The Structure of Cultural Identity in an Ethnically Diverse Sample of Emerging Adults

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the structure of cultural identity in the United States, both across variables and across persons. An ethnically diverse sample of 349 emerging-adult university students completed measures of orientation toward American and heritage cultural practices, acculturation strategies, individualism-collectivism, independence-interdependence, ethnic identity, and familism. Across variables, results of factor-analytic procedures yielded three dimensions of cultural identity: American-culture identity, heritage-culture identity, and biculturalism. This factor structure was consistent across the three largest ethnic groups in the sample (Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics). Ethnic differences emerged in the associations of these cultural identity factors to familial ethnic socialization, acculturative stress, and perceived ethnic discrimination. Across persons, cluster-analytic procedures revealed two groups of participants–those who endorsed American-culture identity highly and those who endorsed both American and heritage cultures highly. Implications for theory and for further research are discussed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge Bill E. Peterson for his insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

¹In this article, we use the terms “index” and “indices” to refer to observed indicators; and the term “factor” to refer to unmeasured latent variables.

²Following Thompson (2004, p. 19), the terms “pattern” and “pattern coefficient” are used in place of “load” and “factor loading.”

Note. Within each row, means with the same subscript are not significantly different from one another.

refers to the partial eta-squared value (Pearce, Block, & Aguinis, 2004).

^a Estimated on the full sample.

^b The assumption of homogeneity of variance was not met. As a result, the Welch corrected F statistic is reported (cf. Luh & Guo, 1999).

∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.

³Internal consistency estimates from the present sample are presented in Table 1.

Note. Sample sizes within each cell range from 333 to 345 as a result of missing data.

To correct for the number of correlation coefficients estimated, only correlations significant at p < .001 were interpreted as significant.

∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.

⁴Results of this factor analysis are available from the first author.

^aIncludes all participants in the sample (Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and those identifying as Other).

^b n = 349.

^c n = 57.

^d n = 63.

^e n = 198.

Note: Because sample sizes differ between ethnic groups, adjusting the significance level for the number of correlations estimated would affect the results for Whites and Blacks more than the results for Hispanics. Therefore, no adjustment was made for the number of correlations estimated. The reader should be mindful that a pattern of significant findings is the “best defense” against Type I error risk.

∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.

Note. refers to the partial eta-squared value (Pearce et al., 2004).

^aThe assumption of homogeneity of variance was not met. As a result, the Welch corrected F statistic is reported cf. (Luh & Guo, 1999).

∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.

⁵Marginalization was included in this analysis because its inclusion as a dependent variable did not violate the degrees-of-freedom issue inherent in the AHIMSA acculturation measure.