Culture & Psychology

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Editorial: Steps towards the Renovation of Acculturation Research

Paradigms: What Scientists' Personal Experiences of Migration Might Tell
Science
Floyd W. Rudmin
Culture Psychology 2010 16: 299
DOI: 10.1177/1354067X10371140

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 Editorial

Abstract Acculturation refers to cultural learning and

adjustment in the context of continuous cross-cultural experience.
Plato, in his ‘Laws’, considered cross-cultural imitation to be a risk
arising from foreign commerce. In the 19th century, European
theorists wrote of the amalgamation processes by which diverse
peoples were culturally unified for the purposes of the
nation-state. In the 20th century, acculturation research first
focused on the cultural changes of conquered and dispossessed
native peoples, and later on the cultural adaptation, assimilation,
or integration of immigrants and other minorities. Native peoples
and immigrants were stereotyped as genetically and culturally
inferior and prone to diseases and mental illness. Thus, in most
research, improved health became the criterion of successful
acculturation, and further confusion came from the good
intentions to advise public policy. A century of such research has
come to no confident conclusions and has produced little useful
information. Acculturation research paradigms need renovation.
As one step forward, four acculturation researchers have here
reflected on their own research in the light of their own
acculturation experiences. Their self-observations and insights
point to new questions and constructs, and eventually to new
research paradigms.

Key Words acculturation, assimilation, cultural learning, history

of science, immigrants, minorities, phenomenology

Floyd W. Rudmin
University of Tromsø, Norway

Steps towards the Renovation of

Acculturation Research Paradigms:
What Scientists’ Personal
Experiences of Migration Might
Tell Science
Acculturation research has been energetic and voluminous, especially
so in the past few decades, but has produced little reliable or useful
information. The research record shows confused concepts, circular
reasoning, wrong research questions, and mistaken citations of
mistaken interpretations of studies using mistaken measurements.
Copyright © The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and permissions:
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Culture & Psychology 16(3)

These faults in acculturation research have been anchored by negative

stereotypes about minorities and by faith in liberal do-gooder ideology.
The record of faulty research about acculturation has become so widely
habituated that it is most often unseen and unnoticed by researchers
and readers alike.

Definition
‘Acculturation’ is defined by the authoritative Oxford English Diction-
ary to be ‘adoption and assimilation of an alien culture’ (Simpson &
Weiner, 1989, p. 91), here using assimilation in its biological sense of
ingestion and incorporation. In other words, acculturation means that
aspects of a foreign culture become an integral part of oneself. Thus,
acculturation is second-culture learning, subsequent to first-culture
learning. Because cultural knowledge and abilities, for example,
language competence, cannot be ‘unlearned’ or ‘shed’, acculturation
invariably leads to biculturalism of a greater or lesser degree (Rudmin,
2006, 2009). However, a bicultural person who successfully inhibits and
hides first-culture behaviors may appear to be a person who has lost
all first-culture competence (Ichheiser, 1949).
Note that an individual’s assimilation of a second culture is not the
same as a dominant society’s assimilation of a minority group. Over
generations, cultural knowledge and abilities can be lost, and the
minority group can be assimilated by the dominant group. If most
minority individuals acculturate to the dominant society, and if they
also fail to teach their children and grandchildren minority culture
ways, then the minority group may be assimilated by the dominant
society and cease to exist as a coherent cultural group. Thus, at the indi-
vidual level, ‘assimilation’ means that a person ‘eats’ and ‘digests’ a
second culture with no implication that the first culture disappears;
however, at the society level, ‘assimilation’ means that one society
‘eats’ and ‘digests’ another society with the necessary implication that
the ‘eaten’ society disappears.
The confusions have been compounded because corresponding to
the individual and society level meanings of ‘assimilation’ there are
also two meanings to the word ‘acculturation’. At the individual level,
‘acculturation’ denotes second-cultural acquisition; however, at the
societal level ‘acculturation’ denotes cultural diffusion, i.e., transfer of
cultural norms, values, behaviors, and technologies from one society
to another. The difference between these has not been well recognized,
and nearly all acculturation research on individuals has mistakenly
used the definition by Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits (1936, p. 149)

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 Rudmin Editorial

denoting societal cultural change: ‘Acculturation comprehends those

phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different
cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent
changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups’.
Redfield et al. (1936, p. 152) further explained that societal accultur-
ation always involves cultural diffusion and that there are three
possible outcomes: 1) the assimilation of one group by the other; 2) the
merger of the two cultures; or 3) a reaction against cultural diffusion
and cultural change.
For a society to acculturate, many individuals in it must initially
acculturate during the diffusion process. For example, by cultural
diffusion, tostitos have become common American snacks, while soft
drinks have become common Mexican beverages. Neither is now felt
to be foreign. For these products, the societies have acculturated, such
that Americans now eating tostitos are not acculturating since this food
is now part of American culture. However, if an individual American
were to move to Mexico, he or she might acculturate by taking midday
siestas, by speaking Spanish, by caring for the extended family, etc.
Such individual acculturation does not entail expectations that other
Americans will similarly acculturate nor does it entail expectations that
US or Mexican cultures will change. An individual can acculturate
even if others of the same group do not—even if there are no changes
in the collective culture of either cultural group. Therefore, it is a
mistake for psychological studies of acculturation to base research
designs on a definition of acculturation that entails changes in
societal cultures.

History
Further faults in acculturation research are evident in the history of the
topic. Histories of acculturation theory and acculturation research have
been written by Simons (1901–1902), Borrie (1959), Abramson (1980),
Rudmin (2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2006, 2009) and others. A quick overview
shows four topical periods. First, in antiquity, acculturation was a topic
of law concerning the need to regulate foreigners encountered during
commerce (Rudmin, 2003b). For example Plato (348 BC/1892), in his
‘Laws’, argued that cross-cultural imitation is a natural human
tendency but should be minimized by keeping foreigners in the port
outside the city walls and by forbidding citizens to travel until after
age 40 and then only in the company of compatriots. Second, in the
19th century, acculturation was a topic of political theory concerning
the amalgamation of diverse peoples into nation-states (Simons,

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Culture & Psychology 16(3)

1901–1902). For example, De Tocqueville (1835/2003, p. 343) predicted

that the tendency to assimilate the ways of other people would
eventually make the diverse populations of North America into one
nation, ‘preserving the same civilization, the same language, the same
religion, the same habits, the same manners, and imbued with the
same opinions, propagated under the same forms’.
Third, from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, accultur-
ation was a topic of anthropology concerning the mental evolution,
modernization, and cultural changes of native peoples and colonized
peoples (Rudmin, 2003c). The word ‘acculturation’ was coined in 1880
to describe changes in American Indian languages (Powell, 1880, 1883).
One of the latest and largest studies of this genre was Inkeles’ (1969)
study of the modernization of approximately 6000 young men in six
developing nations, comparing urban, educated, employed men with
matched samples of those living traditional agrarian lifestyles in
rural villages.
Fourth, from the early 20th century to the present, acculturation has
been a topic of psychology and health, with a focus on immigrants as
well as on native peoples (Rudmin, 2003a, 2003b, 2009). Such groups
have historically been stereotyped as unintelligent, unhygienic,
unhealthy, and prone to insanity and criminality, the ‘cure’ for which
was acculturation to modern, Anglo-Saxon ways (Escobar, Nervi, &
Gara, 2000; Escobar & Vega, 2000; Hunt, Schneider, & Comer, 2004;
Jastrow, 1886; Rudmin, 2003c, 2009; Thielman, 1985). However,
acculturation was also conceived to be a stressful experience, causing
psychological problems and mental illness. Belief in the negative
stereotypes of minorities and belief in the negative consequences of
acculturation are nicely illustrated in the opening paragraphs of a 1948
monograph on ‘Acculturation and Illness’:

Crime, suicide, and mental disease are examples of abnormal behavior

which commonly are correlated with foreign nativity and ethnic back-
ground. Recent neurotic behavior and psychosomatic conditions have been
found to be in part expressions of maladjustment due to culture change.
(Ruesch, Jacobson, & Loeb, 1948, p. 1)

Current acculturation research arose out of this history and became

fixated on minority health, especially mental health. Most studies use
improved mental health as the criterion by which to evaluate accultur-
ation attitudes, practices, and policies under the presumption that
minority mental health needs improving (Rudmin, 2009). This
presumption is so strong and so certain that if empirical studies
show minorities to have superior health, these results are called

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 Rudmin Editorial

‘counter-intuitive’ and a ‘paradox’ (e.g., Franzini, Ribble, & Keddie,

2001; Markides & Coreil, 1986; Sam, 2006; Sam, Vedder, Ward, &
Horenczyk, 2006). In fact many, if not most, studies using large samples
have shown immigrants to have superior mental health (e.g., Escobar
et al., 2000; Harker, 2001; Lam, Tsoi, & Chan, 2005; Read, Amick, &
Donato, 2005; Sam et al., 2006).

Confusions and Circularity

Because the goal has been to predict changes in the health of minority
groups, the research paradigms have tended to become self-report
survey studies of minority individuals’ acculturation orientations and
their health status, with a major focus on depression, anxiety, psycho-
somatic symptoms, self-esteem, and other manifestations of ‘accultur-
ative stress’ (Rudmin, 2009). The construct of ‘acculturative stress’ is
usually used without definition, but refers to any and all psycho-
somatic health problems that minorities experience if even remotely
related to second culture acquisition. Rudmin’s (2009) review of
acculturative stress measures found that their operationalization has
often included measures of low SES and discrimination. Because
acculturative stress is presumed to be a necessary and inevitable aspect
of acculturation, it is even sometimes used as a dimension of accultur-
ation (Rudmin, 2009), leading Escobar and Vega (2000, p. 738) to
complain that ‘through a convoluted logic, acculturation is equated
with stressful life experiences encountered in the culture change
process’.
Rudmin (2006, 2007) has traced one such convolution. The
acculturation orientation of deculturation, defined as dislike of both
minority and dominant cultures, was operationalized as acculturative
stress (Berry, Kim, Power, Young, & Bujaki, 1989), with the result that
deculturation scores fell into a factor with other acculturative stress
scores, leading many prominent scholars in high status journals to
claim that deculturation, also called ‘marginalization’, is the most
distressing mode of acculturation. For example, in Psychological
Bulletin, Phinney (1990, p. 509) wrote that ‘There is some evidence that
the acculturated or integrated option may be the most satisfactory, and
the marginal the least (Berry, Kim, Minde & Mok, 1987)’.
Rudmin (2006) has identified other such circularities in acculturation
research. For example, acculturative stress is defined as a motivator of
acculturative changes but also as a consequence of acculturative
changes. Similarly, acculturation attitudes are used as predictors of
acculturation outcomes, which are often measured as acculturation

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Culture & Psychology 16(3)

attitudes. Thus, one-time measures of acculturative stress or of

acculturation attitudes are uninformative, since they are conceived to
be both causes and consequences of acculturation.
Rudmin (2006) identified another circularity arising from the politi-
cal motivations for doing acculturation research, namely, to argue
against coercive policies of societal assimilation and argue for liberal
multiculturalism policies of free choice. Many, if not most, contempor-
ary acculturation experts believe: 1) that the research record shows
bicultural integration to be most beneficial; and 2) that bicultural
integration is only possible in societies that are multicultural. For
example, the journal Applied Psychology and the Cambridge University
Press textbook Cross-Cultural Psychology: Research and Applications both
carry the claim that:
Acculturation strategies have been shown to have substantial relationships
with positive adaptation: integration is usually the most successful;
marginalization is the least; and assimilation and separation strategies are
intermediate. This pattern has been found in virtually every study, and is
present for all types of acculturating groups. (Berry, 1997, p. 24; Berry,
Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 2002, p. 368)
In addition to endorsement by the textbook co-authors, this claim was
accepted without comment by a panel of Applied Psychology experts. In
fact, very few studies, if any, have found such a pattern, here shown as
ANOVA planned comparisons or as significant differences between
correlations of acculturation and adaptation:
Integration > Assimilation = Separation > Marginalization

In a close examination of more than 100 acculturation studies, Rudmin

(2003a; 2006) has not found a single study showing this pattern.
The claim that bicultural integration is only possible in societies that
promote multiculturalism has been most strongly made by Berry (2003,
p. 24), asserting that ‘the integration strategy can be pursued only in
societies that are explicitly multicultural’. The essence of the argument
is that coercive assimilation policies should be avoided and that this is
possible only if dominant societies allow or promote the maintenance
of minority cultures, wholly as in separation or partially as in bi-
cultural integration. The rhetorical reason the dominant societies
should be multicultural is that it improves minority health. Now
consider the circularity of arguing: 1) that virtually all studies show
integration to be most healthful; and 2) that integration is only possible
in multicultural societies. Both claims are empirical, but each claim
falsifies the other. If 1) is true, then 2) should be false, and if 2) is true
then 1) should be false, unless all societies are already multicultural.

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 Rudmin Editorial

But if that were true, then there would be no need for research to find
evidence to argue that minorities should have the free choice to be
bicultural.
This reveals another circularity (Rudmin, 2006). The argument that
minorities should have free choice about their own cultural conditions
is made using empirical measures of the minority’s acculturation
preferences. These measures entail a presumption that minorities do
have free choice to choose their acculturation preferences.
Another circularity concerns the validity of acculturation measures
(Rudmin, 2006). One popular paradigm employs scales that ask about
two cultures in one question, using long, double-barrelled items that
employ negations (Rudmin & Ahmadzadeh, 2001). In the following
example, the item asks about Canadian and Korean cultures: ‘Most of
my friends are Canadians because they are enjoyable and I feel
comfortable around them but I don’t feel the same way with Koreans’
(Berry et al., 1989, p. 193). Two editors of the Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology (van de Vijver & Phalet, 2004, p. 220) reviewed accultur-
ation measures and approved these kinds of questions because they
‘effectively discriminate between a most adaptive integration strategy
and other, generally less adaptive, strategies’. Thus, double-barrelled
items, long known to be faulty since first they were repudiated by the
founders of psychometrics (Likert, 1932; Thurstone, 1928), were never-
theless recommended because they find effects that journal editors
believed to be true prior to the effects being demonstrated. Others have
independently made similar circular arguments about scale validity
(e.g., Ataca, 1998; Lim, Heiby, Brislin, & Griffin, 2002).

More Problems
To summarize, acculturation research has been based on a mistaken
definition of acculturation, based on historic negative stereotypes
about minority groups and wrapped in research designs with circular
arguments. To make matters worse, the results of such research have
often been misinterpreted (Rudmin, 2006). For example, Lang, Muñoz,
Bernal, and Sorensen (1982) found that well-adjusted Hispanics had a
mean US acculturation score of 9.4, on a scale ranging from 0 to 40,
leading to the mistaken conclusion that biculturalism is beneficial
(Negy & Woods, 1992). In another example, Kvernmo and Heyerdahl
(2003, p. 63) examined two minority groups in Norway, analyzing
males and females separately, on two measures of mental health
(internalizing, externalizing), and found that seven of the eight cor-
relations of integration and behavioral problems (+.04, –.05, +.06, .00,

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Culture & Psychology 16(3)

–.11, +.02, –.05, –.18*) were not significant (*p < .05), leading to the
mistaken conclusion that bicultural integration was ‘a protective factor
for mental health’. Most recently, in an analysis of 42 samples in 13
nations, Vedder, van de Vijver, and Liebkind (2006, pp. 155–156) found
that mental health (self-esteem, life satisfaction, few psychosomatic
symptoms) was predicted by unicultural ethnic orientation (β = +.17)
and independently by unicultural ethnic contact (β = +.11), both of
which were more influential than bicultural integration (β = +.06),
leading to the mistaken conclusion that a preference for integration has
‘more positive adaptation outcomes than a preference for either the
national or the ethnic culture alone’ (Rudmin, 2008a, 2008b).
Furthermore, mistaken and misinterpreted research has often been
miscited. The most dramatic example is the widespread miscitation of
a study reporting replicated results showing that neither integration
nor assimilation had any detectable relationship to stress (Berry et al.,
1987). For nine studies, the reported mean correlation for stress and
integration (r = –.19) was nearly identical to that for stress and assimi-
lation (r = –.18), neither of which was statistically significant. This was
replicated by a factor analysis of different data showing integration
and assimilation to load together in a factor orthogonal to (i.e., un-
related to) the stress factor (Berry et al., 1987). This replicated evidence
that integration and assimilation are nearly identical in having no
relationship to stress has been miscited more than 40 times in 20 years
as showing that integration is the least stressful form of acculturation
(Rudmin, 2006, 2007). For example, Williams and Berry (1991, p. 635)
wrote in American Psychologist that ‘those who pursue integration are
minimally stressed, and assimilation leads to intermediate levels of
stress (Berry et al., 1987)’. Ward and Kennedy (1994, p. 331) wrote in
the International Journal of Intercultural Relations that ‘integration is
associated with a low level of stress, and assimilation is linked with an
intermediate stress level’, citing Berry et al. (1987).

Empirical Record
These foundations for acculturation research have led to a considerable
amount of empirical research: to date, ‘acculturation’ and related terms
appear in the titles and abstracts of more than 5000 articles in
PsycINFO and more than 4000 in MEDLINE. However, reviews of this
empirical literature repeatedly find it has not resulted in reliable or
useful information (Rudmin, 2009). A few quotations from some of
these reviews illustrate the point:

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 Rudmin Editorial

The primary deficiency in ACC [acculturation] studies is the lack of

agreement as to the definition of the construct. (Negy & Woods, 1992, p. 224)
Existing studies that focus on the process of acculturation seem to have
reached an impasse. The problems seem to lie with (1) the limited con-
ceptualization and theory and (2) overemphasis on almost redundant
psychometrics. (Recio-Adrados, 1993, p. 66)
The experience of psychiatric epidemiology has shown that no explanatory
power is gained by the inclusion of multidimensional acculturation scales.
(Escobar & Vega, 2000, p. 739)
Because of the lack of consistency in study designs and findings, we are
unable to draw conclusions. . . (Satia-Abouta, Patterson, Neuhouser, & Elder,
2002, p. 1116)
Literature reviews that have examined the relationship between accultur-
ation and the mental health status . . . have found a plethora of inconsistent
and inconclusive findings. (Cabassa, 2003, p. 139)
Despite its prominence in current research on the unequal distribution of
poor health among ethnic minorities in the US, acculturation as a variable
in health research is riddled with serious conceptual and factual errors.
(Hunt et al., 2004, p. 981)
The literature on acculturation to date lacks sufficient breadth and methodo-
logical rigor to make comprehensive and definitive evidence-based recom-
mendations. (Lara, Gamboa, Kahramanian, Morales, & Bautista, 2005, p. 383)

This last was the conclusion of independent researchers at the RAND

Corporation, contracted to review acculturation research in order to
summarize the useful information. There was none.

Return to Phenomena
Clearly, the theory and research paradigms underlying acculturation
research have failed. Rudmin (2003b, 2006, 2009) has argued that the
faults are many, including inadequate literature reviews, wrong
research questions, designs plagued by circularity, serious psycho-
metric mistakes, misinterpretation of results, and miscitation of such
mistaken research. There is evidence of ideological bias in this research
record: racist bias in the early 20th century and liberal bias in the late
20th century and now. Thus there is now need to renovate the theories
and research paradigms used to study acculturation.
As Rudmin (2006) has noted, two of the founders of social psy-
chology, Fritz Heider and Gustav Ichheiser, have both argued that new
research paradigms can begin with phenomenological studies (Heider,
1987–1989; Ichheiser, 1949; Rudmin, Trimpop, Kryl, & Boski, 1987).

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Culture & Psychology 16(3)

That is, a way forward from the field’s historically habituated para-
digms may be found by returning to the phenomena and looking anew,
if possible, at the experience of migration. As a step in that direction,
acculturation researchers who are themselves experiencing accultur-
ation have been asked to reflect on their own research on acculturation
in light of their own experiences of it. There are no standardized
methods for phenomenological self-reflection, and there is no surety of
success. But the prospect of insight might lead to new directions worth
pursuing.
Eugene Tartakovsky’s acculturation research is on immigrants from
the former Soviet Union to Israel, which is also his own acculturation
experience. This entails his Jewish minority status in the Soviet Union
from childhood and youth as well as his subsequent migration to
Israel, where he recounts his acculturation journey as his acculturation
strategies shifted from assimilation. Tartakovsky’s own research
focusses on the attitudes of potential migrants prior to migration.
Voluntary migrants such as him have an opportunity for anticipatory
euphoria and well-being, which may provide a buffer that is unavail-
able to forced migrants. Also evident in Tartakovsky’s report is the
important role of economic and social resources in determining
acculturation outcomes.
Fabian Jintae Froese’s research is on acculturation in the business
context, and his acculturation experiences entail his bicultural upbring-
ing in Germany, with a Korean mother and German father, subsequent
sojourning in Japan and Korea, and current professorship in Korea. The
phenomenon of mixed ethnic children of migrants returning to their
parents’ homeland makes salient the issues of identity as both a
personal, existential decision and also as a social imposition, especially
with outdated race stereotypes that are still existent in popular culture.
Another phenomenon of note is the degree to which ‘foreigners’ form
their own supportive social communities.
Kyunghwa Kwak’s acculturation research is on cultural aspects of
adolescent development of the self, and her acculturation experiences
entail her leaving Korea for graduate studies in Canada and her sub-
sequent permanent emigration. As an initial sojourner, goals are
focused and time limits preclude wider acculturation efforts. The
positive phenomenon of self-growth allowed by acculturative experi-
ence is noted. Multiple selves arise, depending on contexts. Discom-
forts, confusions, and stresses all contribute to self-fulfilment and an
approach to wisdom.
Floyd Rudmin’s acculturation research is on history and psycho-
metric methods, and his acculturation experience is that of an

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American sojourning in the Philippines, Japan, Quebec, and Norway.

Phenomena of note include his feeling the efficiency of super-ordinate
decisions, e.g., to eat all local foods, his feeling the stress of bicultural
metacognitive monitoring, his using cultural play to cope with cultural
incompetence, his noticing that unconscious cultural imitation is
happening, his feeling the freedom of a foreigner’s exemption from
social norms and expectations, and his seeking mentors as go-betweens.
Reports such as these serve to direct future research to acculturation
phenomena that our standard paradigms have not well appreciated or
operationalized. The processes of an individual’s acculturation are not
captured well by static measures of attitudes, and the ‘success’ of an
individual’s acculturation entails more than minimizing psycho-
somatic symptoms. Acculturation is a universal human experience,
and all acculturation researchers should perhaps themselves reflect on
their own experiences in light of their own research efforts. It is hoped
that the field might thus move forward in multiple directions, such that
the diversity of the paradigms and findings reflect the diversity of the
phenomenon.

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Biography
FLOYD W. RUDMIN has a BA in philosophy from Bowdoin College, an MA
in audiology from SUNY Buffalo, and a PhD in social psychology from
Queen’s University (Canada). He is currently Professor of Social and
Community Psychology at the University of Tromsø in Norway. His research
has been focused on topics of private property, history of psychology,
acculturation, and health psychology. His teaching has been focused on
statistics, history of psychology, and cross-cultural psychology. ADDRESS:
Floyd W. Rudmin, Psychology Department, University of Tromsø (Norway),
Tromsø 9037, Norway. [email: floyd.rudmin@uit.no]

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