This conclusion is evidenced by how the explicit self-attachment to blendedness accounts for a weaker implicit Self + Harmony association, implicit harmony’s independence from any of the explicit acculturation and outcomes measures, and how bicultural individuals showed a significantly implicit stronger self-attachment to harmony relative to self + blendedness association. This line of reasoning is consistent with the argument that implicit evaluations reflect automatic affective reactions to relevant stimuli and that the harmony vs. conflict dimension is affective driven and captures the internal struggle felt within the bicultural, irrespective of the degree of overlap or similarity perceived between the two cultures. On the other hand, the blendedness vs. distance dimension of BII appears to capture elements of the explicit self-concept of the bicultural experience. This conclusion is supported by implicit blendedness’s independence from the explicit BII measure, and the correlations with explicit U.S. Identification and separation strategy,gallon nursery pot which are similar findings from Benet-Martinez and Haritatos . This line of reasoning is consistent with the fact that the blendedness vs. distance dimension is more perceptual driven and captures the performance-related elements of the acculturation experience, regardless of the degree of tension or strain felt between the two cultures and group loyalties.
The results from Study 2 do not reflect the notion that the blendedness vs. distance dimension of BII is uniquely understood in terms of the explicit self-concept, while the harmony vs. conflict dimension of BII is exclusively comprehended in light of the implicit self-concept. Both BII dimensions can exist across both levels of awareness as the current research suggests and be evaluated according to the implicit and explicit self concepts. What matters is the extent to which implicit and explicit evaluations operate independently or interactively as suggested by the dual-systems model . Research on dual-systems model posits that associative processes usually serve as a basis for explicit evaluative judgments . If the propositional implication of an implicit evaluation is in line with other relevant propositions, then it will most likely be considered as a valid basis for an evaluative judgment. However, explicit evaluative judgments exist independent of implicit evaluations, when these evaluations are discarded as a suitable source for an evaluative judgment. Thus, bicultural individuals varying in degree of BII can show assimilation or contrast effects between their implicit and explicit self-concepts based on how their implicit and explicit evaluations co-exist. This research also goes beyond the elements of biculturals who are considered high or low BII. Recall that the intersection of cultural harmony and blendedness make biculturals high BII while the merging of cultural distance and conflict make biculturalslow BII.
What about the bicultural individuals who vary independently between these two dimensions of BII. Since the two BII dimensions are orthogonal constructs, it is quite possible for a bicultural to perceive their dual cultural orientations as blended; however, feel that they are conflicted as well. For the first time the current research provides a glimpse into the possible underlying mental processes that govern how biculturals vary independently between the two BII dimensions. Results from Study 2 clearly give credence to the fact that the IAT is an optimal tool for measuring individual difference that are developed from cultural influences experienced in our daily environments. That is, the implicit evaluations the IAT measures are presumed to reflect variations in daily cultural experiences. This is corroborated by the variations in cultural experiences that biculturals encounter on a daily basis. Research has found that biculturals low in BII tend to have more negative experiences, which contribute to negative cultural associations . On the other hand, biculturals with higher levels of BII may have more positive experiences, which contribute to more positive cultural associations. Thus, any incoming cultural information that is inconsistent with the biculturals positive or negative experience may indeed produce assimilation or contrast effects between their implicit and explicit self concepts. Although Study 2 did not explicitly examine this phenomenon per se, it makes reasonable sense given that our self-concepts are “cognitive generalizations of the self, derived from past experiences, that organize and guide the processing of self-related information contained in the individual’s social experiences” .
The findings across both studies are consistent with Devos and with the image rising from modern research on acculturation and bicultural identity that individuals often find themselves immersed into multicultural surroundings and define themselves along numerous cultural boundaries and incorporate into their self concept knowledge about a variety of cultures. Going beyond the present literature, an important innovation of the present research is to provide evidence for acculturation strategies and the integration of bicultural identities into the self-concept through assessments of thoughts that cannot be consciously controlled. That is, the results of both two studies clearly demonstrate that at least under certain circumstances, cultural knowledge and/or experience can implicitly be incorporated into the self-concept. These findings are consistent with the Cultural psychology perspective which defines culture from within the individual as a socio-cognitive variable . In other words, culture and the individual are seen as interdependent rather than as independent entities . It further supports the notion that psychological acculturation can be thought of as two types of associative networks of cultural information both of which can influence an individual’s self-concept, which are shaped through repeated experiences and interactions. Finally, individuals contain, within themselves, not only various cultural meaning systems but also dual self-concepts which may be contradictory to one another. The present findings also go beyond the common assumption that psychological acculturation and bicultural identity could only be examined through conscious representations of the self-concept that are generated through an introspective reasoning process of propositions. The findings across both studies clearly showed that both psychological acculturation and bicultural identity integration can also be assessed through implicit measures such as the IAT that go beyond the restrictions of relying exclusively on explicit questionnaire methodology. Given that multicultural individuals are able to incorporate numerous cultural identities into their self-concept that go beyond explicit measures, the present research was able to contribute to the examination of the IAT-culture relationship. Unlike previous studies that failed to untangle person from culture , the present studies were able to truly conceptualize and measure culture as a socio-cognitive variable that exists within the individual rather than as independent entities. For instance, Study 1 was able to directly pair words that represented the self-concept with icons that represented various cultures together and Study 2 was able to directly pair self-concept terms with words that represented the negotiation of bicultural identity together . By using these types of IAT methodologies, the results across both studies showed support for an IAT-culture relationship. Showing support for an IATculture relationship helps corroborate the argument that cultural experience maybe what is manifested in implicit evaluations. The fact that cultural experiences helps to cultivate associative links between the self-concept and culture makes sense. Cultural experiences occur on a daily basis and help to shape the self-concept through re-occurring mundane influences that we as individuals pay no real conscious attention too.
Cultural experiences are multifaceted and are usually comprised of social categories and contexts such as national, state, city, social class, spoken language, school, occupation, friends, gender, family, ethnicity, age,greenhouse ABS snap clamp and neighborhood to name a few. The main premise of cultural experiences underlying implicit evaluations is that the experiences must occur, associations must form, and those associations must be made available . How we as social beings derive our cultural experiences has a lot to say about the ways in which we form our identities. With the influence of cross-cultural contact on the rise in the twenty-first century, new types of ethnic/cultural identities are starting to form and take shape for many individuals. Globalization based-acculturation is increasingly becoming a worldwide norm in that many individuals are now considered to be multicultural and find themselves defining their self-concepts along multiple ethnic and cultural boundaries. The argument is that although globalization based-acculturation is nothing new, it is more prevalent today than ever before and the rate at which it is expanding and influencing individuals is alarming. Today, globalization-based acculturation is driven by factors such as speed of travel and communication and have allowed for new technological marvels to penetrate every aspect of our daily lives. Computers, internet, texting, cell phones, instant messaging, and email now allow us to directly communicate and interact with individuals in other cultures that are half way around the world. As these technological devises are used everyday, they become part of our everyday cultural experiences that help shape our self-concept. Most of these new cultural encounters occur instantaneously and without conscious thought, thus allowing for many new associations to be formed and be made available in memory at an accelerated rate. Unlike twenty years ago, these new types of cultural experiences allow for individuals to expose themselves to a plethora of cultures and define their self-concepts along multiple cultural boundaries at a rate that is beyond any individual’s conscious control. Globalization-based acculturation allows for many cultural influences to act upon the individual that go beyond deliberate conscious awareness at an accelerated rate that defines the self-concept at two distinct levels of mental processing . That is why it is important to have social cognitive techniques such as the IAT capture implicit evaluations of the self-concept that are derived from cultural experiences. Limitations of study Given the important contribution of the present two studies to the literature, it is important to consider the limitations of the research. First, the cultural icons that were selected for Study 1 were not exclusively linked to each culture. Unlike the current study, Devos chose his cultural stimuli by having participants rate the extent to which each cultural icon was strongly linked to one culture and weakly linked to another culture . Each cultural icon was selected using this selection process across Devos’s two studies in order to reduce any ambiguities in linking the self-concept to the desired culture of interest. This approach was not used for the current study. By not exclusively linking the cultural icons to each culture may be a limitation in the current study because there was a potential for participants to ambiguously confuse the icons which each other. A second limitation of the current research was that the geometric icons that were used in Study 2 as a control condition were not pre-tested as being culturally neutral. Since the experimental manipulation did not work for Study 2, this was not much of a concern. Given the exploratory nature of these studies, future studies are needed to replicate these results. Future research should examine these questions in non-Latino cultural groups, who are likely to have different cultural norms, migration histories, and patterns of economic, political, and social relations in the US. Lastly, because these studies focused on the extent to which ethnic minority individuals implicitly incorporate cross-cultural knowledge and/or experiences into their self-concept, it did not include a monocultural sample. Still, future work interested in the role that cultural exposure and membership may have on the content and dynamics of the self-concept may benefit from comparisons between multicultural individuals and monoculturals . We hope that the questions and findings raised in this research resonate not only among researchers interested in implicit social cognition but also with the larger community of social, personality, and cultural researchers. As multiculturalism and globalization-based acculturation become more prevalent in the 21st century, it is important that we understand how mental processes underlie multicultural identities. Certainly, the present findings further emphasize the complexity of implicit social cognition, culture, and the self-concept, specifically showing that multicultural identities is a highly complex and layered process. In fact, as eloquently said by Devos “Research on implicit multicultural identities might provide insights into subtle, yet crucial mechanisms by which cultural knowledge is incorporated into the self-concept. It should lead to a better understanding of how cultural values, beliefs, customs, norms, and experiences shape thought, feeling, and behaviors without reflective consciousness or deliberate decisions” . Numerous studies have documented the association of early adversity with poor cardiovascular health , but knowledge of the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship is incomplete. Abnormal patterns of cardiovascular acute stress response have been operationalized as above- or below-average short-term change and slowed recovery in blood pressure or heart rate when confronting a stressor. Such responses may signal poor physiological calibration to challenges and serve as harbingers of subsequent disease development .