UC Riverside

With the increase of cross-cultural contacts worldwide, new types of ethnic/cultural identities start to develop and take shape for individuals. Most of this research has examined the cross-cultural influences on identity by asking individuals to consciously answer questions using self-report measures. What is less known is to what extent cross-cultural contact influences identity outside of conscious awareness? Thus, the present research examined to what extent individuals implicitly incorporate cross-cultural knowledge and/or experiences into their self-concept.

Due to the limitations of self-report measures in measuring the self-concept, the current research used the Implicit Associate Test (IAT) (Greenwald, McGhree, & Schwartz, 1998) to assess implicit representations of the self-concept. The IAT's main purpose is to measure the relative strength of automatic associations between mental representations of concepts. In particular, Study 1 examined differences in the strength of identification with both ethnic (e.g., Mexican) and mainstream (e.g., American) cultures among multigenerational Mexican American college students. That is, the extent to which Mexican American participants implicitly endorsed Berry's (2003) four acculturation strategies (i.e., integration, separation, assimilation, marginalization) using a 3 IAT design. Study 2 went beyond the realm of Study 1 and examined the underlying dynamics of bicultural identity at an implicit level. That is, the extent to which Mexican American bicultural college students implicitly negotiates or integrates their dual cultural identities into their self-concept. A phenomenon known as Bicultural Identity Integration (BII; Benet-Martínez & Haritatos, 2005)

The findings across both studies are consistent with Devos (2006) 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. An important innovation of the present research provided 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 studies clearly demonstrated that at least under certain circumstances, cultural knowledge and/or experience can implicitly be incorporated into the self-concept.