Out of sight, out of mind: psychological consequences of attachment and adjustment attitude

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of length of stay in a foreign country on international students’ adjustment and attachment attitude and examines the relationship between such acculturation attitude with psychological and sociocultural adaptations in a host country. Moreover, it investigates whether psychological and sociocultural adaptations could enhance international students’ psychological well-being in a culturally new environment. Using a sample of 1186 international postgraduate students from an emerging education hub (i.e. Malaysia), we analysed the proposed model using partial least-squares structural equation modelling. Findings reveal that longer length of stay in a foreign country away from the home country (out of sight) negatively influences attachment attitude to the home country (out of mind). Additionally, both adjustment and attachment attitude positively influence psychological adaptation while only adjustment attitude positively influences sociocultural adaptation. This study confirms the nexus between international students’ cross-cultural adaptation and psychological well-being in Malaysia. The study findings offer novel insights to policy-makers, authorities in higher education and university administrators to prioritise international students’ cross-cultural adaptation since it is directly related to psychological well-being.

Keywords:

• acculturation attitude
• length of stay
• psychological adaptation
• sociocultural adaptation
• psychological well-being
• higher education

ORCID

Azadeh Shafaei http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3329-6293

Mehran Nejati http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1199-8617

Additional information

Funding

The first author is a recipient of USM Global Fellowship. The authors also acknowledge the support of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) through Research University Grant [1001/PGURU/816267].