ABSTRACT

Acculturation traditionally includes “those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups” (Redfield et al. 1936: 149-50, emphasis added). Since this formative definition was first advanced, the sociological and anthropological origins of acculturation theory and research have engendered continuing and appropriate focus on group-level acculturation. However, it is well to recall that individuals do the actual migration and adjustment. More than 200 million people today are said to live outside their country of origin. That number tallies to 1 in ~30 individuals living on earth. For the vast majority of international migrants, leaving their native country to settle in a new

country engenders daunting alternatives between allegiance to and association with one way of life that includes family, social, and economic connections against usually contrasting economic, philosophical, religious, and political conditions or investments. When considered in this way, migration and acculturation constitute thoroughly transforming forces on individual people. On this argument, we contend that a more encompassing approach to acculturation must embrace dual processes of group cultural and individual psychological adjustment that result from contact between two or more groups and their individual members. This brief chapter outlines some prominent principles, processes, and prospects of this per-

spective on individual-level psychological acculturation. We first review relevant general theory about migration and acculturation. We then differentiate individual-level from group-level acculturation. Individual-level acculturation is not a uniform process as implied by a group-level approach. Next, we distinguish and discuss variability of different sorts that constitutes the heart of individual psychological acculturation. For brevity’s sake, we provide selected, rather than exhaustive, illustrations. Psychological acculturation raises methodological, disciplinary, and policy considerations, and we overview those also. Finally, we point to some profitable future directions of theory development and empirical inquiry in the area of psychological acculturation. Migration signifies physical relocation between geographic locales; acculturation signifies

psychological adjustment. Acculturation is certainly a group phenomenon, and some aspects of acculturation submit to group-level analysis; acculturation is also an individual phenomenon, and other aspects are better understood at an individual level. This chapter focuses on the latter.