The Need for New Perspectives

Migration has always driven human movement, but recent globalization has significantly increased its scale, with international migrants now constituting 3.6% of the global population. This surge has heightened interest in how migration affects both immigrants and native populations. Acculturation psychology studies these cultural and psychological changes, but the field has stagnated, with little recent innovation and doubts about its assumptions. Additionally, most research has neglected cultural changes among majority groups. To address these gaps, we propose integrating insights from cultural evolution, which views cultural change as an evolutionary process. This approach can explain how well-established social learning processes—such as conformity, anti-conformity, payoff bias, prestige bias, and vertical transmission—shape the adoption and preservation of cultural traits, leading to stable cultural equilibria and driving large-scale cultural change over time. The aim of the interdisciplinary paper authored by Alex Mesoudi and me (published in PSPR) is to provide new insights into acculturation, informing future research and societal understanding.

The Integrative Model

The present paper proposes a fundamentally distinct approach to understanding the acculturation of both minority and majority groups by delineating how robust cultural evolutionary processes of cultural transmission lead to acculturation orientations and strategies, which are treated as endpoints or "cultural equilibria" with population-level consequences. Our approach identifies individual, group, and contextual factors influencing the acculturation process, bridging the gap between environmental cues, individual acculturation, and population-level cultural change. Unlike most traditional models, this framework explains the motivations and mechanisms behind cultural retention and adoption, utilizing social learning strategies from cultural evolution theory. These strategies describe why, when, and how people learn from one another, providing insights into cultural transmission in both directions—majority to minority and vice versa. This comprehensive model addresses the functional value of diverse cultural styles in varying environments, offering novel hypotheses testable through a cultural evolutionary framework and highlighting the adaptive basis of these psychological phenomena.

Process #1: Conformity Bias

Conformity in cultural evolution is defined as a disproportionate tendency to adopt the majority behavior in a group, rather than copying at random. This process differs from traditional social psychology by emphasizing lasting, majority-driven behavior changes rather than momentary ones (as in classic conformity experiments). Conformity helps explain how both immigrants and majority-group members adopt traits from other groups, depending on factors like social networks and local demographics. For example, immigrants might adopt majority traits more frequently in areas with fewer ethnic peers, while retaining their heritage culture in communities with larger ethnic peer groups. Societal expectations and ideologies also modulate conformity, influencing whether individuals adopt the majority culture or maintain their heritage culture. In diverse societies, conformity can lead to the integration of immigrant traits into the majority culture, especially when immigrants and minority groups reach significant numbers. This process, driven by social learning, helps maintain cultural diversity and can shift cultural norms over time.

Process #2: Anti-Conformity Bias

Anti-conformity, the tendency to adopt less common cultural traits, is the opposite of conformity. It explains why minority groups might retain their cultural identity and why majority members sometimes adopt rare immigrant traits. This process is influenced by the desire for social distinctiveness and the need for both uniqueness and inclusion. Social penalties for non-conformity within ethnic groups can reinforce this behavior. For majority groups, anti-conformity can drive the adoption of immigrant traits, especially when they seek to stand out or gain social standing.

Process #3: Payoff Bias

Payoff bias involves adopting cultural traits associated with high rewards, such as wealth or success. Individuals are more likely to copy behaviors that offer higher payoffs compared to their current practices. This bias can explain why minority groups adopt majority traits to gain social and economic benefits, and why they might retain heritage traits that offer specific advantages. Similarly, majority groups might adopt effective immigrant traits if this brings with it tangible payoffs. This bias highlights the role of perceived benefits in shaping cultural adoption and retention.

Process #4: Prestige Bias

Prestige bias refers to the tendency to copy traits from high-status individuals, regardless of the trait's inherent value. This process explains why immigrants and minority groups might emulate prestigious figures from the majority group to enhance their social mobility. High-status minority role models can foster cultural pride and retention within their communities but also stimulate cultural adoption among majority-group members. Critically, prestige is context-dependent, often influenced by socio-political structures, which affords groups different levels of social status opportunities.

Process #5: Vertical Transmission Bias

Vertical cultural transmission involves learning cultural traits from parents, crucial for passing cultural information down generations. This process is significant for acculturation as it explains the retention of heritage traits among minority groups. While parents are initial sources of social learning, peers become more influential in adolescence. Immigrant children often balance heritage and local cultural values, shaped by both vertical and horizontal transmission. This process affects both minority and majority groups, influencing the intergenerational transmission of cultural traits and acculturation strategies. Majority-group members may adopt the distinct cultural orientations of their parents as well.

Acculturation Strategies as Cultural Evolutionary Equilibria

Various cultural evolutionary mechanisms can explain how immigrants, minority-group members, and majority-group members maintain or adopt cultural traits. These mechanisms collectively manifest in different acculturation strategies, such as integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. Acculturation psychologists observe that integration is the most frequent strategy among minorities, followed by assimilation, separation, and then marginalization. Among majority-group members, integration and separation are common. These distributions can be viewed as mixed equilibria shaped by cultural evolutionary mechanisms and contextual factors. Understanding the forces behind these equilibria requires examining how specific cultural evolutionary processes favor different strategies under various conditions.

Acculturation strategies reflect behaviors influenced by multiple factors. For instance, immigrants might pursue separation if many community members do so, affecting majority-group members' likelihood of integration. These dynamics underscore the importance of considering both individual and population-level interactions. Each acculturation strategy likely results from a combination of cultural evolutionary mechanisms favoring different groups and contexts. The following sections explore how these mechanisms might favor or disfavor the four acculturation strategies, contributing to the observed cultural equilibria in societies.

Integration

Integration involves participating in different cultural spheres simultaneously. Conformity bias may support integration when both in-group and out-group sizes encourage multiple targets of conformity. Anti-conformity bias, individual variation, and contextual factors, such as societal expectations for integration, also play roles. Payoff bias favors integration in diverse societies where cultural versatility provides advantages. Prestige bias supports integration when both minority and majority groups produce high-status individuals that can be copied. Vertical transmission, combined with horizontal transmission from multiple cultural spheres, fosters integration.

Separation

Separation prioritizes maintaining one's ethnic in-group culture over others. Conformity bias supports separation in socially segregated environments, while anti-conformity and discriminatory experiences reinforce it. Payoff bias favors separation when preserving in-group culture yields higher rewards, such as expanded co-ethnic networks. Prestige bias in segregated societies amplifies the tendency for separation among both majority and minority-group members if they primarily view in-group members as prestigious. Separation can result from strong vertical transmission of in-group culture and limited horizontal transmission from other groups.

Assimilation

Assimilation is more common among minority-group members, driven by conformity bias favoring alignment with the usually numerically larger majority group. Payoff bias supports assimilation when societal inequality and norms enhance success through cultural adoption but not through retention. Prestige bias encourages assimilation when prestigious role models primarly can be found among out-groups but not the in-group. Strong horizontal transmission, often from the out-group, promotes assimilation, sometimes reinforced by vertical transmission from parents fostering cultural assimilation.

Marginalization

Marginalization is the least common strategy, potentially involving low conformity bias and possibly higher individualism. Payoff bias may entail higher costs for marginalized minorities due to discrimination, but some may adopt individualistic strategies to navigate systemic barriers. Prestige bias in marginalization involves emulating traits perceived individually rather than collectively (e.g., attributing the sucess of a prestigious individual to individual traits rather than group factors). Vertical transmission from parents with individualistic preferences can influence marginalization.

Population-Level Consequences of Acculturation Strategies

The cultural evolutionary framework we developed incorporates mechanisms of cultural transmission, such as conformity and prestige bias, to explain individual-level acculturation strategies. These strategies, whether adopting or rejecting minority and majority cultural elements, generate cultural evolutionary equilibria at the societal level. This framework is particularly useful for understanding how individual interactions scale up to create population-level patterns of cultural change and diversity. By examining how different acculturation strategies affect within-group and between-group cultural variation, the spread of beneficial innovations, and social dynamics, we can better understand cultural evolution.

Consequence #1: Within-Group Cultural Variation

Acculturation strategies alter cultural variation within societies. Immigration increases cultural diversity, but this diversity can diminish if immigrants assimilate and lose their heritage culture. Integration and separation maintain cultural variation differently—integration creates diverse societies, while separation leads to segregated ones. Marginalization can result in the loss of cultural variation. Erten et al. (2018) modeled how acculturation strategies impact cultural diversity, finding that diverse societies persist when residents and immigrants interact and adopt each other's traits. However, allowing individuals to possess multiple cultural traits could better reflect real-world acculturation dynamics.

Consequence #2: Between-Group Cultural Variation

Acculturation strategies also influence cultural variation between societies. Migration tends to break down group distinctions, but acculturation, particularly conformity, can maintain between-group cultural traditions. Mesoudi (2018) showed that a small amount of conformist acculturation preserves cultural differences across societies. Intercultural contact is crucial for maintaining these distinctions. Using measures like cultural FST, borrowed from genetics, helps quantify the degree of cultural variation between populations, illustrating the impact of migration and acculturation on cultural stability.

Consequence #3: Innovation, Recombination, and Cumulative Cultural Evolution

Immigrants often bring beneficial knowledge and practices that drive innovation and economic growth. Increased cultural diversity from immigration can lead to cumulative cultural evolution, where beneficial traits accumulate over time. Acculturation strategies like integration and separation among immigrants, and integration or assimilation among majority groups, facilitate the recombination of cultural traits, enhancing societal benefits. Rapid assimilation might cause the loss of valuable traits, while integration promotes the blending of diverse traits for greater innovation.

Consequence #4: Division of Labor and Specialization

While the spread of beneficial cultural traits is generally positive, it can sometimes stifle other areas of discovery. The division of labor and specialization, recognized since Adam Smith, is valuable for long-term societal benefits. Separation among both immigrants and majority-group members can maintain within-society differences in economic activity, fostering overall economic output as long as there is some contact between groups. Historical evidence supports that cultural fractionalization into different economic niches drives economic growth.

Consequence #5: Cooperation and Cultural Group Selection

Migration and acculturation shape human cooperation, with cultural group selection favoring cohesive and cooperative societies. However, migration without acculturation breaks down cultural variation, potentially allowing free riders to undermine cooperation. Conformist or payoff-biased acculturation can maintain cooperation within groups, while payoff-biased migration spreads cooperation across groups. Alternatively, acculturation can drive intergroup conflict, spreading war-like tendencies that benefit neither individuals nor societies.

Concluding Summary

This review integrates cultural evolution perspectives with psychological acculturation research, highlighting mechanisms like conformity, anti-conformity, prestige bias, payoff bias, and vertical transmission. These mechanisms help explain how minority and majority groups retain or adopt cultural traits. Modulated by contextual and individual factors, these processes shape overall acculturation strategies and form cultural evolutionary equilibria. The prevalence of these strategies impacts population-level phenomena, including within- and between-society cultural diversity, the spread of beneficial technologies, cooperation, and division of labor. Formal cultural evolution modeling, combined with empirical research, can reveal broader patterns of cultural change and the adaptiveness of cultural strategies. Bridging these fields enhances our theoretical understanding of acculturation and offers tools to address the challenges of diverse societies.

Citation:

Kunst, J. R., & Mesoudi, A. (2024). Decoding the Dynamics of Cultural Change: A Cultural Evolution Approach to the Psychology of Acculturation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683241258406