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Abstract
Past research has indicated that immigrant college students experience acculturative shock and stress, arising from acculturative adjusting (Barlow, 2002; Cohen & Wills, 1985; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). This study explored the potential relationships between acculturative stress, perceived social support, and self-concealment amongst immigrant college students. Further, the study examined whether social support is related to lower acculturative stress for students. It was hypothesized that strong social support would be negatively related to acculturative stress, and that self-concealment would be positively related to acculturative stress.
Results indicate that there was a significant positive relationship between self-concealment and acculturative stress in this sample, indicating that participants who utilized self-concealment also experienced higher levels of acculturative stress. On the other hand, no relationship was found between perceived social support and acculturative stress. Findings indicate that immigrant students with a high level of self-concealment also experience difficulty acculturating to the culture in which they currently live. This has implications for immigration students’ ability to engage fully in school and for educational policy acculturative stress.
Department
Psychology
Faculty Advisor
William Philips, Ph.D.
Publication Date
Spring 2017
Sponsorship/Conference/Institution
Scholarly & Creative Works Conference, Dominican University of California
City
San Rafael, CA
Keywords
Acculturative Stress, immigrant, college students, social support, self concealment
Disciplines
Psychology