between general questionnaire–based cultural identity patterns and psychological adjustment. Research on situational cultural identity patterns—context-bound, momentary identification with a given cultural group—is scarcer. Furthermore, we know little about how variability in identification across contexts and situations may be associated with psychological adjustment. This study addresses these issues by (a) comparing the relative ability of general questionnaire–based and situational diary–based cultural identity patterns in statistically predicting psychological adjustment among Maghrebi migrants to Canada, and (b) introducing and testing cultural identity entropy, a novel approach to characterizing variability in a person's multiple cultural identities during daily interactions. Drawing on concepts in thermodynamics and information theory, cultural identity entropy indexes greater balance in one's multiple identifications during an interaction and reflects greater flexibility in cultural ways in that moment. Participants were 93 Maghrebi migrants to Canada who completed baseline questionnaires and daily diaries on situational identification during interactions for 7 days. Results show that situational diary–based cultural identity patterns accounted for substantial variance in psychological adjustment, above and beyond general questionnaire–based patterns, and that greater entropy in heritage cultural contexts was associated with greater psychological adjustment. These results underscore the importance of going beyond general characterizations of multicultural identity by investigating the shifting and contextual ways in which migrants mobilize and negotiate their cultural identities in daily life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work focuses on migrants' 'other‐cultures' intergroup contact – contact with individuals belonging to neither their heritage ingroup nor the mainstream outgroup. We test the overarching hypothesis that other‐cultures contact is positively associated with mainstream acculturation, especially when contact in the mainstream group is scarce. Study 1 results show that frequent other‐cultures contact is positively associated with mainstream identification among Maghrebi migrants to Quebec. This effect is stronger for participants with infrequent, versus frequent, mainstream contact. In Study 2, conducted among Russian migrants to Canada, having more other‐cultures friends is positively related to mainstream acculturation only for participants with few mainstream friends. Further, the entry of other‐cultures friends into migrants' network takes place later than heritage friends but earlier than mainstream friends. The current work expands the traditional mainstream–heritage acculturation framework by moving away from binary conceptualizations of intergroup relations and considering other‐cultures contact in superdiverse contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A defining feature of biculturalism is the experience of switching back and forth between different cultural ways of being and acting in the world. This work investigates antecedents of this switching process using a cultural adaptation of the Day Reconstruction Method, in which participants divide the previous day into episodes and then rate these episodes on various criteria. We hypothesized that episode characteristics (specifically, language used) and stable personal dispositions (specifically, mainstream and heritage cultural orientations) would independently and interactively predict migrants' cultural identification during an episode. We examined three types of identification among Russian-speaking migrants to Canada (N = 109): mainstream ("Canadian"); heritage ("Russian"); and mainstream–heritage hybrid ("Russian-Canadian"). Results of multilevel regression analyses supported our hypotheses overall. A more positive orientation to a given cultural group and the use of that group's language(s) were associated with stronger identification with that group during an episode. Language Use × Cultural Orientation interactions were evident for heritage and hybrid situational identification. The positive association between heritage orientation and situational heritage identification was stronger during episodes when the heritage language was not used than when it was used. A positive heritage orientation was associated with greater situational hybrid identification only during episodes when a mainstream language was used. The results are consistent with the perspective that acculturation is a multifaceted, contextual, and dynamic process whereby people acquire and flexibly use multiple cultural repertoires to meet both their general goals and the cultural demands of specific situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many individuals migrate to a new country with their romantic partner, most acculturation research has focused on individual factors related to migration-related psychological adjustment without considering couple influences. The current research investigates traditional predictors of psychological adaptation – mainstream and heritage acculturation, motivation to migrate, and perceived discrimination – from the perspective of both migrants and their partners. Participants were 151 French migrant couples (n = 302) living in Canada. We conducted mixed-effects regression analyses (HLM) predicting psychological adaptation within an actor-partner interdependence modelling framework. In line with past results, actors' motivation to migrate and mainstream acculturation were positively associated with psychological adaptation, whereas perceived discrimination was negatively associated with it. Contrary to our hypotheses, the actor's heritage acculturation was negatively associated with psychological adaptation. Above and beyond these individual-level predictors, our results revealed a positive effect of partner's motivation to migrate and a negative effect of partner's perceived discrimination. Finally, acculturation gaps were significantly associated with psychological adaptation. Mainstream acculturation gaps seem to be detrimental to migrants' psychological adaptation, whereas heritage acculturation gaps were associated with greater psychological adaptation. These findings underscore the necessity to better understand how romantic relationship dynamics following migration play out in individual-level migration outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intersectionality—a conceptual and analytical framework for understanding how aspects of an individual's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege—has gained significant traction in psychology in the past decade. This framework urges researchers and policymakers to consider systemic and social factors that may preclude marginalized and racialized people from accessing the same opportunities as their majority-group counterparts. Despite some conceptual similarities between cultural psychology, intergroup relations, and intersectionality, this framework has been noticeably absent from the field of acculturation research. Acculturation has largely been conceptualized as the parallel negotiation of one's engagement with mainstream and heritage cultural environments. Research in acculturation has mainly focused on antecedents and challenges related to this engagement. Here, we set forth that an important gap in this research domain pertains to the limited consideration of the systemic and social factors that may preclude marginalized and racialized migrants' access to both mainstream and heritage cultural identities. Specifically, we argue that to understand migrants' experiences in their new country, it is essential to consider the unique contexts that emerge from the intersection of identities (e.g., gender, religious, and racial identities), social categories (e.g., socioeconomic status and ethnicity), and exclusions (e.g., social rejection experience because of one's marginalized identities). To that end, we aim to set an agenda for future research which presents intersectionality as a key perspective to include in acculturation research. We also incorporate practical recommendations for the use of an intersectional framework in the study of acculturation, at all steps of the research process, from the elaboration of research questions to quantitative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This cross-sectional study examines associations between cardiac vagal control and mainstream acculturation by systematically investigating the independent contributions of resting, reactivity, and recovery Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA)--physiological factors contributing to adaptive functioning, including social engagement capacity. This study also examines the moderating role of RSA reactivity in associations between perceived ethnic discrimination and mainstream acculturation. Method: The sample comprised 111 migrants from Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) to Montreal, QC, Canada. On average, participants (60 women) were 31 years old and had immigrated 7 years prior to the study. The study design was cross-sectional. We collected both psychophysiological (electrocardiogram) and selfreport questionnaire data. Results: All three facets of cardiac vagal control are independently associated with mainstream acculturation: Higher mainstream acculturation was associated with higher resting RSA (β = .24), lower RSA reactivity (β = -.27), and higher recovery RSA (β = .26), controlling for several theoretically relevant covariates. Furthermore, lower RSA reactivity to a discrimination-recall task dampened the relation between perceived discrimination and mainstream acculturation (interaction β = -.20). Conclusions: This study replicates and extends prior work linking RSA and mainstream acculturation using a sample of racialized and marginalized migrants. It provides evidence that RSA is related to migrants' adoption of the mainstream culture and may modulate how they handle perceived ethnic discrimination. Thus, this study also provides evidence that RSA is tied to how individuals successfully navigate novel social environments, including novel cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Psychological acculturation' refers to the intra-individual change process resulting from sustained contact with a new culture, and has traditionally been researched by cross-cultural psychologists. As acculturation research has faced numerous critiques in recent years, this manuscript considers how insights from cultural psychology could help advance this field. Specifically, the three main features of the dominant acculturation conceptual framework ("what changes during acculturation", "how people acculturate", and "how well people adapt to acculturation") are reviewed and questioned in light of research findings and recent theoretical perspectives from cultural psychology. The approach to acculturation research articulated here views cultural engagement as plural, dynamic, tacit, and centered around the acquisition and flexible use of cultural schemas. By being attuned to their cultural environment, people typically and implicitly respond in culturally appropriate ways. This experience of "cultural fluency" is disrupted when people move to a new cultural environment. Acculturation consists of the creation and flexible use of new cultural schemas (development of multicultural mind) and of changes in people's self-positioning with respect to their different cultural traditions (development of multicultural self). In doing so, they re-establish "cultural fluency" in their new cultural environment, which also influences long-term adaptation by promoting cultural fit between people and their cultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vancouver Index of Acculturation (VIA) is a self-report bidimensional instrument that has been employed in several cultural contexts to assess migrants' orientations toward mainstream and heritage traditions. Although it has shown good reliability and validity in the past, recent theoretical developments and empirical studies have suggested the VIA might assess more than two dimensions. Moreover, measurement invariance of this instrument across demographic subgroups has never been assessed before. With the aim of evaluating these psychometric issues, exploratory factor analysis and Rasch modeling were conducted on data from two samples of immigrants to Canada (N = 224) and to Italy (N = 266). Results supported the hypothesized two-factor structure, with Rasch modeling showing that items within a subscale differed in terms of "difficulty" in being endorsed, but still belonged to a single factor. Differential item functioning analysis results showed measurement invariance across gender, age and education subgroups. Most results converged across the two samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors explain the extent to which members of cultural minorities maintain their heritage cultural engagement? Although this process, called heritage acculturation, has significant implications for adjustment, we know little about its antecedents. The present work sought to address two shortcomings of acculturation research: (a) the need to characterize antecedents of acculturation orientations and (b) the need to consider acculturation as a contextual phenomenon. Some studies have documented associations between acculturation and specific contextual variables (e.g., family socialization), but an important feature of this research was to examine the unique contribution of factors at multiple levels of proximity simultaneously. Specifically, this study considered intraindividual, home, social network, and neighborhood-level contextual correlates of heritage acculturation. The overarching hypothesis tested among multicultural university students in Canada (n = 271) was that people whose life contexts are more strongly imbued with heritage cultural influences would report greater heritage acculturation. Results fully supported this hypothesis. Greater heritage language competence, “parental” living arrangements, a more extensive heritage social network, and living in an ethnically denser neighborhood were all related to greater heritage cultural maintenance. Further, only heritage network extensiveness was negatively related to mainstream cultural engagement—attesting to the cultural specificity of these associations. These results suggest that none of the four contextual levels considered here was sufficient on its own to understand participants’ heritage acculturation and that we need a holistic view of the person in her or his multiple contexts when studying acculturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Important life transitions - such as migration - have the potential to enrich one's sense of self, but they are also demanding and challenging. The current research investigates how cultural identities change and become configured over time among newly arrived international students and the social factors that predict these longitudinal changes. A four-wave longitudinal study was conducted during international students' first year in their new country (N = 278). Multivariate hierarchical linear modeling analyses allowed us to unpack both baseline (between-person) and intraindividual change (within-person) effects. Whereas increased psychological need satisfaction via both the new and one's heritage cultural group predicted increased identity integration, greater discrimination (i.e., both at baseline and an increase over time) predicted increased compartmentalization and the predominance (categorization) of one identity over the others. Results are discussed in light of novel theoretical developments in the acculturation and identity change literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a marker of parasympathetic activity hypothesized to index a neurophysiological system supporting social engagement behaviors. Following migration, people must navigate and adapt to a new sociocultural environment. Whether RSA affects this psychological acculturation process is unknown. This longitudinal study investigated whether resting RSA on arrival in the receiving country was related to changes in cultural orientations toward both mainstream and heritage cultural groups during the first 5 months following migration. Sixty new international students provided information on their cultural orientations toward the mainstream and heritage cultural groups shortly after arrival in the new country and 2 and 5 months after the first assessment. Results indicated that both heritage and mainstream orientations increased linearly over time. Furthermore, greater resting RSA at baseline was prospectively associated with larger increases in positive orientation toward the mainstream culture but not the heritage culture, over and above individual differences in extraversion, depression, and anxiety. These data provide longitudinal evidence that higher RSA promotes an approach-oriented stance toward a novel cultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We argue that current acculturation research offers an incomplete picture of the psychological changes taking place in contemporary multicultural societies. Several characteristics of the Canadian multicultural context highlight the limitations in current acculturation research: namely, themes of hyper-diversity, hybridity, dimensionality and the importance of local context. Canada is a case in point, but these themes are generalizable to other contemporary multicultural contexts. To address the limitations of the traditional psychological acculturation paradigm, we propose an innovative research approach to study acculturation: the Cultural Day Reconstruction Method (C-DRM). We report on two studies that implemented this diary method, to demonstrate that this research tool (1) addresses theoretical critiques of current acculturation research and (2) captures some of the complexity of acculturation in contemporary multicultural contexts. The C-DRM was constructed in response to the local research environment but we hope it will become part of a new generation of tools for the contextual assessment of acculturation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]