Feeling Discriminated Leads to Poor Cross-Cultural Adaptation, Not (Necessarily) the Other Way Around

International mobility is common nowadays, and an increasing number of people across the world face the challenges of adapting to a new culture. One of these challenges has to do with feeling discriminated by the local people. There is robust evidence for a strong negative link between perceived discrimination and cross-cultural adaptation (r = -.50 in the meta-analysis by Wilson et al., 2013). Yet, the causal direction of this link remains unclear. According to one hypothesis, feeling discriminated leads to limiting contacts with locals, which translates into less opportunities for culture learning and worse socio-cultural adaptation. An alternative hypothesis sees poor adaptation as one reason why sojourners and migrants are discriminated. We explored causal associations between perceived discrimination and cross-cultural adaptation in two studies with international students sojourning in Portugal. In Study 1 (longitudinal study with two waves based on self-reports, n = 221), we found that perceived discrimination at T1 predicted negatively socio-cultural adaptation and T2. However, this link did not seem to be mediated by decreased contact with locals. Also, no evidence was found for reverse causation. In Study 2 (experiment, n = 217), we first manipulated perceptions of discrimination and then measured participants’ motivation to adapt to the host country. The experimental group (high discrimination) showed a significantly lower motivation to adapt to local values and norms than the control group. In sum, our findings suggest a causal direction from perceived discrimination to socio-cultural adaptation and highlight the role of motivational aspects in this process.