The Influence Of Bicultural Identity Integration On Cognitive Complexity

For individuals who have double cultural experience, Most of them face a problem that is how to dual cultural identity integration. Previous studies have shown that BII have very obvious implications for mental adaptation, well-being, scholastic attainment, creativity and cultural intelligence. But less attention was paid on the effect of BII on individual cognition. This is a thesis which mainly focuses on: the effect of BII on cognitive complexity. Previous studies have founded that the personality openness showed a significant positive correlation with cognitive complexity. Personality openness subject to personality traits and it is classified as individual differences to a great extent. What we need to find is a kind of ability which can be cultivated rather than focusing on the relationship between individual differences and cognitive complexity. Therefore, after controlling the personality openness by statistical method, this study shows that BII still have very obvious prediction effect for cognitive complexity using hierarchical regression analysis.As a pilot study, the scale which compiled by Benet were translated into Chinese and then back-translated into English firstly. The result shows that the coefficient reached an acceptable level in terms of psychometrics.In the formal study which randomly recruited 171 students from a middle school in Gannan region of northwest China. Students completed the BII and personality openness questionnaires anonymously in class. In the selection of cognitive complexity measure, we used the scoring sentence complexity method which also used by Benet in his study in 2006. Firstly, participants watch some pictures with cultural characteristics, then freely describe the culture by writing some sentence.Scoring the complexity of these sentences is the score of cognitive complexity.Results: For Tibetan bicultural individuals, the cognitive complexity of Tibetan culture is higher than Chinese culture; Personality openness may have effect to cognitive complexity. After controlling personality openness, bicultural identity integration also have effect to predict cognitive complexity.In a word, the present study shows that on the process of culture fusion andcollision, Tibetan from Gannan region of northwest China still have deep self cultural identity, this means that the minority groups have strong will to inheritance they own native culture.Closing contact to dominant culture, will enhance they Chinese level,improve they identification to dominant culture, and they will perceived less cultural separation. So, it is crucial for Tibetan bicultural to learn Chinese culture, this will help them to improve the quality of cognitive complexity, it also a unique ability compare to dominant groups.Moreover, previous studies focus on the process of cultural adaptation, they tend to explore the mechanism of person’s psychology and behavior change dualing the process of bicultural identity.The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of bicultural identity integration to these individual cognitive variables, we hope to find the bicultural identity integration will have a positive influence to cognitive, and supplement the train of thought for future research.