Resilience mediated the association between acculturation and psychological growth in college students from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, China

Abstract

Background: The number of Hong Kong citizens living in mainland China is increasing. The process of acculturation may create opportunities for psychological growth.

Aims: This study aimed at examining whether resilience mediated the effects of acculturation on psychological growth in college students from Hong Kong to Guangzhou.

Method: In this cross-sectional survey, 164 college students in Guangzhou who were Hong Kong permanent residents (female: 46%, age: 21.09 ± 1.50) joined the study.

Results: The integration group reported more psychological growth than the assimilation, separation, and marginalization groups. Resilience partially mediated the effect of integration on psychological growth and fully mediated the effect of marginalization on psychological growth.

Conclusions: Resilience represents one of the mechanisms to explain beneficial effects of integration on psychological growth in college students from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. Theoretical considerations to rethink the acculturation model, implications for developing intervention programs, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Acculturation
• ethnic identity
• resilience
• growth
• Chinese

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Center for Studies of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and Collaborative Innovation Center for the Cooperation and Development of Hong Kong, Macao and Mainland China, Sun Yat-sen University.

Declaration of interest

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.