Acculturation of Korean multicultural Christian college students.

Cook, Kaye V. ; Sim, DongGun

Acculturation is the "phenomenon which results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact," with subsequent changes primarily in the cultural patterns of one group (Berry, 1997, p. 7). Acculturation is a multifaceted concept, and one may adapt in some areas but not in others. True assimilation (the highest level of acculturation, defined as rejection of one's birth culture and adoption of the cultural norms of the dominant culture, Berry, 1997) may never occur (Trimble, 2003). Most studies of individual acculturation have not examined the acculturation of values (Kim, Yang, Atkinson, Wolfe, & Hong, 2001; Marin & Gamba, 2003), instead exploring mental or physical health, but the acculturation of values, despite the challenges of developing adequate measures, deserves further attention. The current study uses qualitative and quantitative data to explore the acculturation of Korean college students into an American Christian college, with attention to their cultural patterns (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998), the ethics that participants express (Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997), and the values that they hold (Schwartz, 1992, 1994, 2011).

In a widely known description of two basic psychological domains by which cultures can be described, Triandis and Gelfand (1998) identified two major types of cultural patterns: individualism and collectivism. Individualism refers to cultures which value a personal definition of the self, give personal goals priority, emphasize exchange in relationships, and emphasize rationality rather than relatedness, whereas collectivist cultures value in-group goals and an interdependent sense of self. These two basic cultural patterns provide a way for thinking about the distinctive values of the American and Korean cultures.

Further, within both individualistic and collectivistic cultures, Triandis and Gelfand (1998) differentiate between horizontal and vertical patterns of the culture, depending on the dominant social values in the culture. In cultures with horizontal patterns, individuals value equality and assum that one self is more or less like every other self; in vertical pattern, hierarchy is valued and "one self is different from other selves" (p. 119). These horizontal and vertical patterns--with their different emphases on equality and hierarchy--combine with individualism and collectivism to produce four distinct patterns by which some components of cultural values can be captured: horizontal individualism, vertical individualism, horizontal collectivism, and vertical collectivism. Using these four categories, Korea has been identified as a culture which values horizontal individualism and collectivism equally, whereas the United States has been identified as a horizontal individualist culture (Triandis & Gelfland, 1998). Despite the acculturation of Koreans to American culture, we expected to find that Koreans retain some of the cultural patterns of Korea and therefore that they would show more collectivist responses to scenarios.

In addition, this study explores the acculturation of Korean students by examining participant ethics and self-expressed values, based on their responses to two questions about important values in one's own life and for the next generation. Ethics were coded into one of three categories defined by Shweder et al. (1997): Autonomy, Community and Divinity. According to Arnett, Ramos, and Jensen (2001, p. 7), the ethic of Autonomy "defines the individual as the primary moral authority, unrestricted in choices except by his or her own preferences" whereas the ethic of Community describes individuals as "members of groups to which they have commitments and obligations." In comparison, "an ethic of Divinity includes beliefs and values based on traditional religious authorities and sometimes on religious texts such as the Bible and the Koran" (2001, p. 70). We expected to find that Korean students produced ethics of Community more frequently because of their more strongly collectivist tradition (Sasaki & Kim, 2011).

Because ethics describe values on a cultural and not individual level, values were also coded using the universal values identified by Schwartz (1992, 1994, 2011). Values are "desirable transsituational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or other social entity" (Schwartz, 1994, p. 21). Values originate from culture and society and are broad cultural principles that direct individuals' behavior. Through a series of studies encompassing more than 40 countries, Schwartz identified 10 basic types of human values--power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. The degree to individuals adopt these values is influenced by their distinctive cultures. Schwartz proposed, for example, that the value of self-direction is related to individualism and the values of tradition and conformity are linked to collectivism (Schwartz, 1992). Schwartz described and defined a few of these values as follows. Individuals who are self-directed are independent in thinking, acting, creating, and exploring, and individuals who espouse universalism as a value are concerned with understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and general concern for others' benevolence. Individuals who value tradition are humble, moderate, and accept traditional cultural customs. Individuals who value conformity exercise restraint and are unlikely to violate social norms. Individuals who value security focus on safety, harmony, stability, and a sense of belonging. Further, whereas universalism reflects a general concern for others, is more individual in attempts to preserve and enhance the welfare of personally known others (Workman & Lee, 2011).

It is noteworthy that, in an earlier study using the Schwartz Value Scale (Cook, Sandage, Hill, & Strawn, 2010), individuals from different cultures were found to differ in some of the values they hold but also to hold the same values but in somewhat different ways. For example, Cambodian immigrants differed from American nonimmigrants in valuing duty as a motivation for virtue, in recognizing the collectivist impact of practicing virtues, and in valuing balance and moderation when practicing virtue. In a separate study, Sandage, Hill, and Vang (2003) found that, in contrast to the meaning of forgiveness in American culture, forgiveness was understood in the context of social face, respect, and a history of trauma for one Hmong immigrant couple. We predict that Koreans will express more values that reflect their birth culture's emphasis on collectivist patterns, including tradition and security. Americans will use more of the individualist values of and self-direction than Koreans (Schwartz, 1992).

Several studies have shown that the formation of personal beliefs and values is a crucial part of becoming acculturated (Greene, Wheatley, & Aldava, 1992; Marin & Gamba, 2003); however, values are often not studied in the acculturation literature (Kim et al., 2001; Marin & Gamba, 2003). We offer these data, both qualitative and quantitative, in an effort to better understand the process of acculturation for values.

Method

Participants

Fifty individuals--twenty-five bilingual Koreans and twenty-five monolingual Americans--were recruited from among undergraduate students at a small Christian liberal arts college in the northeast which has approximately 1500 students, 2.1% of which are Korean international students. Among the 32 Korean students who were approached, 25 agreed to participate: 14 freshmen, 3 sophomores, 4 juniors, and 4 seniors. The American sample was designed to match the Korean sample, and thus similarly had 25 participants of which 14 were freshmen, 3 were sophomores, 4 were juniors, and 4 were seniors, with gender distributions that paralleled the Korean sample (18 males and 7 females). Although the bilingual students were ethnically Korean, the majority of them spent an extended period--more than a year--of their lives in one or more cultures other than their own including China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Cambodia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the United States. None of the American students had lived outside the States more than a year. For this reason, although the participants were selected to be monolingual or bilingual, they are also described in this paper as monocultural and multicultural.

Procedure

The names of bilingual Korean students were obtained from the on-campus international organization and individuals were contacted by email and asked to participate. A comparison group of American students, matched by gender and class, was recruited from psychology classes and received extra credits for their participation.

If the individual agreed to participate, confidentiality was explained and they were given a questionnaire to complete that took about 10 minutes. They then were asked two questions, with follow-up questions as needed to clarify. One researcher individually met each participant and administered the questionnaire and the interview, both in English. The interview was audiotaped and transcribed. Administration of the survey and interview took less than 30 minutes. No participant received financial remuneration for participating.

Measures

Participants first completed the 16 Scenarios for the Measurement of Collectivism and Individualism (which measures horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism; Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). For each scenario, a two-sentence description of a real-life scenario (e.g., you and your friends decided spontaneously to go out to dinner at a restaurant. What do you think is the best way to handle the bill?) is followed by four options. Each of the choices in the question corresponds to one of the four cultural categories--horizontal individualism (HI), horizontal collectivism (HC), vertical individualism (VI), and vertical collectivism (VC). Summarizing a participant's responses allows identifying the respondents' cultural pattern. Triandis and Gelfand (1998) suggested that, using this scale, the cultural profile of the United States can be expressed as HI > HC > VI > VC whereas the cultural profile of Korea can be expressed as HI = HC > VI > VC.

Two questions from Arnett et al. (2001) were used to measure participants' ethics and individual values: a) when you get toward the end of your life, what would you like to be able to say about your life, looking back on it? and b) what values or beliefs do you think are the most important to pass on to the next generation? For 11 bilingual Korean students, the interviewer asked an additional question: how have your values or beliefs changed since coming to America? Responses to the two questions asked of all participants and to the additional question asked of 11 Koreans were coded into one of the three categories of Autonomy, Community and Divinity (Shweder et al., 1997).

The Shweder categories were coded using criteria recommended by Arnett et al. (2001). A response that focused on the person's own needs, desires, and interests was coded as Autonomy. These responses included statements regarding individual accomplishments (e.g., "I'd like to be able to say that I achieved all that I set out to do"), or personal experiences (e.g., "Just that I had fun, took a lot of nice vacations"), or statements that asserted autonomy-related virtues (e.g., "I'd tell them to be true to yourself and to have respect for yourself"). A response that focused on the needs, desires, and interests of others was coded as Community. These responses included statements related to family (e.g., "That I was a good father to my kids") and other specific persons or groups (e.g., "To be a faithful and loyal friend") as well as more general statements of consideration for others (e.g., "Being good to the people around you"). A response that focused on religious authorities, religious texts, or religious beliefs was coded as Divinity, including references to specific religious traditions (e.g., "Take time to sit down and read the Bible") as well as more general statements of religious beliefs (e.g., "Just to believe in God"). Consistent with Arnett et al. (2001), the coding of responses was not mutually exclusive (p. 5).

The interviews were also coded for values using Schwartz' value scales (1992, 1994). Schwartz, in deriving his list of ten types of universal values (including Achievement, Benevolence, Conformity, Security, and Tradition), identified a list of 58 values which together make up the 10 types of values. For example, benevolence included seven values (being helpful, honest, forgiving, loyal, and responsible, and showing true friendship and mature love), and security included family security, social order, and reciprocation of favors. No coding system for interviews has been developed and we therefore used thematic coding, at the recommendation of Schwartz (personal communication, June 26, 2012).

Two coders--a bicultural Korean and a mono-cultural American--read each interview and independently identified the values that were expressed. The inter-coder agreement was 92% for Shweder's ethics (range 66% to 100%), and 85% (range 57% to 100%) for Schwartz types of values. The agreement for Schwartz single values was 71% (range 60% to 100%). Any disagreements were discussed and resolved, and a coding manual of phrases that were coded in each value was developed. (1)

Differences in responses to the 16 Scenarios were analyzed by a Repeated Measures Multivariate of Variance, and differences in ethics and in individual values were analyzed by Chi-Square Test, where possible.

Results

Cultural Pattern

Cultural patterns differed by ethnic group such that, as predicted, the Koreans produced more hierarchical collectivist responses to scenarios. The linear interaction between cultural pattern and ethnic group was significant with moderate effect, F(1, 48) = 6.62, p = .01, [[eta].sup.2] = .12. Specifically, the Koreans had lower scores on the horizontal individualism scale and higher scores on the vertical scales than the Americans. (See Table 1.)

Shweder's Ethics

Contrary to prediction, no significant difference was found between Americans and bilingual Korean students in their use of the three ethics identified by Shweder et al. (1997). Multicultural Koreans used all three ethics in roughly equal proportions: Autonomy (28.4%), Community (37.9%) and Divinity (33.7%), as did the Americans (Autonomy, 26.8%; Community, 42.2%; Divinity, 30.1%).

Schwartz' Values

Analysis of the values used by bilingual Koreans and monocultural Americans indicated that Americans favored the values of benevolence ([chi square] (1, N = 50) = 7.61, p < 0.01) whereas bilingual Koreans favored security ([chi square] [1, N = 50] = 8.53, p < 0.01). The value of tradition appeared frequently in the responses of both groups. Tallying the individual responses that were coded "tradition", most of which were coded "devout", showed that American students talked about being devout as important for oneself in developing one's faith (e.g., " ... I grew spiritually and I really gave God my all and fulfilled His plan for me in my life ... "). Multicultural Koreans, who also produced many "devout" responses, many of which were similar to those produced by the Americans, also talked about the importance of being devout for the sake of its effects on community ("my passion is for people in leading them to God's kingdom" and "the willingness to sacrifice yourself ... I want to teach at a Christian missionary school"), as a gift from family, and as a responsibility ("the first thing would be faith and that's been passed down to me from my parents ... my mom always emphasizes the importance of passing it down to the next generation"). Thus, 15 comments (of 33 from the Koreans) and only four (of 26 from the Americans) emphasized the importance of being devout for these sorts of communal reasons, [chi square] (1, N = 59) = 6.01, p < .05.

In response to the added question for 11 Koreans ("how have your values or beliefs changed since coming to America?"), Korean students seemed to appreciate their increasing acculturation into American culture while also valuing their retention of elements of their birth culture. Nine of 11 multicultural Korean students mentioned that their values of universalism and benevolence became better developed. Two people said they were more able to express themselves. On the other hand, two students responded that their traditional beliefs such as the value of family and home and the importance of established rules and guidelines ("submission to authority to a reasonable extent") had been strengthened and refined.

Discussion

The multicultural Koreans who participated in this study have been in an American Christian college for at least a semester and were therefore increasingly acculturated to their context. They nevertheless retained characteristics of their birth country, including a bias away from horizontal individualism and towards more verticality in relationships. Further, when individual values were explored, they emphasized security and did not value benevolence as much as the Americans in the study. Despite referencing tradition equally as much as the Americans, their understanding of tradition appeared to be more grounded in collectivist values. When asked how they perceive their values or beliefs to have changed since coming to America, they perceived themselves as being open to change, as moving toward benevolence and universalism, and yet as coming to better understandings of their own traditional beliefs. In other words, these Koreans retained elements of their cultural tradition while integrating elements of American culture.

The distinctives between the two groups give us insights into their different cultural experiences. It is likely that the Koreans often experience tension between their ethnic culture and the American culture. A Korean student said, "I am in America currently and exposed to the culture in that the value of ... wastefulness is a big issue that I see in our generation ... the second thing is the value of discipline ... it's very lacking and [this is] becoming standardized and justified." In addition, one Korean said that his thinking has the blended elements of two cultures, "I am always having to think between two cultures and I [was] only [in] Korea for 12 years so I can't really know the full system ... just always trying to get the best of the two different thinking systems." Their pattern of acculturation appears better described as integration than as pure assimilation, separation, or marginalization (Berry, 2003).

Korean students participate in the same mainstream American culture as Americans and are bilingual, but they are not purely assimilated. Instead, Korean students may tend to experience American culture as more hierarchical than Americans. Thus, whereas Koreans responded to scenarios with more hierarchical and collectivist patterns, American students highlighted more horizontal individualist patterns. In these ways, despite values that show their willingness to assimilate and their openness to assimilation to the American culture, they retain cultural influences and do not totally assimilate.

Although there were no differences in the ethics (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) that Koreans and Americans used to respond to the two questions, exploration of individual values showed that Koreans and Americans may capture different ideas by similar expressions, as has been shown in other immigrant groups (Cook et al., 2010). For example, as shown in their self-expressed values of tradition, American students talked about tradition as a personal expression of their faith (e.g., being devout as "obeying God's commandments") whereas bilingual Koreans emphasized the communal components of valuing tradition and being devout (e.g., as being devout for the sake of the community or honoring one's parents). One bilingual Korean described her life in this way: "whatever you do, do it ultimately for others and for God."

Similarities were nevertheless also extensive. Contrary to prediction, when ethics were explored, Koreans and Americans showed comparable levels of Autonomy and Community. Our failure to find a difference between our two groups of participants in these areas may be because Community and Divinity are highly correlated (r = .46, p < .01; Guerra & Giner-Sorolla, 2010), and the current sample showed high levels of Divinity. One-third of Koreans and almost as many Americans in the current study produced an ethic of Divinity, higher levels of Divinity ethics than in the culture as a whole (20%; Arnett et al., 2001). We thus speculate that their Christian beliefs account for their lack of difference in these measures.

Further, in both groups, many of the descriptions of the values were similar. For example, both described the devout in terms of one's relationship to God, e.g., "glorifying God," "preparing to meet with the Christ," and "committed to the Christ," rather than through specific practices of faith such as prayer or reading the Bible. These similarities in their expressions of faith surely represent a complex pattern of continuity in their cultural and faith identities as well as integration and partial assimilation into a new culture.

This study has significant limitations. We would like to have interviewed more Koreans, and have had equal numbers of males and females and of participants at each year. We would also like to have interviewed Koreans who have just arrived, to get a better sense of how much these Korean participants might have changed in their values and ethics. Also, we used the same interview samples to code both ethics and individual values, and would like to have had a more extended interview from which to code these qualitative data. The same analyses could have been done with other ethnic groups, including ones that are biased toward verticalism rather than horizontalism (as both groups were, though to differing extents, in our study).

We have tried, however, to provide qualitative and quantitative data on the acculturation process in value development. We have documented that, despite apparently successful and extensive cross-cultural adaptation, our Korean participants retain elements of their earlier enculturation, including respect for tradition, a desire for security, and a lesser emphasis on benevolence. They also emphasize verticalism more and horizontal individualism less than Americans. At the same time, these individuals adapt elements of their larger religious, educational and cultural contexts, sharing many of their values with Americans in a pattern that appears best described as integration rather than separation or marginalization, or complete assimilation. Despite the assumptions of many that Koreans easily assimilate, adopting the characteristics of their host country, these data suggest that their earlier cultural experiences continue to shape their values in their new culture.

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Kaye V Cook

DongGun Sim

Gordon College

Note

(1) Available from the second author.

Authors

Kaye Cook, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Gordon College, Wenham, MA, where she specializes in teaching courses in developmental psychology, spiritual formation, and faith-learning integration. Her primary research interests are in the areas of intercultural and developmental research on religiosity.

DongGun Sim, B.A., is a recent graduate from Gordon College, Wenham, MA, where he studied psychology as his major. His experience as an international student in the states has inspired much of his interest in the areas of moral development, bilingualism, and intercultural studies.

Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Kaye V. Cook, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Gordon College, 255 Grapevine Rd., Wenham, MA 01984; [email protected]

Table 1

Four Types of Cultural Patterns by Ethnic Groups

                                                      95% Confidence
                                                         Interval

Cultural Pattern   Ethnic       N     Mean    Std.    Lower    Upper
                   Group                      Error   Bound    Bound

Horizontal         Korean       25    6.12     .40     5.32     6.92

Individualism      American     25    6.68     .40     5.88     7.48

Horizontal         Korean       25    5.00     .28     4.45     5.55

Collectivism       American     25    5.28     .28     4.73     5.83

Vertical           Korean       25    2.56     .27     2.01     3.11

Individualism      American     25    1.88     .27     1.33     2.43

Vertical           Korean       25    2.24     .29     1.66     2.82

Collectivism       American     25    2.12     .29     1.54     2.70