Individual Differences in a Diverse World: The Influence of Spanish Accent, Ethnic Identity and Integral Anxiety on Acculturation

People use many different characteristics to identify themselves. One characteristic in particular is an individual's spoken language and resulting accent. In the United States accents can be divided into Standard English or second language accents. As the demographics of the United States shift to include more people from varied ethnicities, this research study focuses on how variables including language, specifically the presence of a Spanish accent, ethnic identity, and integral anxiety affect individual acculturation. Acculturation is explored because of the seemingly strong cognitive, affective and behavioral shifts people undergo when being exposed to a new culture and is best described in terms of both mainstream and heritage acculturation. With a sample of 69, results show that individuals who are exposed to a Spanish accent via a taped recording have lower heritage acculturation scores compared to individuals who are exposed to a Standard English accent. Findings also point to integral anxiety having a significant affect on mainstream acculturation in that people with lower integral anxiety, on average, score higher on mainstream acculturation. In addition, ethnic identity is found to significantly affect heritage acculturation with higher ethnic identity equating to lower heritage acculturation. An in-depth review of the literature, the particular findings of this research study, along with a discussion on their implications are discussed further.