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We hypothesized that perceived communication effectiveness at arrival and initial friendships with members of the receiving society during the first months after arrival in a new country have a long-term effect on the development of acculturation orientations and that this effect is pronounced for individuals with a high need for cognitive closure (NCC). We examined the hypotheses in a study with Spanish-speaking immigrants in Switzerland (n = 146) and in Italy (n = 147). We asked participants to indicate their current attitude to contact with the receiving society and cultural maintenance and report retrospectively their perceived communication effectiveness at arrival and initial friendships. In line with the predictions, the perceptions of high communication effectiveness at arrival and friendships with members of the receiving society during the initial phase in the new culture were positively correlated with the current attitude to contact with the receiving society assessed 7 years after arrival on average. Also, initial friendships with members of the receiving society were negatively correlated with present cultural maintenance. Moreover, with an increase in NCC, these correlations increased.

Recent research has shown that the perspectives of both minorities and majorities should be taken into account to reach a deeper understanding of the acculturation process and its consequences for intergroup relations. The authors report two experiments that investigated the impact of discordant acculturation attitudes on perceived threat. In Study 1 (N=183), Germans were asked for their attitudes toward Turks and Italians. Different levels of concordance of acculturation attitudes were induced by presenting participants with newspaper articles describing the acculturation attitude of the respective out-group and perceived threat was measured. In Study 2 (N=100), two fictitious immigrant groups were used as target groups. Results in both studies showed that discordance of acculturation attitudes leads to higher perceptions of intergroup threat than concordance of acculturation attitudes. Furthermore, both studies supported the assumption that a similar out-group is perceived as less threatening than a dissimilar out-group.

The authors expected the extent to which host community members (a) perceive immigrants as threatening, (b) believe that the immigrants are able to assimilate to the host community (permeability), and (c) consider their presence in the host community as legitimate to predict attitudes towards immigrant acculturation. The authors designed Study 1 to examine attitudes of Germans toward Turkish immigrants. Participants were 227 German white-collar and blue-collar workers. As expected, ethnocentric acculturation attitudes positively correlated with perceived threat and negatively correlated with perceived legitimacy and perceived permeability. However, only perceived threat contributed uniquely to the prediction of the attitudes. In Study 2, the authors applied an experimental manipulation of perceived threat. Before answering attitude questions, participants read magazine articles with a threatening, enriching, or irrelevant content. The manipulation had the predicted impact on the self-reported attitudes toward immigrants. However, the salience of threatening or enriching aspects of the Turkish culture did not affect implicitly measured attitudes.

Cultural cues can affect individuals' experiences and attitudes. The headscarf is one such cue, as a symbol strongly associated with Islam that is often the subject of public discussion. In the present study (N = 94), a Turkish experimenter wore vs. did not wear a headscarf while handing out questionnaires in a German town square. Analyzes showed that in the "headscarf condition", participants reported higher negative stereotypes of Turkish Muslims, less warmth and more symbolic threat associated with this group than in the "non-headscarf condition". No differences in competence ratings were found, which supports the primacy of warmth. Furthermore, acculturation preferences did not differ between conditions. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research examines the role of right‐wing authoritarianism for the formation of majority members' attitudes towards minority members' contribution to the acculturation process. Previous research has confirmed the link between right‐wing authoritarianism and majority members' acculturation preferences. Nonetheless, a test of their longitudinal relationship was still lacking. Using data from a 3‐wave panel study in Germany, we demonstrate that right‐wing authoritarianism among majority members predicts less support for immigrants' cultural maintenance and less support for the establishment of intergroup relations over time (Study 1, N = 551). Using cross‐sectional survey data, we show that collective threat mediates these relationships (Study 2, N = 817). Data were representative of the German adult population. Our findings indicate that authoritarian majority members oppose integration because they perceive foreigners as threatening. Right‐wing authoritarianism appears to be a meaningful individual difference variable linked to majority members' attitudes towards immigrants' maintenance of their heritage culture and the establishment of intergroup relations over time. Our findings complement recent theorizing about acculturation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The situation of refugees in Germany and other countries is a current and important matter. The present study adopts an ecological approach to investigate how refugees perceive the welcoming climate in Germany and the consequences of this perception. To further explore the refugees' situation, we examined several predictors of their psychological adjustment and acculturation attitudes. In a field study in Eastern Germany with N = 94 refugees as participants, we assessed the perceived context of reception, and perceived acculturation attitudes as contextual variables, discrimination and contact as intergroup variables and, on the individual level, psychological adjustment as well as the personal acculturation attitudes as dependent variables. The results revealed that more perceived discrimination resulted in an increase in reported psychological problems. Refugees living in asylum centers reported more psychological problems and more perceived discrimination than those living in independent housing. The perceived context of reception positively predicted refugees' desire for maintenance of intergroup relations with the host society. Positive intergroup contact lowered their desire for cultural maintenance. In sum, this study gives us rare and valuable insight into refugees' perspectives in the context of recent immigration to Germany. In doing so, it emphasizes the importance of a welcoming climate. The study shows how meaningful the assessment of the perceived context of reception is. Practical implications for fields such as the accommodation of refugees are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present research examines discordant acculturation attitudes of host society members and immigrants as an antecedent to intergroup threat. Based on integrated threat theory and the concordance model of acculturation, we posited that discordance on culture maintenance and on desire for contact would predict intergroup threat beyond the influence of other antecedents of threat, such as in-group identification, knowledge, and negative contact. A study with 202 German host society members and 151 Turkish and Italian immigrants was conducted. In line with our assumptions, path analyses revealed that culture discordance and contact discordance contribute independently to the prediction of realistic threat, symbolic threat, and intergroup anxiety for host society members and immigrants. Moreover, differences in threat between cultures were mediated by the discordance in acculturation attitudes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study presents the concordance model of acculturation (CMA), which was developed with reference to Berry's acculturation model (Berry, 1997). A comparison of the attitudes of a dominant and a non-dominant group gives rise to four levels of concordance that represent different possibilities of (mis)matched attitudes: consensual, culture-problematic, contactproblematic, and conflictual. A basic assumption of the CMA is that the greater the mismatch in attitudes, the more threatening and less enriching the intergroup situation will be perceived to be. This assumption was tested in a survey study comparing the attitudes of Germans (N= 265) with the attitudes they imputed to Polish or Italian immigrants. We were able to show that the level of concordance is related to perceived intergroup threat and/or enrichment when controlling for the underlying acculturation attitudes: the greater the concordance between the dominant group's acculturation attitudes and the attitudes imputed to immigrants, the lower the perceived threat and the higher the perceived enrichment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]