Acculturation Coping Leads to Heightened Sensitivity to Socially Hurtful Events

Abstract

This research examined the hypothesis that challenging experiences in acculturation may lead to heightened reactivity to socially hurtful events. Study 1 found that compared to a prime of acculturating to a similar foreign culture, priming acculturation to a distant culture (indicating more challenges) led to greater reported pain toward hurtful interpersonal events. Study 2 examined whether foreign students in the U.K. and immigrants in the U.S. exhibited a heightened reaction to social exclusion. Results showed that among participants with weaker host culture identification, social exclusion had a greater disruptive effect on cognitive performance, as indicated by longer reaction time on the Stroop task. These findings suggested that individuals who face greater obstacles during acculturation are more sensitive to social exclusion.

Notes

1 The IQ test comprised 15 questions measuring visualization, classification, logical reasoning, and pattern recognition. With regard to the number of correctly answered questions, participants in the exclusion condition (M = 7.36, SD = 1.35) performed worse than those in the inclusion condition (M = 8.56, SD = 1.67). However, there was no main effect of cultural identification or its interaction with the social exclusion manipulation. One possibility is that IQ may be a more stable cognition capacity that is unaffected by cultural adjustment.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Direct Allocation Grant from the Chinese University of Hong Kong [#2021102] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [#19wkpy98] from Sun Yat-sen University.