3: Acculturation

• When people begin to adopt the norms and traditions of another culture, it’s known as acculturation - Moving away from your own culture into another
• Acculturation is a cultural and psychological change that involves changes in a persons psyche and behaviour.
• Berry once again created an ACCULTURATION THEORY wherein she proposed exactly 4 different acculturation strategies.
• Berry also argued that there are three factors to achieving different states of Acculturation: The importance of maintaining the original culture to the Individual, whether the Individual has a positive or negative relationship with the new culture, and external factors.

4 Types of Acculturation

1. Assimilation: When an individual COMPLETELY abandons their original culture for the new one, and adopts the cultural values and behaviour of said new culture
2. Integration: Occurs when an individual has an interest in another culture, and adopts the behaviours and values of the new culture, while still maintaining their original culture.
3. Separation: Separation occurs when an individual, usually migrants - Maintain their own culture while keeping minimal, almost avoiding the new culture.
4. Marginalisation: Marginalisation occurs when due to current conditions, it’s not possible to maintain one’s own culture, but due to exclusion or discrimination - It’s difficult to try to assimilate into the new culture, resulting in the Individual’s loss of cultural identity in both cultures.

• Moving to a new culture often results in a personal battle between enculturation, or maintaining one’s culture, and changing one’s culture in order to fit in. The stress of not feeling like a part of the groups are known as acculturative stress
• Acculturative stress has the potential to affect someone mentally and physically, causing depression, increased levels of obesity, etcetera. Acculturative stress causes a reduction in mental health and well being of the ethnic minority during their journey of trying to adapt to the new culture. Acculturative stress is also known as “Culture Shock”
• Lastly, Acculturation gaps are generational differences in acculturation and how it may lead to conflict within a family. Immigrant families often see their children assimilating a new culture fairly quickly as a result of the school system, allowing them to have more contact and desire to adapt the culture - However having to live with both their original culture and the one at school turns quickly stressful for the kids as well - Acculturative gaps often lead in the children confiding with gatekeepers of the new culture more than their own parents