Value Fulfillment and Bicultural Identity Integration

What can facilitate bicultural identity integration (BII)? To answer this question, we introduce a new relevant construct—subjective value fulfillment. We contend that the subjective feeling of value fulfillment within a social identity can enhance the motivation to integrate this social identity with other identities. Furthermore, after distinguishing between central, peripheral, and conflictual identities that differ in level of identification, we contend that perceiving a conflictual identity as allowing value fulfillment is especially important to BII. We examine these hypotheses in four studies. Three examined Arab-Israelis (a total of N = 399), while the fourth study investigated Druze-Arab-Israelis (N = 212). Our findings indicate that value fulfillment contributes to elevated BII, that manipulation of perceived value fulfillment elevates BII, and that perceived value fulfillment–BII relations are contingent on type of identity. More specifically, we found that perceived value fulfillment within a conflictual identity was more relevant to BII than perceived value fulfillment in a central identity. Last, we found that perceived value fulfillment predicted BII over and above identification.