Biculturals’ Frame Switching has Consequences in North American Contexts

By virtue of their dual cultural membership, biculturals inhabit multifaceted social worlds. Many biculturals negotiate their cultures by frame switching, adapting their characteristics and behaviour in response to their current cultural context. Frame switching is seen as a largely adaptive skill, but our research suggests that it can have unintended consequences. Western, individualist cultures tend to expect and value behavioural consistency and associate inconsistency with inauthenticity. In such cultures, frame switching can elicit negative reactions from others because they see biculturals as less authentic. Mainstream North Americans in Canada (Study 1, N = 97) and the U.S. (Study 2, N = 133) read a vignette describing a bicultural who frame switches (vs. no switching vs. control) and rated him on multiple desirable traits. In both studies, the bicultural was rated as less likeable, trustworthy, warm, and competent when he frame switched, and lower authenticity ratings mediated these effects. Affirming the bicultural’s authenticity mitigated the negative effects of frame switching (Studies 3, N = 135, & 4, N = 390). Together, these findings promote a more complex understanding of frame switching and its effects on biculturals’ lives: although adaptive in many ways, frame switching can have certain consequences. More broadly, by experimentally demonstrating specific outcomes of frame switching, these studies show that the way that biculturals negotiate their cultures affects them beyond the particular cultures themselves.