The Challenge of Being Both Local and Global: Bicultural Identity Integration among Indigenous Ladakhi Youth in Delhi

Ladakhi emerging adults have been exposed to cultural globalization through interaction with tourists and media, as well as through prolonged stays at globalized university contexts in major Indian cities. This globalization process has been hypothesized as detrimental to psychological health, in part because it poses the challenge of integrating a local Ladakhi identity with a global Western cultural identity. In the present study, we examined how exposure to cultural globalization and bicultural identity integration (tendency to bring together one’s local and global identities) moderates the positive links of Ladakhi and Western cultural orientation with psychological well-being among Ladakhis studying in Delhi ( N = 196). We found that exposure to cultural globalization did not affect the positive association between cultural orientation and psychological well-being. Moreover, bicultural harmony and blendedness were associated with a weaker relationship between Ladakhi cultural orientation and psychological well-being and, additionally, a stronger association between Western cultural orientation and well-being. Our results highlight contemporary challenges related to being both local and global in a culturally globalized context.

Social Class Identity Integration and Success for First-Generation College Students: Antecedents, Mechanisms, and Generalizability

Past research has investigated challenges first-generation college students face, but has overlooked the role that acculturation to college may play. Social class bicultural identity integration research demonstrates that integrated social class identities are linked with better health, well-being, and academic performance among first-generation students. Here, we build on the identity integration framework, demonstrating that exposure to college graduates in students’ home neighborhoods before college is positively related to higher social class bicultural identity integration (Study 1), that the effect of identity integration on academic performance is mediated by academic self-efficacy (Study 2), and that the effects of identity integration on acculturative stress, life satisfaction, and overall health outcomes observed at a large public university replicated at selective, private universities (Study 3). This suggests that the identity integration framework is a useful theoretical lens to conceptualize and predict health and performance outcomes for first-generation students.

Handbook of Advances in Culture and Psychology, Volume 8

Volume 8 of the Handbook of Advances in Culture and Psychology showcases contributions from internationally renowned culture scholars who span the discipline of culture and psychology and related disciplines and represent diversity in the theory and study of culture within psychology. The volume includes cutting-edge contributions on culture and memory, with memory as a constructive process at the intersection of person and world; culture and emotion, with emotions as dynamically and socioculturally constructed relationship engagements; culture and language, along with literacy development and impairment across cultures; the psychological foundations of rituals and how children learn and use ritual behaviors; the evolution and development of cultural-clinical psychology over the course of the past several decades; and the social-personality processes underlying multiculturalism and bicultural identity integration.

Bicultural Identity Integration

In this chapter, the authors examine the social-personality processes underlying multiculturalism and multicultural identity and the cultural and societal factors that influence these phenomena. They focus the discussion on bicultural identity integration (BII), an individual difference construct describing the extent to which a bicultural individual experiences her two cultural identities as compatible and integrated versus oppositional and compartmentalized. Drawing from the literatures of acculturation, social-personality and cultural psychologies, and interculturalism studies, the authors review research on the antecedents and outcomes associated with BII. While there is extensive evidence showing that BII is psychologically consequential, and also an important moderator of how multicultural individuals respond to different kinds of cultural information and demands, there remains pressing needs to understand the developmental trajectories that influence BII, the role of macro societal and historical factors in how BII changes, and how BII can be used to understand multiculturalism in social collectives.

Testing the construct validity and empirical distinctiveness of the Multicultural Identity Styles Scale (MISS) and the bicultural identity integration scale (BIIS-2)

© 2020 American Psychological Association. The Bicultural Identity Integration Scale (BIIS-2) and the Multicultural Identity Styles Scale (MISS) were designed to assess different aspects of bicultural identity. The BIIS-2 captures characteristics of a bicultural identity in the domains of affect (harmony vs. conflict) and cognition (blendedness vs. compartmentalization). The MISS measures 2 distinct strategies (hybrid and alternating identity styles) used to achieve and maintain a bicultural identity. The aims of the present study were to investigate the factor structures of MISS and BIIS-2 scores using confirmatory factor analysis and to examine potential construct overlap between the 2 measures using exploratory structural equation modeling. Measures were administered twice (11 days apart) to a sample of 836 Hispanic young adults in the United States. Confirmatory factor analytic results supported the 2-factor structure of the MISS. The BIIS-2 items patterned onto 4 factors: harmony, conflict, blendedness, and compartmentalization. Configural, metric, and scalar equivalence of the factor structures of both measures were established across time. The exploratory structural equation modeling indicated no salient cross-loadings between the MISS and the BIIS-2 subscales, and this independence was consistent across time. Interfactor correlations indicated a strong, positive relationship between the hybrid identity style and BII-blendedness subscales. Scores on the alternating identity style subscale were positively related to the BII-conflict, BII-compartmentalization, and BII-blendedness subscales. Overall, findings provide evidence for the construct validity of the MISS and its empirical distinctiveness from the BIIS-2 and suggest a 4-factor structure for the BIIS-2. The study suggests that the Multicultural Identity Styles Scale and the Bicultural Identity Integration Scale assess distinct aspects of a bicultural identity. Additionally, findings confirm the construct validity of the Multicultural Identity Styles Scale with a sample of Hispanic young adults and indicate a potential four-factor structure for the Bicultural Identity Integration Scale.