Paper 1: SCA – Acculturation (AJW)



Acculturation: ERQDiscuss acculturation with reference to psychological research studies. (22)Acculturation refers to social, psychological and?cultural changes?that occur when people enculturated in one culture come into first-hand continuous contact with people who identify with another culture. Psychological research has focused on a variety of groups affected by acculturation including sojourners, indigenous people and immigrants, all of whom may find their cultural identity and skill-set impacted due to the mismatch that arises when groups of people with differing beliefs and values some into contact. This essay will focus on research into acculturative stress experienced by immigrants. Factors underpinning this distress have been widely researched as acculturation is a pervasive issue in the globalised world, where voluntary and involuntary, temporary and permanent migration of people is commonplace, however in this essay we will focus on the role of age in determining the likelihood of depression focusing on three main studies by Kaplan and Marks (1990), Rivera (2006) and Mui and Kang (2006). According to Berry (1990), acculturative change depends on two factors; the extent to which a person strives to preserve their original cultural identity and the extent to which they value and are motivated to be accepted by members of the second culture. Integration occurs when a person identifies strongly with both the ‘home’ and the ‘host’ culture, in assimilation the home culture is abandoned in favour of the host culture; separation occurs when a person clings to their original cultural identity and rejects the host culture and marginalisation results from a rejection of both the home and the host culture. Berry (1970) coined the term acculturative stress to describe the mental and emotional impact of acculturation. Psychological distress and/or dysfunction can arise when people lack culturally-relevant skills required to function successfully and be accepted within the host culture. Families may also fail to function successfully when inter-generational differences exist in acculturative strategies, e.g. separatist elders and integrated/assimilated children. Given, the basic human desire to belong it is clear why acculturation could lead to issues with anxiety and depression under certain circumstances. A number of studies demonstrate tht acculturation experiences are dependent on age. For example, Kaplan and Marks (1990) compared the experiences of Mexican Americans aged 20-30, 31-50 and 51-74. Acculturation was measured using questionnaires about spoken and written language and ethnic identification while distress was measured using a standardised Depression Scale called the CES-D). It was found that as acculturation increased, as shown by identification as American as opposed to Mexican and greater use of English, distress significantly increased in young adults but decreased in older adults. Identification as American and use of English would suggest an assimilated acculturative strategy (Berry 1990) and it appears from this study that this may be more effective in terms of protecting mental health for older as opposed to younger adults. This suggests that it may be important for younger Mexican-Americans to maintain stronger links with their Mexican heritage to combat psychological distress. This may reduce tensions with other family members and enable them to continue to access their family as a source of social support in difficult times. Mexican-Americans come from tightly knit families who value ‘Familismo’ (dedication, commitment and loyalty to family) thus assimilating into individualist American culture may be at odds with this core value and explain why the younger participants experienced greater distress than acculturated older adults who were less likely to experience an inter-generational cultural gap than less acculturated adults.One strength of this study is the very large sample size of 3084 which suggests that the findings should be generalisable to the target population of Mexican Americans. This said they were all drawn from South Western States (e.g. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado) and therefore high levels of acculturation may have been associated with better mental health had the young people surveyed come from Northern States where they perhaps lived more independently of their other family members. The fact that the study focused on this one ethnic minority group might also mean that acculturative stress is different in people from other ethnic groups of differing social status. For example, acculturation stress is likely to be heightened for groups who are subject to greater prejudice and discrimination. The Northern States for example may be less prejudicial than the South.Evidence to support the argument that higher levels of acculturative stress and consequent depressive symptoms may result from decreased social support is provided by Rivera (2007) who studied 850 18-23 year old ‘Latinos’ living in Florida (32% originated from Cuba and the others from a range of Hispanic nations including Guatemala, Puerto Rico and El Salvador). Depression was again measured using the CES-D however acculturation was measured on a scale specifically designed for Hispanics, including items relating ethnic loyalty, social relations (e.g. preference to date people of same ethnicity) and language use. This arguably makes the study more valid than Kaplan and Marks as the operationalisation of acculturation was more nuanced and suited to the specific participant group. Family support was also measured on a 14 item scale. Findings showed that overall 31% had serious depression and a significant positive correlation was found between acculturation and depression, the higher the acculturation, the higher the depression and this was independent of other co-variables such as financial situation or level of education. There was also a negative correlation between acculturation and social support, whereby the higher the acculturation, the lower the social support, suggesting that social support (defined in this study as family support) be the medicating factor linking acculturation and depression.One weakness of this evidence is that it only relates to Latinos in areas where they make up the majority population and therefore the outcomes may be different in areas where Latinos are in the minority. In areas where Latinos are in the majority, high levels of acculturation may be less common and therefore such individuals may find it harder fit in with peers. This is an important point as the study also operationalised social support only with regard to support from family however support from friends and co-workers from different ethnic backgrounds may be critical in mediating the experience of acculturation. Another problem with this study is that all interviews were conducted in English, thus excluding the least acculturated young adults, who may have felt that there English was not adequate and therefore did not take part and this could have seriously skewed the findings.A final study of great interest to the debate surrounding depression, age and acculturation is that of Mui and Kang (2006) who looked at the experiences of older Asian-American adults (mean age 72). In contrast with Kaplan and Marks (1990) who found that high levels of acculturation in older Mexican-Americans were associated with lower levels of depression, this study found that the level acculturation, per se, was not sufficient to predict depressive symptoms. This said, the perception of an inter-generational gap between their own values and those of their adult children was sufficient. Using a scale specifically designed for older adults, this study revealed that 40% of participants were suffering with depression. Acculturation was measured by asking participants to rate the importance of statements about family values (e.g. children are obliged to obey their parents). High scores indicated traditional views (low acculturation to individualist American values) and low scores represented high acculturation and a rejection of the collectivist cultural values of family loyalty and obligation. When asked how differently they thought their children would rate these values in comparison with themselves, the Japanese and Vietnamese participants stand-out as perceiving the greatest mismatch between their own views and the perceived views of their children and these two groups also had the highest rates of depression, (76% and 64% respectively). This is an important study as a companion to Rivera (2006) as it demonstrates that for older adults, depression is affected by their perception of their children’s degree of acculturation whereas Rivera (2006) showed that for young people depression is mediated by social support. Together, these studies show the importance of inter-generational communication around cultural values and support agencies including social, educational and health services should be sensitive to the differing needs of each age group. One important strength of Mui and Kang (2006) in comparison with Rivera (2007) was the fact that interviews were conducted in whichever language the participants preferred and it interesting to note that most chose their native language, despite a range of levels of acculturation, evident in their responses to the questionnaire.It can be seen from these studies that acculturation can, but certainly does not always lead to stress and depression and that this relationship is mediated by real and perceived inter-generational social support from older to younger members and vice versa. It is also interesting to note that in Mui and Kang’s study there was a wide range of differences between the experiences of older immigrants of different ethnicities and these may be dependent upon dynamic factors such as the host countries receptivity on arrival due to prejudice, e.g. towards Japanese following WW2 which may have dissipated in future decades. Furthermore, degree of acculturation does not always predict depression as effectively as other variables for example Cuella and Roberts (1997) showed that acculturation did not lessen or increase risk for depression yet gender and socio-economic status were important predictors. This said, they did note that assimilated Mexican-Americans had fewer symptoms than their ‘more traditional’ (separated) counterparts, however in light of their other findings this may have been due to assimilated people coming from higher socio-economic groups. Assimilation including language proficiency would mean individuals are able to access a wider range of employment opportunities and thus earn significantly more.In conclusion, acculturation research would benefit from more longitudinal studies to chart the development of depressive symptoms over time, as in the studies cited above it is not always possible to tell whether depression is caused by high or low levels of acculturation or whether general dissatisfaction, family tensions and pre-existing depression mean certain strategies are more commonly used. Furthermore future research in this area may benefit from a more qualitative approach, in order to find out more about the reasons behind people’s attitudes, values and cultural identities as opposed to simply measuring these complex variables using tick-boxes.Word count: 1702 ................
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