Facilitating psychological adaptation and intercultural contact : the role of bicultural integration and multicultural ideology

Abstract

With the increase of immigration, intergroup relations in multicultural societies become an intricate and yet important issue. Research on acculturation has documented that adaptation to the host culture is affected by immigrants' acculturation strategies and the dominant group's attitudes towards immigration. While the acculturation strategies of immigrants have been extensively studied, the acculturation expectations from the host culture have received relatively less attention from researchers. Moreover, multiculturalism, which reflects the general attitude towards cultural diversity in a society, is believed to play a crucial role in the host culture's maintenance of different ethnocultural groups, but has rarely been examined from the perspective of immigrants and ethnic minorities. The present study aimed at investigating the acculturation experiences and intercultural relations in Hong Kong by incorporating mutual views of both the dominant population and non-dominant group. It also tested the mediating role of the major dimensions of intercultural relations, i.e., the dominant population's tolerance towards different cultural groups and the non-dominant group's perceived discrimination. Two community samples were recruited, including Hong Kong locals (N = 181) and immigrants from Mainland China (N = 182). Among Mainland immigrants, the integration strategy predicted both psychological adaptation and sociocultural adaptation. In addition to predicting psychological adaptation, multicultural ideology played a significant role in intercultural contact with Hong Kong people through the mediation of lower perceived discrimination. Among Hong Kong locals, the integration expectation predicted psychological adaptation. Multicultural ideology indirectly affected intercultural contact with Mainland immigrants through the mediation of greater tolerance. These results suggest that the integration strategy and expectation are more important to intrapersonal functioning, whereas multicultural ideology may be more crucial in facilitating social interactions between majority and minority groups in culturally plural milieus.