Know your Heritage: Exploring the Effects of Fit in Cultural Knowledge on Chinese Canadians’ Heritage Identification

The objective of this research was to explore the effects of fit in cultural knowledge (FICK) – which we define as a match between the self and others in representing a cultural tradition. For Chinese Canadian biculturals, FICK can be manifested in matching their personal beliefs about their Chinese heritage culture with ingroup and outgroup beliefs about their Chinese heritage culture. Chinese Canadian university students (Study 1: N = 102; Study 2: N = 156) indicated their personal beliefs about what values are normative in Chinese culture and their heritage identification. Ingroup beliefs were assessed by beliefs about Chinese values that the Chinese Canadians ascribed to their parents, whereas outgroup beliefs were assessed by beliefs about Chinese values that were held by Euro-Canadians or that the Chinese Canadians ascribed to Euro-Canadians. The main findings are as follows: 1) with one exception, a stronger FICK generally predicted lower Chinese identification; 2) the overall negative effects could be explained by the experience of bicultural conflict that resulted from Chinese Canadians’ perception of lower importance of the openness to change values in Chinese culture and the frustration of continuity, meaning, and belonging identity motives; 3) compared with accepting perceived outgroup beliefs, accepting perceived parental beliefs was more responsible for the negative effects; 4) accepting perceived outgroup beliefs was more closely associated with attributing the model minority stereotype to other Chinese Canadians. Taken together, those findings demonstrate the challenges FICK presents to heritage identity maintenance among Chinese biculturals in Canada.