Cultural identities of Russian-speaking immigrants within the context of daily life

Psychological acculturation describes changes in behaviors, language, values and identities that occur through sustained contact of the individual with multiple cultural contexts. At the macro-level, these changes are shaped by policies and ideologies; at the micro-level, they are shaped by daily life experience. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to the micro-level, contextual, assessment of acculturation. This study examines the combined influence of general acculturation orientations and the frequently shifting contexts of daily experience on momentary feelings of cultural affiliation. To capture these contextual shifts in acculturation we use the Cultural Day Reconstruction Method (C-DRM), successfully validated in previous research with two culturally heterogeneous student samples. The C-DRM also allows the researcher to assess hybrid cultural identities, to measure cultural affiliations dimensionally, and to obtain detailed description of daily factors that trigger these affiliations. A community sample of Russian-speaking immigrants (n=110, M_age=38,) living in Montreal (M_years=7) were administered the C-DRM and a set of questionnaires on cultural identities and acculturation orientations. Replicating previous findings, heritage and mainstream cultural orientations interacted with episode-specific characteristics to predict subjective cultural affiliation during a given episode. On average, participants reported five cultural episodes during the day in which they subjectively identified with Russian, Canadian and Russian-Canadian cultural identities. This study provides an important contribution to the literature on acculturation, highlighting the joint contributions of general and situational influences while demonstrating how these can be measured. This knowledge can in turn contribute towards understanding how psychological acculturation processes predict successful adaptation.