Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Multicultural individuals frequently feel they must check multiple boxes when responding to identity questions. In this investigation, we collected narratives from 402 bicultural individuals about their experiences with multicultural identities and used automated text-analytic tools to examine the valence of the narratives (sentiment analysis) and the most prevalent themes used (Meaning Extraction Method). In addition, we examined the relationships between the narratives and the two dimensions of Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) scales, Harmony and Blendedness. Findings suggested that the narratives were more emotionally positive than negative, and there were six most common themes. Furthermore, themes were significantly associated with BII scales. Our analyses provide deeper insights into the nature of bicultural identity using naturalistic language data.

Keywords

identity biculturalism narratives sentiment analysis meaning extraction method

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Benet-Martínez

(2012). Multiculturalism: Cultural, social, and personality processes. In Deaux

Snyder

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of personality and social psychology (pp. 623–648). Oxford University Press.

Benet-Martínez

Haritatos

(2005). Bicultural Identity Integration (BII): Components and psychosocial antecedents. Journal of Personality, 73(4), 1015–1050. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00337.x

Benet-Martínez

Lee

Cheng

C. Y.

(2021). Bicultural identity integration: Components, psychosocial antecedents, and outcomes. In Handbook of advances in culture and psychology (Vol. 8). https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190079741.003.0006

Benet-Martínez

Leu

Lee

Morris

M. W.

(2002). Negotiating biculturalism: Cultural frame switching in biculturals with oppositional versus compatible cultural identities. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(5), 492–516. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022102033005005

Berry

J. W

. (1990). Psychology of acculturation. In Berman

J. J.

(Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation, 1989: Cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 201–234). University of Nebraska Press.

Bonilla-Silva

(2004). From bi-racial to tri-racial: Towards a new system of racial stratification in the USA. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(6), 931–950. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987042000268530

Boyd

R. L.

(2017). Psychological text analysis in the digital humanities. In Hai-Jew

(Ed.), Data analytics in the digital humanities (pp. 161–189). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54499-1_7

Boyd

R. L.

(2018). MEH: Meaning Extraction Helper (Version 2.2.03) [Software]. https://www.ryanboyd.io/software/meh

Boyd

R. L.

Pennebaker

J. W.

(2016). A way with words: Using language for psychological science in the modern era. In Dimofte

C. V.

Haugtvedt

C. P.

Yalch

R. F.

(Eds.), Consumer psychology in a social media world (pp. 222–236). Routledge/Taylor & Francis.

10.

Bradley

M. M.

Lang

P. J.

(1999). Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW): Instruction manual and affective ratings (Technical Report C-1). Center for Research in Psychophysiology, University of Florida. https://e-lub.net/media/anew.pdf

11.

Budiman

(2020). Key findings about U.S. immigrants. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/

12.

Cattell

R. B.

(1966). The scree test for the number of factors. Multivariate Behavior Research, 1, 245–276. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr0102_10

13.

Cheng

C. Y.

Lee

(2013). The malleability of Bicultural Identity Integration (BII). Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44, 1235–1240. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022113490071

14.

Cheng

C. Y.

Lee

Bene t-Martínez

Huynh

Q. L.

(2014). Variations in multicultural experience: Influence of bicultural identity integration on socio-cognitive processes and outcomes. In Benet-Martínez

Hong

Y.-Y.

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of multicultural identity (pp. 276–299). Oxford University Press.

15.

Chung

C. K.

Pennebaker

J. W.

(2008a). Revealing dimensions of thinking in open-ended self-descriptions: An automated meaning extraction method for natural language. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 96–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2007.04.00

16.

Chung

C. K.

Pennebaker

J. W.

(2008b). Variations in the spacing of expressive writing sessions. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13, 15–21. https://doi.org/10.1348/135910707X251171

17.

Feagin

J. R.

Ducey

(2018). Racist America: Roots, current realities, and future reparations. Routledge.

18.

Grosjean

(2015). Bicultural bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(5), 572–586. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006914526297

19.

Hutto

Gilbert

(2014). VADER: A parsimonious rule-based model for sentiment analysis of social media text. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 8(1), 216–225. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v8i1.14550

20.

Huynh

Q. L.

Nguyen

A. M. D.

Benet-Martínez

(2011). Bicultural identity integration. In Schwartz

S. J.

Luyckx

Vignoles

V. L.

(Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 827–842). Springer.

21.

Huynh

Q. L.

Benet-Martínez

Nguyen

A.-M. D.

(2018). Measuring variations in bicultural identity across U.S. ethnic and generational groups: Development and validation of the Bicultural Identity Integration Scale—Version 2 (BIIS-2). Psychological Assessment, 30(12), 1581–1596. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000606

22.

Ikizer

E. G.

Ramírez-Esparza

Boyd

R. L.

(2019). #sendeanlat (#tellyourstory): Text analyses of tweets about sexual assault experiences. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 16(4), 463–475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-018-0358-5

23.

Kensinger

E. A.

(2009). Remembering the details: Effects of emotion. Emotion Review, 1(2), 99–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073908100432

24.

LaFromboise

Coleman

H. L. K.

Gerton

(1993). Psychological impact of biculturalism: Evidence and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 114(3), 395–412. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.114.3.395

25.

Leong

C. H.

Ward

(2000). Identity conflict in sojourners. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24(6), 763–776. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0147-1767(00)00030-4

26.

Hovy

(2017). Reflections on sentiment/opinion analysis. In Cambria

Das

Bandyopadhyay

Feraco

(Eds.), A practical guide to sentiment analysis. Socio-affective computing (Vol. 5). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55394-8_3

27.

Lilgendahl

J. P.

Benet-Martínez

Bishop

Gilson

Festa

Levenson

Rosenblum

(2018). “So now, I wonder, what am I?” A narrative approach to bicultural identity integration. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(10), 1596–1624. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022118801555

28.

Liu

(2010). Sentiment analysis and subjectivity. Handbook of Natural Language Processing, 2, 627–666.

29.

Markowitz

D. M.

(2021). The meaning extraction method: An approach to evaluate content patterns from large-scale language data. Frontiers in Communication, 6, Article 588823. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.588823

30.

McLean

K. C.

Pasupathi

(2012). Processes of identity development: Where I am and how I got there. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 12(1), 8–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2011.632363

31.

Meca

Eichas

Schwartz

S. J.

Davis

R. J.

(2019). Biculturalism and bicultural identity development: A relational model of bicultural systems. In Titzmann

P. F.

Jugert

(Eds.), Youth in superdiverse societies (pp. 41–57). Routledge.

32.

Miller

M. J.

Kim

Benet-Martínez

(2011). Validating the Riverside Acculturation Stress Inventory with Asian Americans. Psychological Assessment, 23, 300–310. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0021589

33.

Nguyen

A. M. D.

Benet-Martínez

(2007). Biculturalism unpacked: Components, measurement, individual differences, and outcomes. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1(1), 101–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00029.x

34.

Pennebaker

J. W.

Boyd

R. L.

Booth

R. J.

Ashokkumar

Francis

M. E.

(2022). Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count: LIWC-22. Pennebaker Conglomerates. https://www.liwc.app

35.

Phinney

J. S.

Devich-Navarro

(1997). Variations in bicultural identification among African American and Mexican American adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 7(1), 3–32. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327795jra0701_2

36.

R Core Team. (2020). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/

37.

Ramírez-Esparza

Chung

C. K.

Sierra-Otero

Pennebaker

J. W.

(2012). Cross-cultural constructions of self-schemas: Americans and Mexicans. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(2), 233–250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022110385231

38.

Rodríguez-Arauz

Ramírez-Esparza

Pérez-Brena

Boyd

R. L.

(2017). Hablo Inglés y Español: Cultural self-schemas as a function of language. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 885. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00885

39.

Roehrick

(2020). Vader: Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner (VADER) (R Package Version 0.2.1). https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vader

40.

Stone

P. J.

Dunphy

D. C.

Smith

M. S.

(1966). The general inquirer: A computer approach to content analysis. MIT Press.

41.

Syed

Azmitia

(2010). Narrative and ethnic identity exploration: A longitudinal account of emerging adults’ ethnicity-related experiences. Developmental Psychology, 46(1), 208–219. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017825

42.

Warner

Antolini

Arthur

Yan

(2021a). Boxing back. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965980941/boxing-back

43.

Warner

Antolini

Arthur

Yan

(2021b). Our boxes, ourselves. https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/961208632/our-boxes-ourselves

44.

Weedon

(2004). Identity and culture: Narratives of difference and belonging. McGraw-Hill Education.

45.

Wickham

Averick

Bryan

Chang

McGowan

L. D. A.

François

Grolemund

Hayes

Henry

Hester

Kuhn

Pedersen

T. L.

Miller

Bache

S. M.

Müller

Ooms

Robinson

Seidel

D. P.

Spinu

Yutani

(2019). Welcome to the Tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686

46.

Yampolsky

M. A.

Amiot

C. E.

de la Sablonnière

(2013). Multicultural identity integration and well-being: A qualitative exploration of variations in narrative coherence and multicultural identification. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 126. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00126

47.

Yoo

H. C.

Gee

G. C.

Takeuchi

(2009). Discrimination and health among Asian American immigrants: Disentangling racial from language discrimination. Social Science & Medicine, 68(4), 726–732. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.11.013

48.

Zeigler

Camarota

S. A.

(2019, October 29). 67.3 million in the United States spoke a foreign language at home in 2018. CIS.org. https://cis.org/Report/673-Million-United-States-Spoke-Foreign-Language-Home-2018#:~:text=As%20a%20share%20of%20the,of%20all%20foreign%2Dlanguage%20speakers

49.

Zhang

(2021, November 15). How Boba became a symbol of “Asian cool.” Sixth Tone. https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1008960/how-boba-became-a-symbol-of-asian-cool

50.

Zhang

Jin

Zhou

Z. H.

(2010). Understanding bag-of-words model: A statistical framework. International Journal of Machine Learning and Cybernetics, 1(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13042-010-0001-0

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.54 MB

Checking Multiple Boxes: Themes Associated With Bicultural Identities

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material