Evidence for a Sensitive Period for Acculturation: Younger Immigrants Report Acculturating at a Faster Rate
Evidence for a Sensitive Period for Acculturation: Younger Immigrants Report Acculturating at a Faster Rate
复制标题
DOI：
10.1177/0956797610394661
复制
发表时间：
2011-02-01
影响因子：
8.2
通讯作者：
Heine, Steven J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cheung, Benjamin Y.;Chudek, Maciej;Heine, Steven J.
虽然最近的成年移民似乎比儿童时期移民的人更不适应新社会，但目前尚不清楚这种差异是由暴露时间或敏感发育期的暴露所驱动的。在一项旨在消除这些影响的研究中，香港移民到加拿大温哥华的社区和学生样本完成了温哥华文化适应指数，这是一项评估受访者对其主流和传统文化认同的指标。一个较长的曝光时间被发现与更大的认同与加拿大文化，只有在年轻的移民年龄，但不是在以后的移民年龄。相反，对中国文化的认同不受移民年龄或接触加拿大文化时间的影响。这些发现为文化适应的敏感期提供了证据：人们接触东道国文化的时间越长，就越能更好地认同东道国文化，但前提是这种接触发生在他们相对年轻的时候。
Though recent adult immigrants often seem less acculturated to their new society than people who immigrated as children, it is not clear whether this difference is driven by duration of exposure or exposure during a sensitive developmental period. In a study aimed at disambiguating these influences, community and student samples of Hong Kong immigrants to Vancouver, Canada, completed the Vancouver Index of Acculturation, a measure that assesses respondents' identification with their mainstream and heritage cultures. A longer duration of exposure was found to be associated with greater identification with Canadian culture only at younger ages of immigration, but not at later ages of immigration. Conversely, identification with Chinese culture was unaffected by either age of immigration or length of exposure to Canadian culture. These findings provide evidence for a sensitive period for acculturation: People are better able to identify with a host culture the longer their exposure to it, but only if this exposure occurs when they are relatively young.