Personality and individual factors in acculturation

Abstract

Research on the role of personality in acculturation shows a number of contradictory findings. It also shows that personality factors typically have low explained variance. All these together ask for a thorough review of what has been done up until now and what could be further examined. This chapter gives an overview of major theories and empirical studies on the relationship between personality and immigrants' acculturation. The effort to be broadly inclusive in the available space does not allow, however, an exhaustive presentation of everything psychologists have said about personality and individual factors in cross-cultural adjustment. In the first section, different individual traits and personality dimensions which play a role in the immigrants' adaptation, both as risk and protective factors, are presented from an analytical perspective. The second section focuses on the interaction between personality characteristics and situational factors in the process of acculturation. The third and final section deals with the impact of acculturation on immigrants' personality. In this chapter, the term "immigrant" is used as a generic one and refers to different acculturating individuals, both "immigrants" and refugees (including asylum seekers) as well as sojourners (such as foreign students).

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