The Influence Of Cultural Intelligence On Acculturation

Acculturation describes the process of cultural learning and behavior change following intercultural contact. Based on the stress perspectives on acculturation, the psychological wellbeing and socio-cultural adjustment depend on one’s appraisal of the stressor in cross-cultural contexts as well as the coping strategy, while the former also relies on one’s capacity to deal with the cross-cultural difficulties, which can be called Cultural Intelligence. This study aims at exploring the relationship between cultural intelligence, coping strategy and final adaptation.131Chinese students who are studied abroad in15countries filled the questionnaires. The results indicated that:1.Cultural intelligence will influence the choosing of coping strategy and final adaption.2.Different coping strategies will further influence different dimensions of psychological and socio-cultural adaptation.3.Perceived cultural distance and duration in the host country will moderate the effect of coping strategies on psychological and socio-cultural adaptation.4.The direct problem-solving strategy will play as a mediator in the relationship between motivational cultural intelligence and final adjustment. The study suggests that for the international students, it’s really important to increase the motivational cultural intelligence and take a direct problem-solving strategy. Further study should use aptitude test instead of self-report questionnaire to measure CI and expand the sample quantity to explore the relationship between cultural intelligence, coping strategy and adaptation. Qualitative research could also be used for a deep understanding.