Acculturation
When people move into a new cultural environment, they face a fundamental question: how much of their original culture should they keep, and how much of the new culture should they adopt? This process of cultural adaptation is called acculturation.
The process individuals or groups go through when coming into sustained contact with a new culture, typically involving some form of psychological and behavioural adaptation.
Berry's model identifies four distinct strategies people use when navigating this tension:
- Integration: The individual maintains their original cultural identity while also engaging with and adopting elements of the new culture. This is sometimes called biculturalism.
- Assimilation: The individual gives up their original cultural identity and fully adopts the new culture.
- Separation: The individual holds onto their original culture and avoids meaningful engagement with the new one.
- Marginalization: The individual loses meaningful connection with both their original culture and the new one. This is the most psychologically costly position.
These strategies differ on two dimensions: whether the person values maintaining their heritage culture, and whether they value participating in the larger society. Integration involves both; marginalization involves neither.
The psychological strain that arises when an individual struggles to manage the demands of adapting to a new culture, particularly when that process threatens their sense of identity.
Acculturative stress is associated with mental and physical health difficulties. Discrimination in the host culture can make integration harder to achieve even when an individual actively pursues it, because successful integration depends not only on personal motivation but also on whether the host society is willing to include newcomers.
Berry et al. on Acculturation and Well-being
The relationship between acculturation strategy and psychological well-being was examined systematically by Berry and colleagues (2006) in a large survey study with immigrant youth in Canada.
Participants completed questionnaires measuring which acculturation strategy they were using and their levels of psychological well-being. The results showed a clear pattern: integration was associated with the highest levels of well-being, while marginalization was linked to the lowest.
Berry et al.
(2006) found that immigrant youth who maintained their heritage culture while also participating in the host culture (integration) reported better psychological outcomes than those who lost connection with both cultures (marginalization).
Assimilation and separation fell between these two extremes.
This is correlational evidence. The study cannot tell us whether choosing integration causes better well-being, or whether individuals who are already psychologically stronger find it easier to pursue integration. It is also worth noting that the sample was drawn from Canada, a country with explicit multicultural policies, which may not generalise to host societies with less welcoming attitudes toward cultural diversity.
A common error is to treat Berry's model as a hierarchy where integration is always best and marginalization is always worst.
In practice, the strategy a person can realistically pursue depends heavily on the host society's attitudes. Do not describe these strategies as free choices without acknowledging structural constraints.