Berry – Acculturation: living successfully in two cultures
Introduction
Conflict, negotiation and mediation across cultures can be understood at both the group (how
collectivities work out how to relate to each other, ideally by negotiation in order to avoid conflict)
and individual (how persons of different groups work out how to live together, again ideally through
negotiating to avoid conflicts) levels.
There are two distinct, but interrelated domains that make up the field of group relations, namely
acculturation and ethnic relations. Both domains contain contextual factors, such as historical,
political and economic baggage they bring from their relationships, and they may lead to outcomes
ranging from conflict and stress to harmony and effectiveness.
Acculturation is the dual process of cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of
contact between two or more cultural groups and their individual members. At the group level it
involves changes in social structures and institutions and in cultural practices. At the individual level it
involves changes in a person’s behavioral repertoire. All long-term.
Sometimes mutual adaptions take place easily, whereas other times it can lead to cultural conflicts
and acculturative stress during intercultural interactions.
RQ: does acculturation always involve conflict and result in negative outcomes for both groups
involved?
The concept of acculturation
Past: the effects of European domination of indigenous people.
Later: how immigrants changed following their entry and settlement into receiving societies.
Recent: how ethnocultural groups relate to each other and change as a result of their attempts to live
together in culturally plural societies.
Nowadays all three are important because of globalization resulting in ever-larger trading and
political relations.
Acculturation can be described in two distinct ways:
1. Cultural: a broader concept of culture change and is considered to generate change in either
or both groups, and this change is indirect and delayed. Thus acculturation can be reactive.
2. Psychological: the changes in an individual who is a participant in a culture contact being
influenced both directly by the external culture, and by the changing culture of which the
individual is a member.
Acculturation contexts
For all cross-cultural psychology, it is imperative that work on acculturation be based in examining its
cultural context: we need to understand both cultures that are in contact if we are to understand the
individuals who are in contact.
Figure 2 shows the five sets of phenomena that define the nature of acculturation process at the
cultural level, and establish a starting point for the process of acculturation at psychological level.
The process starts with examining the society of origin, the cultural characteristics that accompany
individuals, such as where they come from, what the political, economic, and demographic conditions
are the person faces and to study the degree of voluntariness in the migration movement. According
to Richmond migrants can be arrayed on a continuum between reactive (constraining and
exclusionary reasons) and proactive (facilitating and enabling reasons).
Introduction
Conflict, negotiation and mediation across cultures can be understood at both the group (how
collectivities work out how to relate to each other, ideally by negotiation in order to avoid conflict)
and individual (how persons of different groups work out how to live together, again ideally through
negotiating to avoid conflicts) levels.
There are two distinct, but interrelated domains that make up the field of group relations, namely
acculturation and ethnic relations. Both domains contain contextual factors, such as historical,
political and economic baggage they bring from their relationships, and they may lead to outcomes
ranging from conflict and stress to harmony and effectiveness.
Acculturation is the dual process of cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of
contact between two or more cultural groups and their individual members. At the group level it
involves changes in social structures and institutions and in cultural practices. At the individual level it
involves changes in a person’s behavioral repertoire. All long-term.
Sometimes mutual adaptions take place easily, whereas other times it can lead to cultural conflicts
and acculturative stress during intercultural interactions.
RQ: does acculturation always involve conflict and result in negative outcomes for both groups
involved?
The concept of acculturation
Past: the effects of European domination of indigenous people.
Later: how immigrants changed following their entry and settlement into receiving societies.
Recent: how ethnocultural groups relate to each other and change as a result of their attempts to live
together in culturally plural societies.
Nowadays all three are important because of globalization resulting in ever-larger trading and
political relations.
Acculturation can be described in two distinct ways:
1. Cultural: a broader concept of culture change and is considered to generate change in either
or both groups, and this change is indirect and delayed. Thus acculturation can be reactive.
2. Psychological: the changes in an individual who is a participant in a culture contact being
influenced both directly by the external culture, and by the changing culture of which the
individual is a member.
Acculturation contexts
For all cross-cultural psychology, it is imperative that work on acculturation be based in examining its
cultural context: we need to understand both cultures that are in contact if we are to understand the
individuals who are in contact.
Figure 2 shows the five sets of phenomena that define the nature of acculturation process at the
cultural level, and establish a starting point for the process of acculturation at psychological level.
The process starts with examining the society of origin, the cultural characteristics that accompany
individuals, such as where they come from, what the political, economic, and demographic conditions
are the person faces and to study the degree of voluntariness in the migration movement. According
to Richmond migrants can be arrayed on a continuum between reactive (constraining and
exclusionary reasons) and proactive (facilitating and enabling reasons).
