Putting culture back into acculturation: Identifying and overcoming gaps in the definition and measurement of acculturation

Abstract

The concept of acculturation is widely used in the health and social sciences to explain various health and behavioral outcomes. A review of the literature highlights weaknesses in current acculturation research including the failure to ground the concept in a theory of culture, failure to specify the pathways through which acculturation impacts on outcomes and reliance on methodological tools that do not measure the core construct of interest. Building on cognitive and evolutionary anthropological theories and methods of measuring the distribution of cultural beliefs, we suggest that a research program focused on acculturation needs to initially aim at measuring beliefs, attitudes, and norms, and not on behavior. Researchers should empirically examine the distribution of beliefs across presumed cultural groups, and specify how these might impact on outcomes of interest. By parceling beliefs as distinct from behavior, our approach advances culture as but one possible hypothesis to account for outcomes.

Keywords:

• Acculturation
• Cultural epidemiology
• Immigration

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars program for its financial support.