Myrthe Blösser
Supervisor: Jozefien de Leersnyder Student number: 10789154
Universiteit van Amsterdam Bachelor thesis Social Psychology Word count: 4565, abstract: 150 Date: 01-06-2018
Abstract
The emotional patterns of immigrants who are in daily social contact with the majority tend to become more similar to that of the majority; they emotionally acculturate. In addition, expatriates with high cultural intelligence tend to culturally adjust more than expatriates with low cultural intelligence. Therefore, I hypothesized that immigrants with high cultural intelligence would emotionally acculturate faster when in contact with the majority then immigrants with low cultural intelligence. To obtain our emotional acculturation score, while using a new
operationalization for emotional fit where all participants rated their appraisals and action tendencies in response to anger-situations describing vignettes, we correlated the emotional patterns of 18 immigrants with that of the typical emotional pattern of the native Dutch in corresponding anger-eliciting situations. Against my hypotheses, the amount of contact did not predict the level of emotional acculturation, and minorities’ level of cultural intelligence did not strengthen nor weaken this relationship.
Linking Cultural Intelligence with Emotional Acculturation: A first study
In the last decennia, ever-increasing globalization and migration have led to an increase of cultural diversity and multicultural societies in Europe (Czaika & Haas, 2014). In the
Netherlands, 23% of the population is made up of immigrants from 138 different nationalities (CBS, 2018). Consequently, intercultural contact occurs daily in a wide arrange of situations, creating a strong need for cross-cultural communication skills for effective communication.
Adjusting to a new culture is a demanding process, associated with poorer mental health, stress and depression (Sodowsky & Plake, 1992; Oh, Koeske, & Sales, 2002). Fortunately, when done well, high cultural adjustment is associated with positive consequences such as higher job
satisfaction, better mental well-being and better quality of relationships (Lin, Chen, Song, 2012). To construct effective interventions aimed at facilitating cultural adjustment, it is of great
importance to understand the factors that influence this process.
One way to study the extent of an immigrants' cultural adjustment is by means of emotional acculturation. In this Bachelor thesis, I will test the hypothesis that cultural
intelligence has a moderating effect on the positive relationship between the amount of contact of a minority with the majority and the emotional acculturation of the minority. Specifically, I expect minorities with high cultural intelligence to emotionally acculturate faster when in contact with the majority than minorities with low cultural intelligence. This current study compares native Dutch with immigrants. The Dutch culture is seen as individualistic, whereas most non-western immigrants (e.g., Turkish, Moroccan, Indonesian) in the Netherlands are seen as collectivistic. Emotional pattern comparisons between the native Dutch and immigrants will be made for anger situations, as the experience and evaluation of anger are found to differ across cultures (Boiger, Mesquita, Uchida & Barret, 2013; Boiger et al., 2018).
Emotional Acculturation and the Internalization of the Cultural Mandate
Emotional patterns are thought to reflect the level of internalization of the cultural mandate; cultural norms, values, and practices (Boiger et al., 2018). Every culture has a typical pattern of emotions (Kitayama, Mesquita & Karasawa, 2006). Embedded in these emotional patterns is the cultural mandate (Mesquita, 2003; Mesquita & Leu, 2007). The frequency of the experience and expression of a specific emotion is related to the cultural mandate on how to be a good person and how to have good relationships with others (Mesquita & Leu, 2007; Boiger et al., 2013). For example, anger is one such emotion that differs substantially between cultures; in an individualistic cultural context where individual autonomy is valued, anger is experienced
more frequently than in a collectivistic cultural context where social harmony is emphasized (Kitayama et al., 2006). Individualistic cultures see anger as a mean to realize power and control (Tiedens, 2001), whereas collectivistic cultures see anger as dangerous and inappropriate as it could harm the social harmony (Briggs, 1970). The experience and expression of a particular emotion in a specific situation is thus central to achieving what is culturally valued and expected (Boiger et al., 2013). When an individual expresses and experiences culturally appropriate emotions in certain situations, this individual is said to have a high emotional fit with that culture.
Monocultural individuals tend to have a higher emotional fit with the typical emotional pattern of their own culture than to that of another culture (De Leersnyder, 2014). How might this work for an immigrant's emotional fit with that of the host culture when they navigate two cultures on a daily basis? The emotional patterns of an immigrant tend to change upon regular exposure to the host culture; they emotionally acculturate (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, Kim, 2011). In this sense, emotional acculturation is the process in which emotional patterns change in response to exposure to other cultures, and the emotional fit is the state that illustrates the level of emotional acculturation. An immigrant's high emotional fit with the typical emotional pattern of the majority culture can thus be seen as high emotional acculturation, and therefore,
internalization of the cultural mandate.
Fitting in emotionally is desirable as it is related to higher relational and psychological well-being (De Leersnyder et al., 2014; De Leersnyder, Kim & Mesquita, 2015), and somatic health (Consedine, Chentsova & Krivoshekova, 2014). Hence, identification of factors that can enhance the emotional fit for immigrants is of great interest.
minority has with the majority culture; the more daily social contact with the majority, the higher minorities’ emotional fit with the majority culture’s typical patterns of emotional experience (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011, 2013; Jasini, De Leersnyder, Phalet and Mesquita, 2016). Counterintuitively, the immigrants’ attitudes towards adopting the values of the majority culture did not significantly explain this relationship. Personal characteristics as possible moderators of this relationship are yet to be studied, leaving a gap in the understanding of why some
individuals emotionally acculturate more effectively when in contact with the majority than others.
In this bachelor thesis, I propose to study one such personal characteristic that may importantly moderate the positive relationship between the amount of contact with the majority and emotional acculturation; namely cultural intelligence (CQ).
Cultural Intelligence as an Explanation for Individual Differences
CQ is the ability to adapt and behave effectively in different cultural contexts with
individuals from different cultural backgrounds (Earley & Ang, 2003). CQ is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional model that consists of four dimensions: metacognitive, cognitive,
motivational and behavioral (Earley & Ang, 2003; Ang et al., 2007). Cognitive CQ is the knowledge that someone possesses about cultural norms, values, and practices. This knowledge can be acquired from interactions with other cultures and personal experience, and thus, can be learned. Behavioral CQ is the ability to use appropriate (non)verbal behavior in cultural settings. Motivational CQ is the intrinsic motivation to understand and function effectively in different cultural contexts. Metacognitive CQ is the ability to think about the cultural knowledge that you possess. All four dimensions are needed for CQ to help cross-cultural adjustment (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004).
Research on CQ in organizational contexts shows that expatriates with a high CQ
culturally adjust better than expatriates with a low CQ (Ang et al., 2007; Guðmundsdóttir, 2015), and that these effects remain significant even after controlling for age, gender, previous
experience in foreign countries, language proficiency of the majority culture, and English proficiency (Lin et al., 2012). One of the reasons that CQ is thought to lead to more cross-cultural adjustment is because it is associated with higher intercross-cultural communication skills (Yeke & Semerciöz, 2016; Lee & Sukoco, 2010). When an expat communicates effectively with the majority, it is easier to gain knowledge about cultural norms and values (Kim, Kirkman, Chen, 2006). The understanding of cultural norms and values, in turn, leads to better cultural adjustment (Lee & Sukoco, 2010; Lin et al., 2012). Thus, CQ might provide a possible explanation for the individual differences in the immigrants’ level of emotional acculturation. The Current Research
Previous studies have found that immigrant minorities’ exposure to and interaction with host culture members predicts emotional acculturation and that expatriates with a high CQ culturally adjust more than expatriates with a low CQ (De Leersnyder et al., 2011; Ang et al., 2007, respectively). However, as research on emotional acculturation is relatively new, studies on possible moderators are scarce. This current study will, therefore, examine if the personal characteristic CQ might be a significant moderator in the positive relationship between the amount of contact with the majority and emotional acculturation. I do so because high CQ may allow immigrants to acquire more information about cultural norms and values when interacting with the majority, which may, in turn, lead to higher emotional acculturation.
Specifically, I aim to test three hypotheses (see figure 1). First, I expect that the amount of contact with the majority has a positive relationship with emotional acculturation (H1).
Second, I expect CQ to moderate the positive relationship between contact with the majority and emotional acculturation (H2), such that individuals with high CQ emotionally acculturate faster when in contact with the majority (H2a) than individuals with a low CQ (H2b).
If these relationships are found, they might have practical and theoretical implications. CQ can be enhanced through intercultural training (Rehg, Gundlach, Grigorian, 2012; Early & Peterson, 2004), and thus may provide a new route for interventions aimed at facilitating a higher emotional fit. Besides, as most research on CQ has mostly been done in organizational contexts, this current study might find that the construct CQ is generalizable to other domains of
psychological research, such as cultural psychology.
Figure 1
Model: an overview of the hypotheses and the relations between all constructs.
Method
This study is part of a larger research project, consisting of multiple questionnaires and a diary study. All participants completed all questionnaires; some participants also completed the diary study1.
Participants
A priori analysis using G*power suggested that we need 68 immigrants in order to achieve a power of .8. In total, we recruited 109 participants in both cultural and educational institutions (e.g., community centers, cultural associations, universities, and colleges). University students received course credit in exchange for their participation in this study. Non-university students participated on a voluntary basis. Inclusion criteria were; being a) 18 years or older, b) fully proficient in the Dutch language, c) native Dutch or first (foreign-born), second (one or more parents foreign-born) or third generation (two or more grandparents foreign-born) immigrants.
We omitted 48 participants from our sample who did not 1) finish the questionnaires used in this study, 2) answer the attention check questions correctly, and/or 3) did not answer the questions seriously (as measured by repeatedly choosing the same answer option and a completion time less than 30 minutes1). Due to a technical fault, three third-generation
immigrants were only able to complete the Situated Emotion Experience Questionnaire – Anger (SEEQ-A) and not all other required questionnaires and were thus also omitted from the data. Ultimately, the data-analysis to test my hypotheses were based on 58 participants, of which 18 were immigrants (83% women), and 40 were native Dutch (75% women). Ages ranged from 18 to 74 (Mimmigrants = 21.72, SD = 2.47, Mnative Dutch = 26.35, SD = 14.79)2. Post-hoc power analysis revealed that due to our small sample of immigrants, we achieved a power of .24, which means that we have a 24% chance to find an effect assuming that there is one (Field, 2013).
Procedure
1 The complete questionnaire took a minimum of 30 minutes to answer attentively 2 See Appendix 1.1 and 1.2 for preliminary analyses.
All participants signed the informed consent prior to the study. Native Dutch participants only received the SEEQ-A to calculate their typical emotional pattern. The immigrants were asked to complete all questionnaires. After completing all questionnaires, the participants were debriefed about the goals of the studies and received a list of local psychologists whom they could contact if they ever felt the need to talk to a professional after the study.
Measures
Social contact with majority versus minority scale. The independent variable amount of ‘contact with the majority’ is measured by using the ‘Social Contact with Majority versus Minority Scale’ (De Leersnyder, 2017), consisting of seven statements describing situations in which contact with the majority may occur. Participants were instructed to read each statement and rate to what extent it applies to them on a 7-point Likert scale, where 1 = only people of my ethnicity and 7 = only native Dutch (M = 4.44, SD = 1.18). An example item is “My friends are…” (Cronbach's alpha of .873). We calculated the mean score for each individual over all items, where a higher score indicates a higher degree of contact with the majority.
Cultural Intelligence Scale. We adopted the short-version Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) to measure the independent variable 'cultural intelligence', consisting of nine items (Ang et al., 2007). We translated the questions using the back-translation method to assure validity (Brislin, 1970). Participants were instructed to read each statement and rate to what extent the statement applies to them on a 7-point Likert scale, where 1 = strongly disagree, and 7 = strongly agree (M = 4.43, SD = .99). For example, “I check the accuracy of my cultural knowledge as I interact with people from different cultures” (Cronbach's alpha = .72). The CQS has been found to be reliable and valid across time, samples and cultures (Dyne, Ang, Koh, 2008). Furthermore, it shows to be discriminant from closely related constructs, such as emotional intelligence and
openness to experience (Ang et al., 2007; Ang, Dyne, Koh, 2006; Dyne et al., 2008). We calculated the mean score for each individual over all items, where a higher score indicates a higher CQ.
Emotional Fit. The dependent variable ‘emotional fit’ is usually implicitly measured by correlating each immigrant’s emotional pattern with that of the typical emotional pattern of native Dutch for a specific emotional situation. In the current study, however, we will use a different implicit operationalization of emotional fit. We will look at similarities regarding the appraisals and action tendencies associated with vignettes that are meant to elicit anger. To capture these appraisals and action tendencies for anger situations, all participants completed the translated version of the SEEQ-A (Boiger et al., 2018). The SEEQ-A is a directed imagery task, using 15 vignettes describing a culture typical anger-eliciting situation. An example of a vignette is "Anthony and a friend were going upstairs in a restaurant when a large group of people
squeezed by on their way down. One of them hollered at Anthony and his friend "Hey, stop pushing us!". After reading each vignette, participants were asked to rate, as if they were the protagonist, to which extent the appraisals and action tendencies would apply to them on a 100-point Likert scale in response to 15 vignettes, where 1 = not at all and 100 = very strongly. An example of an appraisal item is “If I were Ryan, I would… focus on what I should have done to avoid the situation” and for an action tendency “If I were Ryan, I would… feel like shouting at [...]”. The SEEQ-A covers the complete domain of anger and is able to measure differences in emotional experiences across cultures (Boiger et al., 2013; Boiger, Güngör, Karasawa & Mesquita, 2014; Boiger et al., 2018).
The vignettes are based on a two-axis continuum. One continuum varies in the extent that the situation is elicited intentionally or by accident. The other continuum varies in the relational
closeness of the person with the protagonist (Boiger et al., 2013). As collectivistic cultures emphasize the importance of social harmony, situations that are elicited by a close person and are viewed as inconsiderate are most anger-eliciting. For individualistic cultures, emphasize is made on the individual autonomy, making intentional situations with a close person most
anger-eliciting (Boiger et al., 2013). The two-axis continuum, therefore, pertains to the cultural norms and values of either the individualistic or the collectivistic culture. Furthermore, each situation is based on either the Japanese, American or Belgian cultural contexts (Boiger et al., 2013). The cultural-specificity of the vignettes enable us to measure the emotional patterns for individuals from either individualistic or collectivistic cultures.
We calculated the emotional fit as follows. We first calculated a sample mean for each item in each situation across all native Dutch participants, which represents the typical emotional pattern of appraisals and action tendencies of the majority. We then correlated the individual emotional patterns of each immigrant and native Dutch participant with the average pattern of the native Dutch for each corresponding situation. For every native Dutch, comparisons were made with the typical average pattern from which we omitted their individual pattern.
Furthermore, all correlations were Fisher transformed to assure linearity. We then calculated a mean per participant over all vignettes, thus representing the emotional fit over all situations. Higher correlations meant a higher fit with the typical emotional pattern of the native Dutch (M = .75, SD = .23).
Attention. We administered one attention check question, namely “If you read this, choose six”, to measure if the participants answered the questions attentively.
Demographic variables. Alongside the questionnaires, all participants received
demographic questions measuring age, gender, and level of education for which we will control during our analysis.
Results Group differences in emotional fit
Prior to testing the hypotheses, we tested whether the new operationalization of emotional fit resulted in a higher emotional fit for native Dutch than for the immigrants. The scores
between native Dutch and immigrants have to differ for the measure to be a meaningful
representation of emotional acculturation. We conducted an ANCOVA to test for differences in emotional fit scores between both groups (see table 2), while controlling for age, gender, and level of education. Both the assumption of homogeneity of regression slopes as normality were met. Results revealed that age (F(1, 53) = 1.52, p = .224, η2 = .030), gender (F(1, 53) = .38, p = .542, η2 = .008) as well as level of education (F(1, 53) = .28, p = .599, η2 = .006) did not
significantly relate to the emotional fit scores. Contrary to our expectations, the emotional fit scores did not significantly differ between both cultural groups, F(1, 53) = .78, p = .382, η2 = .016, implying that native Dutch (M = .78, SD = .18) had no significantly higher emotional fit with the typical Dutch emotional pattern than the immigrants (M = .75, SD = .23).
Table 2.
Means (SD's) for the Fisher scores for every vignette, per condition.
Vignettes Native Dutch Immigrants
Vignette 1 (Tom) 0.83 (0.28) 0.79 (0.30) Vignette 2 (Dries) 0.84 (0,34) 0.73 (0.40) Vignette 3 (David) 0.66 (0.26) 0.53 (0.37) Vignette 4 (Lore) 0.64 (0.29) 0.63 (0.32) Vignette 5 (Sam) 0.77 (0.3) 0.73 (0.24) Vignette 6 (Dorien) 0.62 (0.25) 0.63 (0.35) Vignette 7 (Jonathan) 077 (0.26) 0.74 (0.36) Vignette 8 (Nathalie) 0.86 (0.30) 0.75 (0.37) Vignette 9 (Laura) 0.65 (0.38) 0.68 (0.32) Vignette 10 (Steven) 1.00 (0.31) 1.00 (0.44) Vignette 11 (Inge) 0.72 (0.28) 0.69 (0.34) Vignette 12 (Stefanie) 0.76 (0.29) 0.65 (0.32) Vignette 13 (Liesbeth) 1.4 (0.4) 1.17 (0.45) Vignette 14 (Bart) 0.79 (0.28) 0.80 (0.30) Vignette 15 (Annelies) 0.69 (0.25) 0.68 (0.30) Main analyses
Hypothesis 1. I tested all hypotheses by employing a linear, multiple regression analysis. Assumptions of linearity, independent errors, homoscedasticity, and multicollinearity were met. Model 1 tested the relationship between the amount of contact with the majority and emotional
fit, where I expected that a higher amount of contact with the majority leads to higher levels of emotional fit. Contrary to my expectations, although the b was positive and in the expected direction, model 1 failed to reach statistical significance and thus can’t be interpreted as such (see Table 3 for all test statistics). The amount of contact with the majority did not predict the emotional fit of the immigrant, and therefore, does not support hypothesis 1.
Hypothesis 2a and 2b. I then tested whether CQ has a moderating influence on the relationship between the amount of contact and emotional fit in model 2. Also contrary to my expectations, but in line with the results of model 1, model 2 did not reach statistical significance either, F(3, 14) = 1.82, p = .191, R2 = .28. CQ did not significantly predict emotional fit, neither
did the interaction term of CQ and amount of contact with the majority.
Table 3
The linear model of predictors of emotional acculturation.
b SE B T p
Constant 0.53
[-1.37, 2.99]
1.017 0.80 P .440
Amount of Contact with the Majority 0.10 [-0.36, 0.56]
0.216 0.47 P .647
CQ -0.02
[-0.56, 0.53]
0.256 -0.06 P .954
Interaction: Amount of Contact with the Majority x CQ
-0.02 [-0.14, 0.09]
0.055 -0.41 P .686
Simple slopes analyses yielded statistically insignificant results for all levels of CQ (as depicted in figure 1) (Low CQ: b = .024, t(14) = .24, p = .815; Average CQ: b = .001, t(14) = .02, p = .986; High CQ: b = -.021, t(14) = -.17, p = .866), meaning that there is no relationship between the amount of contact with the majority and emotional fit for all levels of CQ (Low CQ: 3.44, Average CQ: 4.43, High CQ; 5.42). These results indicate that individuals with high CQ do not have a higher emotional fit when in contact with the majority than individuals with low CQ, thus not supporting hypothesis 2a nor 2b.
Figure 1. Mean emotional fit scores for low- average- and high amount of contact with the minority for low-, average- and high cultural intelligence participants.
Discussion
This current study examined the moderating effect of CQ on the relationship between the amount of contact with the majority and emotional acculturation. To measure emotional
acculturation, we used a different operationalization of emotional fit compared to previous research, where we correlated the emotional patterns of appraisals and action tendencies of the immigrant with that of the typical Dutch emotional pattern. We did not find significant results for both hypotheses.
Emotional fit
Our new operationalization of emotional fit did not lead to a higher emotional fit with the typical emotional pattern for the native Dutch than for the immigrants. Thus, our new measure of emotional fit was unable to differentiate in levels of emotional acculturation. Our measure was thus unable to differentiate in level of emotional acculturation.
One possible explanation is that our sample also included western immigrants (28%, e.g., German, Belgian, English), as opposed to previous studies about emotional acculturation that only studied non-western immigrants (e.g., Turkish) (De Leersnyder et al., 2011). Generally, North-America and Western-Europe are categorized as individualistic cultures, making no distinction between the countries. However, there are finer distinctions to be made between western countries inside the overarching category (of individualism?) (Oyserman et al., 2002). As the SEEQ-A uses typical individualistic and collectivistic anger-eliciting situations, it might be that the SEEQ-A is not able to differentiate between different individualistic cultures. As western immigrants cover one-third of our already small sample, this could have resulted in insignificant differences in emotional fit scores.
Furthermore, it could be that cultural adjustment is an easier process for minorities from proximal cultures than for distal cultures (Ward & Geeraert, 2016). A recent study tested this idea by comparing the emotional fit scores of minority youth from either a proximal or a distal heritage culture with that of the majority culture members (Jasini et al., 2016). The results
indicated that the emotional fit of proximal minority youth did not differ to that of the majority and where higher to that of distal minority youth. It could be that western immigrants
emotionally acculturate faster or have a higher emotional fit baseline than non-western
immigrants and that we were, therefore, unable to find differences in emotional fit scores in this current study.
Emotional Acculturation
Contrary to previous research, our results do not support the hypothesis that the amount of contact with the majority predicts the level of emotional acculturation; immigrants did not differ in level of emotional acculturation at different amounts of contact.
Due to our small sample of immigrants, we only achieved a power of .24, meaning that we have a 76% chance of not detecting a result assuming that there is one (Field, 2013). The small power could be the reason this study did not successfully replicate the findings of previous studies.
Cultural Intelligence
The results do not support the hypothesis that CQ will moderate the relationship between the amount of contact with the majority and emotional acculturation. Immigrants with a higher CQ do not emotionally acculturate faster when in contact with the majority then immigrants with lower CQ.
One possible explanation might be that all migrants scored relatively high and with little variance on the CQS, making it difficult to differentiate between low and high CQ immigrants. The definition of the dimension Cognitive CQ might explain why. Recall that Cognitive CQ means having knowledge about cultural norms, values, and practices and that this knowledge can be acquired from interactions and personal experience (Ang et al., 2007). Our sample of
immigrants consists of mostly university students (77.8%). It could be that university students have more knowledge about the cultural norms, values, and practices due to high participation in the Dutch institutional system and therefore all scored high on the Cognitive CQ dimension. This study adopted the short-version CQS in this study, which is unable to differentiate between the four different dimensions of CQ, and therefore, not capable of testing whether all participants scored high on Cultural CQ.
Besides, it could be that the difference in host cultures language proficiency limits the generalizability of the construct CQ for our sample. Even though Lin et al. (2012) showed that CQ predicts cultural adjustment for expatriates while controlling for host language proficiency, studies have also demonstrated that language differences can result in informal exclusion due to inability to communicate in the same language (Marschan-Piekkari, Welch and Welch 1999). Expatriates are usually proficient in English, but not all host country majority member. Therefore, lacking host country’s language proficiency may ultimately lead to less interaction with the majority members for expatriates. As a higher CQ is associated with effective cross-cultural communication skills, CQ might serve as a compensation for the lower amount of contact with the majority. Our sample, however, includes immigrants who are proficient in the Dutch language, and therefore do not get socially excluded based on their language proficiency. Furthermore, our sample of immigrants consisted of mostly university students, who are in weekly, if not daily, social contact with majority members at their university. If it is true that CQ mainly poses as a compensator for the lack of language proficiency of expatriates, this would not be applicable for our sample of immigrants, and therefore, might explain why CQ did not explain individual differences in levels of emotional acculturation.
Future studies
The limitations of a sample including both non-western as western immigrants can be overcome by selecting a measure for emotional fit that is sensitive to the distinction between individualistic cultures. However, to my knowledge, such a measure is not yet available. Another option is only including non-westers immigrants that have shown to differ in emotional fit to the majority culture, such as Turkish-Dutch immigrants to the Dutch majority (Mesquita, 2001). Furthermore, future studies are advised to include enough participants to reach a minimum power of 0.8. Besides, to differentiate between the four CQ dimensions and to investigate whether students indeed have a relatively high cognitive CQ, the long-version CQS can be adopted. The long-version CQS can differentiate between the four dimensions and has proven to be valid (Ang et al., 2007). Lastly, including immigrants that lack host language proficiency and comparing them to expatriates may provide more insight into the role of host culture language proficiency in the influence of CQ on cultural adjustment and emotional acculturation.
Conclusion
Even though this current study did not find evidence for both hypotheses, it is the first to link the constructs CQ and emotional acculturation and thus provides a step further towards a better understanding of individual differences in the process of immigrants' emotional
acculturation. Understanding the process of immigrants' emotional acculturation is key to construct effective interventions aimed at facilitating this process, ultimately increasing the somatic well-being. Future research could provide a greater understanding of the role and the limits of CQ.
Appendix A.1 Preliminary analyses/ Descriptive Data Analysis
A1.1 Differences in mean age between groups. We tested for equality of the mean age between the native Dutch and immigrants. The Shapiro-Wilk yielded a significant result, thus violating the assumption of normality, W(61) = .50, p = <0.001. Further analysis identified six outliers only for the native Dutch participants (participant 8, 21, 37, 43 and 32) with an age of 46 and higher, resulting in a skewed normal distribution. Due to only six participants with an age of above 46, we are unable to test whether the emotional experiences of relatively older people differ from the relatively younger people. We decided to include these participants in further analyses as 1) the central limit theorem assumes that for any sample with more than 30
participants the sampling distribution can be assumed to be normal (Field, 2013), 2) excluded six participants will lower our power and 3) data from the native Dutch are only used to calculate a mean pattern of emotions, which we also test using an ANCOVA in which we control for age. The Levene's test showed that the assumption of equal variances was violated, F(1, 56) = 9.40, p = .003. We computed a t statistic correcting for the violation of equality of variances, which did not reach statistical significance, t(43, 597) = 1.92, p = .061, r = .28. This means that there is no significant difference in mean age between the native Dutch (M = 26.35, SD = 14.79) and
immigrants (M = 21.72, SD = 2.47). These results suggest that age did not influence the potential results of the moderation analysis.
A1.2 Equal ratio of gender between groups. Second, to tested whether there are equal ratios of gender between the native Dutch (75% women) and immigrants (83 % women), we employed a Chi-Square test. The assumption of independent measures and expected frequencies greater than five was met. We conducted the Fisher's exact test, which showed that the ratio of
gender is equal between the groups (X2(1) = .50, p = .481). These results suggest that gender did
not influence the potential results of the moderation analysis.
A1.3 Reliability analyses. Reliability analysis for the 'Social Contact with Majority versus Minority Scale' resulted in a Cronbach's alpha of .87. Reliability analysis for the 'Short-version Cultural Intelligence Scale' resulted in a Cronbach's alpha of .72. Both reliabilities are acceptable and are, therefore, included in the analysis (Field, 2013).
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Reflectieverslag Hoe ben ik met de verkregen feedback omgegaan?
Tijdens het bachelor project heb ik altijd goed en uitgebreid feedback gekregen op zowel de schrijfstijl als de inhoud. Na het krijgen van de feedback heb ik voor mezelf de belangrijkste punten eruit gehaald (actief schrijven, juist gebruik van definities en precisie). Vervolgens ging ik eerst de ‘kleine’ punten aanpassen en hierna de grotere punten. Ik heb mijn stuk een aantal keer doorgenomen en de grote punten proberen te verbeteren naar eigen inzien. Zo vond ik het lastig om de termen emotional fit en emotional acculturation goed toe te passen.
Waar is het project goed verlopen en waar minder goed?
Voor mijn gevoel is het project goed verlopen. Het enige ding dat minder goed was, was de expectation management vanaf zowel de docent als ons als groep naar elkaar toe. Hierdoor was er wat verwarring en onzekerheid, maar dit is goed opgelost. Wat goed is verlopen is de
samenwerking tussen twee bachelor groepjes. De vergaderingen waren fijn en verhelderend, en ik heb het gevoel dat we het als groep hebben gedaan. Ook de whatsapp groep hielp waarin we elkaar vragen konden stellen als we ergens niet uit kwamen.
Wat zijn (volgens mij) de sterke en zwakkere punten van mijn onderzoeksverslag?
Ik vind het zelf lastig in te schatten waar mijn sterke en zwakke punten liggen. Ik denk dat mijn sterke punt mijn theorievorming op basis van onderzoek is en hoe ik het aan elkaar heb gelinkt (emotionele acculturatie en culturele intelligentie). Ik heb veel gelezen en geprobeerd om de processen goed in kaart te brengen. Een ander punt wat denk ik goed gelukt is om het verslag overzichtelijk te maken en in elkaar overlopend.
Een zwakker punt vind ik de precisie, dit vond ik erg lastig. Bij eerdere stukken waren definities sterker afgebakend als dat ze nu waren, waardoor ik het lastiger vond om specifiek te zijn en niet een verkeerde vorm te gebruiken. Dit kreeg ik dan ook herhaaldelijk terug als feedback, maar heb ik hard geprobeerd aan te werken.
Hoe ben ik met de ethische aspecten van het onderzoek omgegaan?
Tijdens ons onderzoek moesten de deelnemers vragen invullen over woede/kwaadheid en werd er ook gevraagd naar hun mening ten opzichte van verschillende etnische minderheden in Nederland. Ik denk niet dat ons onderzoek veel last heeft veroorzaakt bij de deelnemers, maar het stuk over etnische minderheden vond ik toch wel lastig. Sommige hadden sterk negatieve meningen over anderen, en dit vond ik vooral zelf naar om te zien.
De e-mailtjes die we hebben gehad waarin mensen aangaven dat ze het niet eens waren met een gedeelte van de vragenlijst, of het gevoel hadden dat ze een richting op werden gestuurd (zoals bij een meisje dat een adoptiemoeder had) hebben we als groep besproken en beantwoord. Dit was erg fijn, omdat we hierdoor zelf ook meer begrip kregen voor hoe lastig het is om vragen te stellen die inclusief zijn en toch wel bevragen wat je wilt weten.
