Variations in multicultural experience: Socio-cognitive processes and bicultural identity integration

• Main Authors: CHENG, Chi-Ying, LEE, Fiona, Benet-Martínez, Verònica, HUYNH, Que-Lam
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
• Subjects: bicultural; multicultural; bicultural identity integration (BII); integrative psychological model of biculturalism (IPMB); cultural frame switching (CFS); Applied Behavior Analysis; Multicultural Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2430; https://search.library.smu.edu.sg/permalink/65SMU_INST/75p6om/alma9922926702601
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This chapter provides a comprehensive framework that integrates research on the socio-cognitive processes and outcomes of biculturalism. First, this chapter offers an overview of the psychology of multiculturalism, including early definitions and typologies of multicultural experiences. Second, this chapter examines how Bicultural Identity Integration (BII), the degree to which biculturals perceive their two cultural identities as compatible versus oppositional and fused versus compartmentalized, influences biculturals’ cognitive and motivational processing. Third, a theoretical model called the Integrative Psychological Model of Biculturalism (IPMB) is proposed as a comprehensive framework for understanding the social-cognitive correlates of biculturalism. Specifically, the IPMB examines individual and contextual antecedents of variations in bicultural experience, and how these processes influence self-concept, cultural frame switching, knowledge bridging, cognitive complexity, motivation as well as their psychological, social, and behavioral outcomes. The IPMB has implications beyond biculturals to those managing multiple identities around gender, religion, and profession as well.