Linking Cultural Intelligence and Emotional Acculturation: a First Study Myrthe Blösser Supervisor
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Linking Cultural Intelligence and Emotional Acculturation: A first study Myrthe Blösser Supervisor: Jozefien de Leersnyder Student number: 10789154 Universiteit van Amsterdam Bachelor thesis Social Psychology Word count: 4565, abstract: 150 Date: 01-06-2018 RUNNING HEAD: CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMOTIONAL ACCULTURATION Abstract The emotional patterns of immigrants who are in daily social contact with the majority tend to become more similar to that of the majority; they emotionally acculturate. In addition, expatriates with high cultural intelligence tend to culturally adjust more than expatriates with low cultural intelligence. Therefore, I hypothesized that immigrants with high cultural intelligence would emotionally acculturate faster when in contact with the majority then immigrants with low cultural intelligence. To obtain our emotional acculturation score, while using a new operationalization for emotional fit where all participants rated their appraisals and action tendencies in response to anger-situations describing vignettes, we correlated the emotional patterns of 18 immigrants with that of the typical emotional pattern of the native Dutch in corresponding anger-eliciting situations. Against my hypotheses, the amount of contact did not predict the level of emotional acculturation, and minorities’ level of cultural intelligence did not strengthen nor weaken this relationship. Linking Cultural Intelligence with Emotional Acculturation: A first study In the last decennia, ever-increasing globalization and migration have led to an increase of cultural diversity and multicultural societies in Europe (Czaika & Haas, 2014). In the Netherlands, 23% of the population is made up of immigrants from 138 different nationalities (CBS, 2018). Consequently, intercultural contact occurs daily in a wide arrange of situations, creating a strong need for cross-cultural communication skills for effective communication. Adjusting to a new culture is a demanding process, associated with poorer mental health, stress and depression (Sodowsky & Plake, 1992; Oh, Koeske, & Sales, 2002). Fortunately, when done well, high cultural adjustment is associated with positive consequences such as higher job RUNNING HEAD: CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMOTIONAL ACCULTURATION satisfaction, better mental well-being and better quality of relationships (Lin, Chen, Song, 2012). To construct effective interventions aimed at facilitating cultural adjustment, it is of great importance to understand the factors that influence this process. One way to study the extent of an immigrants' cultural adjustment is by means of emotional acculturation. In this Bachelor thesis, I will test the hypothesis that cultural intelligence has a moderating effect on the positive relationship between the amount of contact of a minority with the majority and the emotional acculturation of the minority. Specifically, I expect minorities with high cultural intelligence to emotionally acculturate faster when in contact with the majority than minorities with low cultural intelligence. This current study compares native Dutch with immigrants. The Dutch culture is seen as individualistic, whereas most non- western immigrants (e.g., Turkish, Moroccan, Indonesian) in the Netherlands are seen as collectivistic. Emotional pattern comparisons between the native Dutch and immigrants will be made for anger situations, as the experience and evaluation of anger are found to differ across cultures (Boiger, Mesquita, Uchida & Barret, 2013; Boiger et al., 2018). Emotional Acculturation and the Internalization of the Cultural Mandate Emotional patterns are thought to reflect the level of internalization of the cultural mandate; cultural norms, values, and practices (Boiger et al., 2018). Every culture has a typical pattern of emotions (Kitayama, Mesquita & Karasawa, 2006). Embedded in these emotional patterns is the cultural mandate (Mesquita, 2003; Mesquita & Leu, 2007). The frequency of the experience and expression of a specific emotion is related to the cultural mandate on how to be a good person and how to have good relationships with others (Mesquita & Leu, 2007; Boiger et al., 2013). For example, anger is one such emotion that differs substantially between cultures; in an individualistic cultural context where individual autonomy is valued, anger is experienced RUNNING HEAD: CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMOTIONAL ACCULTURATION more frequently than in a collectivistic cultural context where social harmony is emphasized (Kitayama et al., 2006). Individualistic cultures see anger as a mean to realize power and control (Tiedens, 2001), whereas collectivistic cultures see anger as dangerous and inappropriate as it could harm the social harmony (Briggs, 1970). The experience and expression of a particular emotion in a specific situation is thus central to achieving what is culturally valued and expected (Boiger et al., 2013). When an individual expresses and experiences culturally appropriate emotions in certain situations, this individual is said to have a high emotional fit with that culture. Monocultural individuals tend to have a higher emotional fit with the typical emotional pattern of their own culture than to that of another culture (De Leersnyder, 2014). How might this work for an immigrant's emotional fit with that of the host culture when they navigate two cultures on a daily basis? The emotional patterns of an immigrant tend to change upon regular exposure to the host culture; they emotionally acculturate (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, Kim, 2011). In this sense, emotional acculturation is the process in which emotional patterns change in response to exposure to other cultures, and the emotional fit is the state that illustrates the level of emotional acculturation. An immigrant's high emotional fit with the typical emotional pattern of the majority culture can thus be seen as high emotional acculturation, and therefore, internalization of the cultural mandate. Fitting in emotionally is desirable as it is related to higher relational and psychological well-being (De Leersnyder et al., 2014; De Leersnyder, Kim & Mesquita, 2015), and somatic health (Consedine, Chentsova & Krivoshekova, 2014). Hence, identification of factors that can enhance the emotional fit for immigrants is of great interest. One of the factors that predicts the level of emotional fit is the amount of contact that a RUNNING HEAD: CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMOTIONAL ACCULTURATION minority has with the majority culture; the more daily social contact with the majority, the higher minorities’ emotional fit with the majority culture’s typical patterns of emotional experience (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011, 2013; Jasini, De Leersnyder, Phalet and Mesquita, 2016). Counterintuitively, the immigrants’ attitudes towards adopting the values of the majority culture did not significantly explain this relationship. Personal characteristics as possible moderators of this relationship are yet to be studied, leaving a gap in the understanding of why some individuals emotionally acculturate more effectively when in contact with the majority than others. In this bachelor thesis, I propose to study one such personal characteristic that may importantly moderate the positive relationship between the amount of contact with the majority and emotional acculturation; namely cultural intelligence (CQ). Cultural Intelligence as an Explanation for Individual Differences CQ is the ability to adapt and behave effectively in different cultural contexts with individuals from different cultural backgrounds (Earley & Ang, 2003). CQ is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional model that consists of four dimensions: metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioral (Earley & Ang, 2003; Ang et al., 2007). Cognitive CQ is the knowledge that someone possesses about cultural norms, values, and practices. This knowledge can be acquired from interactions with other cultures and personal experience, and thus, can be learned. Behavioral CQ is the ability to use appropriate (non)verbal behavior in cultural settings. Motivational CQ is the intrinsic motivation to understand and function effectively in different cultural contexts. Metacognitive CQ is the ability to think about the cultural knowledge that you possess. All four dimensions are needed for CQ to help cross-cultural adjustment (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004). RUNNING HEAD: CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMOTIONAL ACCULTURATION Research on CQ in organizational contexts shows that expatriates with a high CQ culturally adjust better than expatriates with a low CQ (Ang et al., 2007; Guðmundsdóttir, 2015), and that these effects remain significant even after controlling for age, gender, previous experience in foreign countries, language proficiency of the majority culture, and English proficiency (Lin et al., 2012). One of the reasons that CQ is thought to lead to more cross- cultural adjustment is because it is associated with higher intercultural communication skills (Yeke & Semerciöz, 2016; Lee & Sukoco, 2010). When an expat communicates effectively with the majority, it is easier to gain knowledge about cultural norms and values (Kim, Kirkman, Chen, 2006). The understanding of cultural norms and values, in turn, leads to better cultural adjustment (Lee & Sukoco, 2010; Lin et al., 2012). Thus, CQ might provide a possible explanation for the individual differences in the immigrants’ level of emotional acculturation. The Current Research Previous studies have found that immigrant minorities’ exposure to and interaction