The Unidimensional Model of Acculration suggested that individuals can only maintain a single culture within oneself and therefore when moving into a foreign culture, individual must discard his culture of origin and adapt the host culture. If he cannot do that, he cannot fit in with the society and will lead in the increase of negative emotions and behaviours. This model used to be the predominent theory of acculturation in the United States in the 20th century, but becoming less accurate in the following decades because of its simplistic approach to a very complex psychological area like acculturation.
Bidimensional Model of Acculturation
Unlike the Unidimension Model only views the process of acculturation as a movement along a single …show more content…
The nature of this model limits the option for individuals who wish to adapt to a new culture because it suggested that one has to discard one’s former cultural identity in order to seek for higher level of adaptation. The researches that based their analysis and discussion in this theoretical perspective would likely to make inaccurate assumptions on how inviduals might acculturate to the foreign country. For example, the ARSMA (Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican American) is one of the most popular scale used for Mexican American to measure Acculturation is developed based on the Unidimensional Model of Acculturation. Participants were asked to rate different cultural domains e.g. spoken languages, TV preferances, books, etc. in a one dimension from Mexican/ Spanish to Anglo/English. This forces participants to choose between their native culture and the Anglo culture. Though the midpoint of this scale can suggest some level of bicultural, it is still a very limited way to measure acculturation for different …show more content…
There are many countries, societies and cultures do not give individual this kind of opportunities. The acculturating group may be discouraged or even prohibited from interaction or participation with the host culture. Immigrants has always been the subject of various contectual factors that influence their process of acculturating to a novel society.
Another limitation of the Bidimensional Model is that it cannot fully explain and measure the complex nature of acculturation process. While translating this theoretical model into a scale or applied to a research design, the dynamic nature of the process might be lost. For example, a Vietnamese child being born in America might embrace the host culture and discard their native culture in order to acculturate better into the society of the United States. However, later in life when the child become an adult or an elder person, he might embrace his own culture of origin as well his dominent culture and finds the interation strategy of acculturation to be the most effective one for him, rather than the assimilation strategy that he has been using earlier in life. The studies and researches that strictly follow the theory of Bidimensional Model of Acculturation and failed to took into account of these possibilities might have miss an important
Bidimensional Model of Acculturation
Unlike the Unidimension Model only views the process of acculturation as a movement along a single …show more content…
The nature of this model limits the option for individuals who wish to adapt to a new culture because it suggested that one has to discard one’s former cultural identity in order to seek for higher level of adaptation. The researches that based their analysis and discussion in this theoretical perspective would likely to make inaccurate assumptions on how inviduals might acculturate to the foreign country. For example, the ARSMA (Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican American) is one of the most popular scale used for Mexican American to measure Acculturation is developed based on the Unidimensional Model of Acculturation. Participants were asked to rate different cultural domains e.g. spoken languages, TV preferances, books, etc. in a one dimension from Mexican/ Spanish to Anglo/English. This forces participants to choose between their native culture and the Anglo culture. Though the midpoint of this scale can suggest some level of bicultural, it is still a very limited way to measure acculturation for different …show more content…
There are many countries, societies and cultures do not give individual this kind of opportunities. The acculturating group may be discouraged or even prohibited from interaction or participation with the host culture. Immigrants has always been the subject of various contectual factors that influence their process of acculturating to a novel society.
Another limitation of the Bidimensional Model is that it cannot fully explain and measure the complex nature of acculturation process. While translating this theoretical model into a scale or applied to a research design, the dynamic nature of the process might be lost. For example, a Vietnamese child being born in America might embrace the host culture and discard their native culture in order to acculturate better into the society of the United States. However, later in life when the child become an adult or an elder person, he might embrace his own culture of origin as well his dominent culture and finds the interation strategy of acculturation to be the most effective one for him, rather than the assimilation strategy that he has been using earlier in life. The studies and researches that strictly follow the theory of Bidimensional Model of Acculturation and failed to took into account of these possibilities might have miss an important