Acculturation Indices as a Means of Confirming Cultural Differences.

Abstract

When subjects from culture A are becoming acculturated to culture B they may move toward culture B (accommodation), not only move toward B but even go beyond B's position (overshooting), or might move away from the position commonly found in culture B (ethnic affirmation). Three kinds of data were examined to determine which of these patterns of adjustment to another culture take place. For role perceptions and behavioral intentions accommodation and overshooting were by far the most common; for stereotypes there were numerous cases of ethnic affirmation. When ethnic affirmation is the exception rather than the rule, we can use acculturation indices as means of confirming cultural differences. The more acculturated the culture A subject, the less is the difference between that subject's position and the mean of culture B. Data from Hispanics (culture A) and Mainstream (culture B) Navy recruits from three studies show that for role perceptions and behavioral intentions acculturation brings the position of Hispanic subjects close to the position of the Mainstream subjects, and thus allows us to confirm that the simpatia script, reported by Triandis, Marin and Lisansky (in press), is a true cultural difference between Hispanics and Mainstream. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1983
Accession Number
ADA136700

Entities

People

  • E. Shimada
  • Harry C. Triandis
  • M. Villareal
  • Y. Kashima

Organizations

  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Coefficients
  • Contrast
  • Dissociation
  • Factor Analysis
  • Frequency
  • Hispanics
  • Human Behavior
  • Illinois
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Intervals
  • Judgment
  • New York
  • Perception
  • Personality
  • Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Marine Ecological Systems Migration
  • Organizational Psychology.