Acculturation: Living successfully in two cultures

The theme of this conference focusses attention on conflict and negotiation. In this paper, I take one example of these issues, and examine the cultural and psychological aspects of these phenomena that take place during the process of acculturation. During acculturation, groups of people and their individual members engage in intercultural contact, producing a potential for conflict, and the need for negotiation in order to achieve outcomes that are adaptive for both parties. Research on aculturation, including acculturation strategies, changes in behaviours, and acculturative stress are reviewed. There are large group and individual differences in how people (in both groups in contact) go about their acculturation (described in terms of the integration, assimilation, separation and marginalisation strategies), in how much stress they experience, and how well they adapt psychologically and socioculturally. Generally, those pursuing the integration strategy experience less stress, and achieve better adaptations than those pursuing marginalisation; the outcomes for those pursuing assimilation and separation experience intermediate levels of stress and adaptation. Implications for public policy and personal orientations towards acculturation are proposed. With respect to the conference theme, since integration requires substantial negotiation, but results in the least conflict, the concepts and findings reviewed here can provide some guidance for the betterment of intercultural relations.