(Multi) Cultural Minds and Selves: Socio-Cognitive, Cultural, and Personality Processes

Migration, globalization, media exposure, and the speed and ease of international travel and communication have made intercultural contact and multicultural experiences commonplace; they have also led to an unprecedented number of people identifying with more than one culture. What are the psychological consequences of these processes of acculturation and identity? Using a framework that integrates sociocognitive, cultural, and personality psychology approaches, and that draws on laboratory experiments, surveys, and social network methodologies, this presentation will review a research program conducted to examine the following questions concerning the multicultural mind (i.e., cognition) and the multicultural self (identity): How do multicultural individuals respond to the different cues and demands of cultural situations? Can different—and sometimes conflicting—cultural identities be integrated into a cohesive sense of self? How do multicultural individuals maintain competing loyalties across different cultural groups? And are there unique social, cognitive, and adjustment outcomes linked to having multicultural experiences and identities? This research, conducted with multicultural samples that vary in culture/ethnicity, age, status, and generational enclave, reveals that: (1) Multicultural individuals navigate their different cultural worlds by engaging in a process called cultural frame-switching (CFS), and the effects of CFS exist for a wide range of behaviors (e.g., attributions, personality, ethnic identity, emotion, self-constructions, values, among others); (2) multicultural individuals vary in their perceptions of how well their cultural identities and affiliations can be harmonized and blended (i.e., degree of Bicultural Identity Integration); (3) differences in BII are linked to specific personality, social, cognitive, and adjustment variables and to different types of social networks; and (4) biculturalism (compared to other acculturation strategies) is positively linked to psychological and sociocultural adjustment.