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Ethnic identity and cultural adjustment difficulties of Chinese-Americans
Abstract
The present study investigated the relationship between ethnic identity and the psychological adjustment issues of acculturative stress and collective self-esteem of Chinese Americans. The relationship between salience of ethnicity and these two psychological adjustment issues was also explored. An attempt was made to investigate if the culture-specific variable of loss of face was related to Chinese Americans' ethnic identity, acculturative stress, and collective self-esteem. Data were collected from 224 Chinese Americans from California, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Texas, Maryland, and New York. Based on an extensive literature review on the construct and measurement of ethnic identity, the Internal-External Ethnic Identity measure (Int-Ext Id) was developed within a social psychological framework. Internal consistency reliabilities of the internal ethnic identity subscale, external ethnic identity subscale, and full scale were.79,.86, and.90, respectively. A Salience of Ethnicity Index $(\alpha=.77)$ was developed to assess Chinese Americans' perception of their ethnic visibility in their immediate dominant White environment. Stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that internal ethnic identity significantly predicted salience of ethnicity and identity self-esteem; external ethnic identity significantly predicted membership, private, and public self-esteem. On the basis of a critical difference analysis, 123 respondents obtained higher scores on the external ethnic identity dimension that exceeded the critical difference score (i.e., CEG), 5 respondents obtained higher scores on the internal ethnic identity dimension that exceeded the critical difference score (i.e., CIG), and 97 respondents did not obtain either internal or external ethnic identity scores that exceeded the critical difference score (i.e., NDG). An analysis of variance indicated that CIG scored significantly higher on acculturative stress than CEG. Significant relationships were found between Chinese Americans' fear of loss of face and their identity self-esteem, internal ethnic identity, acculturative stress, and salience of ethnicity. A stepwise multiple regression analysis found that income, external ethnic identity, salience of ethnicity, and fear of loss of face were significant predictors of a subset of cultural stress items taken from the acculturative distress instrument. Implications of these findings and the limitations of the study have been discussed.
Subject Area
Social psychology|Minority & ethnic groups|Sociology
Recommended Citation
Kwan, Kwong-Liem Karl, "Ethnic identity and cultural adjustment difficulties of Chinese-Americans" (1996). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9637073.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9637073