Explicit And Implicit Psychological Acculturation, And Mental Health Of Tibetan High School Students

Existing researches find that the relationship between acculturation and mental health is complex. Some studies have found a beneficial association between the increased acculturation and mental health, whereas others have found a detrimental association or no relationship at all. A potential reason for the discrepancies in researches on the relationship between acculturation and mental health may be that acculturation has not been manipulated consistently across studies, resulting in considerable measurement heterogeneity. Furthermore, exiting study has found that psychological acculturation has implicit psychological characteristics which can't be found in the explicit (conscious) method such as self–report. So in this study we adopt both the explicit Tibetan Self–Identity Acculturation Scale and the Implicit Association Test of identity and attitude to measure the level of acculturation of Tibetan high school students who are living in Han Nationality Regions and explore the relationship between mental health and acculturation in explicit and implicit levels. The results indicate that:(1)The acculturation of Tibetan high school students who live in Han Nationality Regions is fine; most of them are the bicultural pattern.(2)Gender, age and the period of time of living in Han Nationality Regions have no influence on the acculturation.(3)Whether on explicit lever or on the implicit lever, acculturation is not the influencing factor of mental health.(4)Cultural values is an influencing factor of mental health. Students who adopt the bicultural values are psychologically healthy. Students who adopt the bi-alienated values are not psychologically healthy.(5)The ethnic attitude of Students of Tibetan have the same neutral reaction mode on the explicit level and on the implicit level. They showed a statistically significant preference toward neither Tibetan nor Han Nationality.(6)The ethnic identity of Students of Tibetan has the different reaction mode on the explicit lever and implicit lever. Ethnic identity prefers Students of Tibetan on the explicit lever, while it is neutral on the implicit lever.