Cultural Identity Orientations Among Latinx Emerging Adults

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Hispanic youth within the U.S. are tasked with the challenge of establishing an ethnic identity (i.e., an understanding of the meaning of one’s ethnic/racial group membership; Roberts et al., 1999) and a U.S. identity (i.e., an understanding of what it means to be American; Schwartz et al., 2012) while also reconciling and integrating these potentially conflicting cultural streams (Meca et al., 2019). As a whole, biculturalism or the establishment of a bicultural identity, has been consistently associated with the most favorable psychosocial outcomes among a range of immigrant groups (Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013). To better capture individual differences in the degree to which individuals develop a bicultural identity, Benet-Martínez and Haritatos (2005) proposed the term bicultural identity integration (BII) to refer to individuals’ ability and/or willingness to successfully synthesize two or more cultures. Although ethnic and US identity have been found to be related to BII (Schwartz et al., 2015), these constructs are conceptualized to represent distinct components of one’s cultural identity. Despite, no study to date has sought to identify unique configurations of cultural identity endorsement and BII.
The goal of the current study was to extract distinct configurations of ethnic and US identity and BII harmony and blendedness, and explore differences in well-being, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms, across the extracted profiles. The sample consisted of 778 Hispanic college students (75.8% female, Mage = 20.80 years, SD = 2.66). We conducted latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify unique configurations of ethnic and US identity and BII Harmony and Blendedness (see Table 1). The first profile, “Integrated Biculturalism,” represented 22.70% of the sample (n = 173) and was marked by high ethnic and US identity A/C and high BII Harmony and Blendedness. The second profile, “Marginalized Cultural Identity,” represented 15.89% of the sample (n = 121), was marked by low levels across all cultural identity indicators. The third profile, “Separated Cultural Identity,” represented 13.12% of the sample (n = 100), was marked by high ethnic identity A/C, but low levels of both BII Harmony and Blendedness. The last profile, “Undifferentiated,” represented 48.29% (n = 368) of the sample and was marked by below average levels of ethnic identity and above averages levels of BII Blendedness. Next, we used path analysis to test for differences in well-being and internalizing and externalizing symptoms across profiles. As shown in Table 2, “Integrated” was associated with the highest well-being and the lowest levels of both internalizing and externalizing symptoms, whereas “Marginalized” was associated with the lowest well-being and highest internalizing and externalizing symptoms.
Extending previous research, the current study examined unique profiles emerging from cultural identity and their outcomes. As a whole, extracted profiles indicated BII tended to be linked to dual cultural identity endorsement. Results also provided evidence for a positive relationship between high BII/ethnic and US identity with well-being, and a negative relationship between high BII/ethnic and US identity and externalizing and internalizing symptoms. This study highlights the need to promote cultural identity to encourage positive development among this age group.

Authors

• Kelsie Allison, Old Dominion University
  Presenting Author

• Eneyda Nunez-Valencia, Old Dominion University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sangeeta Sharma, Old Dominion University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Taylor Webb, Old Dominion University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dariel Taylor, Old Dominion University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julie Rodil, Old Dominion University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alan Meca, University of Texas at San Antonio
  Non-Presenting Author