International Students’ Acculturation and Attitudes towards Americans as a Function of Communication and Relational Solidarity with Their Most Frequent American Contact

ABSTRACT

Guided by frameworks of intergroup contact and the Common Ingroup Identity Model, this study examined international students’ (N = 233) communication with their most frequent U.S. contact and attitudes towards Americans. Results revealed significant positive indirect effects of contact quantity and quality on affective and behavioural attitudes towards Americans through sequential mediators of relational solidarity with the contact and identification with U.S. culture. Indirect effects of contact measures on both attitudes were significant through identification with U.S. culture as a single mediator. The direct effect of contact quality on behavioural attitudes was also significant.

KEYWORDS:

• Contact
• identity
• attitudes
• friendship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.