How participating in a new culture facilitates the integration of the new identity : the additive and subtractive processes

Immigration and globalization impact the identities of millions of individuals. They do so by offering individuals opportunities to participate in new cultural groups and, therefore, to participate in the activities and behaviors that are typical of new cultural groups. Previous research suggests that participating in a new cultural group (e.g., using their language) can help immigrants identify more with their new group. That is, the more immigrants participate in the new group the more they identify to it. However, previous research has ignored 1) whether participation increases identification with the new group in the context of globalization, a context that drastically differs from immigration, and 2) how the newly added cultural identity will relate to the identity of origin. In line with these questions, the first goal of the present thesis is to test whether participating in a new group will predict higher identification with the group across migration and globalization contexts. Secondly, research shows that identifying with a new cultural group may, under some circumstances, be associated with lower identification with the group of origin (subtractive identification pattern). In other cases, the addition of a new identity will not predict lower identification with the identity of origin (additive identification pattern). The second goal of this thesis is to understand which pattern of identification (additive or subtractive) will emerge as individuals participate in a new group. Three articles serve these goals. The first article lays down the theoretical foundation of the thesis. First, it described the psychological processes by which participation impacts identification with the new cultural group, and hence why this process should be applicable across immigration and globalization contexts; second, it proposes that perceived similarity predicts the identification pattern that will occur (additive or subtractive). More specifically, perceiving similarity promotes a sense of coherence between the two cultural identities that can facilitate the additive pattern. On the other hand, perceiving little similarities may suggest that the cultural identities are incoherent, resulting in a subtractive pattern. The second article makes use of four correlational studies (three studies in Kyrgyzstan and one study in a Franco-Ontarian community) to test the hypotheses that, in the context of globalization, participating in a new group predicts higher identification with it (Hypothesis 1), and that this increased identification with the new group will be either positively/neutrally (Hypothesis 2a) or negatively (Hypothesis 2b) associated with the group of origin, depending on the perceived level of similarity between the cultural groups. The third article presents experimental data, offering evidence for the causal role of participation on identification shifts (Hypotheses 1, 2a and 2b), as well as testing for the first time how the value of the new group moderates the relation between participation and identity shifts. Overall, this series of articles provides theoretical and empirical evidence for the impact of actions (participation in a new group) on our self-concept, and more specifically on our cultural identities, both the new identities and the identities of origin.

Keyphrases: Participation, Identification, Identification patterns, Similarity