Bicultural identity is the condition of being oneself regarding the combination of two cultures. The term can also be defined as biculturalism, which is the presence of two different cultures in the same country or region. As a general term, culture involves the behaviors and belief characteristics of a particular social, ethnic, or age group. Within culture, we have cultural effects, which are the shared behaviors and customs we learn from the institutions around us. An example of a cultural effect would be how an individual's personality is strongly influenced by the biological and social norms he is exposed to. Another cultural effect would be that in some societies it would be more acceptable to dress or act in a certain way.
In regards to bicultural identity, an individual may face conflict assimilating into both cultures or finding a balance between both. An individual may face challenges assimilating into the whole, collective culture. Similarly, an individual may face difficulty balancing their identity within themselves due to the influence of both of their cultures. Being an individual with identity plurality can be hard mentally and emotionally. The different levels of biculturalism can be defined through the way people are able to simultaneously manage their two selves. The more they alternate between them, the more cognitive complexity they face, since they avoid cultural duality and do not practice handling both cultures at the same time. It is through identity integration that they will be able to solve the problem and alleviate the tolls that come with identity plurality.Kramer, T., Lau-Gesk, L., & Chiu, C. (2009). The interactive effects of duality expertise and coping frames on responses to ambivalent messages. Journal of Consumer Psychology (Elsevier Science), 19(4), 661-672.Fitzsimmons, S. R. (2013). Multicultural employees: a framework for understanding how they contribute to organizations. Academy of Management Review, 38(4), 525-549 Bicultural identity also may have positive effects on the individual, in terms of the additional knowledge they acquire from belonging to more than one culture. Furthermore, with the growing number of racial minorities in American society, individuals that identify with more than one culture may have more linguistic ability.
Biculturalism and personality
Culture affects the personality of an individual because the individual may react in a way that is reflective of the knowledge one acquires from one or more culture(s). Problems may arise when ideals in one culture are not connected to another culture, which may cause generalizations about personality. Personality is shaped by both cultures and thus generalizations should not be made based on one single culture.Friedman, H. (2012). Personality: Classic theories and modern research. Pearson Higher Education: Allyn & Bacon. One's culture also influences one's hormonal changes, one's interaction with violence and one's family values. For example, Hispanic culture often requires older children to take care and/or help raise younger siblings, while mainstream American culture interprets parents as the sole caregivers. Another example of this difference would be religious preference and or practice. Cultures other than the American culture may often identify more with certain religions and are often more in tune with their religious beliefs.
Measuring bicultural identity
Bicultural Identity Integration
One construct to measure bicultural identity is the Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) construct. It is a relatively new construct and was proposed in 2002 by Benet-Martínez, Leu, Lee & Morris. The BII looks at how the bicultural individual perceives his bicultural identities and whether they are compatible or oppositional. It also seeks to identify the big five aspects of an individual's personality, including aspects such as sociability, activity and emotionality.Martinez, V., J.; Haritatos (2002). "Bicultural Identity Integration (BII): Components and psychosocial antecedents". Journal of Personality 73: 1015-1050. The BII seeks to find whether an individual has a cultural distance or conflict within one's cultures, which in turn helps indicate how biculturally competent we are.
Low BII bicultural individuals have difficulties in incorporating both cultures into a cohesive identity and tend to see both cultures as highly dissimilar. Bicultural individuals with high BII on the other hand, see their identities as complementary and themselves as part of a “third” culture, which integrates elements from both their cultures. According to Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist, individuals respond in a more stable fashion when their cultural contexts are understood. Researchers wanted to examine how these differences could relate to other factors and the results are insightful. BII is significantly associated with the psychological and social adjustments of the bicultural. Low BII bicultural individuals are found to have inferior bilingual proficiency, experience more anxiety, depression and are more neurotic and less open than bicultural individuals with high BII. More importantly, low BII bicultural individuals are not chameleon-like. They resist the frame switching and are more likely to respond in ways inconsistent with the cultural cues. In other words, when low BII Chinese-Americans are presented with American cues, unlike high BII bicultural individuals, they would not behave like Americans but instead, more like a Chinese. However, the identity struggle for bicultural individuals can be made less arduous. Like other personality traits, BII is malleable to contextual factors. BII can be increased by asking bicultural individuals to recall positive cross-cultural exchanges or like in another study, make high-level construals. These findings can be useful in for example, helping immigrants to cope with their new environment.
Bicultural identity and language
Language is an essential aspect of any culture. Individuals are able to maintain key aspects of their culture by maintaining their culture's language. Language is important because it is an oral form of how people interact with other people within a society. Language reinforces the ties among the people who speak the same language, and thus encourages cultural bonding.Chen, S.. "Two languages, two personalities? Examining language effects on personality in the bilingual context.". Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Thus, by preserving the language within both of one's cultures, one can maintain one's integration within each culture. However, this can result in a difficulty in integrating one's cultures if each has a distinct, different language as it can prevent outsiders from understanding that particular culture.
Cultural frame switching
The concept of cultural frame switching (CFS) or double consciousness made popular by W.E.B Du Bois addresses how an individual switches between cultural frames or systems in response to their environment. The presence of culture-specific peers can elicit culture-specific values.Benet-Martinez, V., J., F., M.; Leu, Lee, Morris (2002). "Negotiating biculturalism: Cultural frame switching in biculturals with oppositional versus compatible cultural identities". Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 33: 492–516. CFS can be used to describe the switching of different language use depending on the context. Thus, CFS can be connected to cultural accommodation, which is seen when bilinguals respond to situations with the language that applies best to the situation present.
It is evident that language can have an effect on an individual's thinking process. This is because the language itself primes the individual's cultural values, cognitive style, attitudes and memory, which in turn affect behavior. For example, researchers randomly assigned participants in India to complete a work task in English or Hindi. Participants received either extra pay for working harder or a social norm message about how hard other people tended to work. The extra pay was more motivating in English than in Hindi, which mirrors results from when the researchers tested people in the US and UK.
Cultural perspectives
African American culture
African American culture is also known as black culture in the United States and the identity of African American culture is rooted in the historical experience of the African American people. It is rooted in Africa, and is a blend of sub-Saharan African and Sahelean cultures. Due to aspects of African American culture that were accentuated by the slavery period, African American culture is dynamic. Within the African American culture, race or physical differences led to mass murder, and violence against racial groups. These occurrences may affect an individual's perception of their African American culture. In America, Black and White differences are the most significant groupings largely because of American history. The US was founded on the principle of “all men are equal” and yet slavery existed. This is what resulted in the American Dilemma. Thus, due to historical reasons, and because they are often stereotyped, African Americans have difficulty assimilating with their culture and American culture.Guan, M., F., E.; Lee, Cole (2012). "Complexity of culture: The role of identity and context in bicultural individuals' body ideals". Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 18 (3): 247-257.
Asian culture
Individuals having origins within the Far East, Southeast Asia or the Indian subcontinent are referred to as Asian under the U.S. Census Bureau. Asians complete 4.8% of the U.S. population alone. Asians have had the highest educational attainment level and median household income of any racial demographic in the USA and attain the highest median personal income overall, . Thus, Asian culture is often depicted as the most similar culture to American Culture. Asians often communicate non-verbally and/or indirectly, and often are not as frank or upfront as other cultures in terms of their communication. Asian culture is typically much more group-oriented or holistic and thus the way in which they interpret the world is systematically different from the more individualistic American Culture in terms of thought process and lifestyle. This may make it difficult for Asians in the USA to assimilate easily into American culture.
Hispanic culture
Hispanics and Latinos have origins in the countries of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula consisting of Spain and Portugal. Hispanics are very racially diverse. Hispanics often are very religiously oriented and focus on family values and the importance of intergenerational connections. This may cause difficulty in integration with American culture, as the Hispanic community often emphasizes the importance of helping one's family and advancing as a family rather than simply individual success, which is more prominent within American Culture.Mok, A., M.; Morris (2012). "Bicultural self-defense in consumer contexts: Self-protection motives are the basis for contrast versus assimilation to cultural cues". Journal of Consumer Psychology. Similarly, Hispanics may have difficulty associating with American Culture because of the language culture, as most Hispanics can speak Spanish. The ability to speak Spanish is valued greatly within Hispanic culture, as it is greatly used during social gatherings and amongst extended family. The Spanish language is a significant part of Hispanic culture, and because of the vast amount of racial differences within Hispanics, the way in which Spanish is spoken within the different racial groups is often different. This makes it not only difficult to assimilate into American culture but to often assimilate with the different races in Hispanic communities.
European culture