Managing cultural identity for future benefits
A major challenge for entrants to a foreign country relates to managing their cultural identity as new behavioural expectations, norms and values come to compete with those of their own culture of origin. Despite the widely acknowledged benefits of second-culture exposure, there is relatively little research focusing on how the ways in which individuals adopt different patterns of cultural identification may offer important traction in predicting performance advantages. Knowledge is also lacking with regard to the process by which individuals absorb a cultural identity, and the role that second-culture exposure plays in shaping sociocognitive skills. The EU-funded project 'The antecedents and consequences of biculturalism' (Biculturalism) is working to address these knowledge gaps through a series of studies using different populations and methods. Among others, the main objectives are to investigate the potential performance benefits of bicultural and multicultural experiences across a number of domains, and to explore the role of integrative complexity as a mediating mechanism that links such experiences and performance-related success. To date, progress has been made in achieving the goals set for the project’s initial two-year period. In collaboration with colleagues at leading universities in Europe and the United States, numerous questionnaires and methodologies needed to perform cross-sectional and priming studies have been compiled and created. Furthermore, data has been collected from more than half a dozen studies including participants in Europe, Israel and the United States. These focus on different outcome measures, and analysis results obtained so far have indicated strong support for all expected hypotheses. Ongoing project work and results ultimately aim to afford psychologists with a greater understanding of the multicultural experience and its consequences. Outcomes will also potentially lead to a comprehensive framework for organisational scholars, practitioners and policymakers regarding the successful management of cultural diversity.
