Zahra or Zoe, Arjun or Andrew? Bicultural baby names reflect identity and pragmatic concerns.

Objectives: Ethnic first names are a visible product of diversity in the West, yet little is known about the psychological factors that influence naming preferences and choices among bicultural individuals.

Method: Participants in Studies 1a (South Asian Canadians; = 326) and 1b (Iranian Canadians; = 126) were prospective parents who completed an online survey with measures of naming (consequences of ethnic naming, naming preferences) and psychological factors related to naming: heritage and mainstream acculturation, ethno-cultural continuity. Study 2 participants ( = 211) were parents of an Indian background living in three English speaking countries (Canada, United States, UK).

Know Your Heritage: Exploring the Effects of Fit in Cultural Knowledge on Chinese Canadians' Heritage Identification.

In the present research, we introduce the notion of fit in cultural knowledge (FICK) - which we define as a match between the self and others in representing a cultural tradition. For ethnic minorities, FICK can be manifested in different degrees of matching their personal beliefs about their heritage culture with outgroup as well as ingroup beliefs about their heritage culture. We conducted two studies with the objective of exploring the potentially negative effects of FICK on Chinese Canadians' heritage identification.

Self-consistency in Bicultural Persons: Dialectical Self-beliefs Mediate the Relation between Identity Integration and Self-consistency.

Prior research differentiates dialectical (e.g., East Asian) from non-dialectical cultures (e.

Development and Validation of the Bicultural Youth Acculturation Questionnaire.

Objectives: Acculturation is a multidimensional process involving changes in behaviour and beliefs. Questionnaires developed to measure acculturation are typically designed for specific ethnic populations and adult experiences. This study developed a questionnaire that measures acculturation among ethnically diverse populations of youth that can be included as a module in population surveys.

Drinking too much and feeling bad about it? How group identification moderates experiences of guilt and shame following norm transgression.

The role of reference group norms in self-regulation was examined from the perspective of transgressions. Results from four studies suggest that following the transgression of a reference group's norms, individuals who strongly identify with their group report more intense feelings of guilt, an emotion reflecting an inference that "bad" behaviors are perceived as the cause of the transgression. Conversely, weakly identified individuals reported more intense feelings of shame, an emotion reflecting an inference that "bad" characteristics of the person are perceived as the cause of the transgression.

Diversity policy, social dominance, and intergroup relations: predicting prejudice in changing social and political contexts.

In contrast to authors of previous single-nation studies, we propose that supporting multiculturalism (MC) or assimilation (AS) is likely to have different effects in different countries, depending on the diversity policy in place in a particular country and the associated norms. A causal model of intergroup attitudes and behaviors, integrating both country-specific factors (attitudes and perceived norms related to a particular diversity policy) and general social-psychological determinants (social dominance orientation), was tested among participants from countries where the pro-diversity policy was independently classified as low, medium, or high (N = 1,232). Results showed that (a) anti-Muslim prejudice was significantly reduced when the pro-diversity policy was high; (b) countries differed strongly in perceived norms related to MC and AS, in ways consistent with the actual diversity policy in each country and regardless of participants' personal attitudes toward MC and AS; (c) as predicted, when these norms were salient, due to subtle priming, structural equation modeling with country included as a variable provided support for the proposed model, suggesting that the effect of country on prejudice can be successfully accounted by it; and (d) consistent with the claim that personal support for MC and AS played a different role in different countries, within-country mediation analyses provided evidence that personal attitudes toward AS mediated the effect of social dominance orientation on prejudice when pro-diversity policy was low, whereas personal attitudes toward MC was the mediator when pro-diversity policy was high.

Bias against foreign-born or foreign-trained doctors: experimental evidence.

Objectives: Bias against foreign-born or -trained medical students and doctors is not well understood, despite its documented impact on recruitment, integration and retention. This research experimentally examines the interaction of location of medical education and nationality in evaluations of doctors' competence and trustworthiness.

Methods: A convenience sample of prospective patients evaluated fictitious candidates for a position as a doctor in community practice at a new local health clinic.

Bicultural identity conflict in second-generation Asian Canadians.

Researchers have shown that bicultural individuals, including 2nd-generation immigrants, face a potential conflict between 2 cultural identities. The present authors extended this primarily qualitative research on the bicultural experience by adopting the social identity perspective (H. Tajfel & J.

Serial migration and its implications for the parent-child relationship: a retrospective analysis of the experiences of the children of Caribbean immigrants.

This study addressed the potential impact of serial migration for parent-children relationships and for children's psychological well-being. The experience of being separated from their parents during childhood and reunited with them at a later time was retrospectively examined for 48 individuals. A series of measures (e.

Do alcohol expectancies become intoxicated outcomes? A test of social-learning theory in a naturalistic bar setting.

According to social-learning theory, alcohol outcome expectancies (AOEs) are important motivators of drinking behavior that are reinforced, in part, as a result of one's direct experience with alcohol's intoxicating effects. To date, limited research has been conducted in naturalistic bar settings to examine the congruency between AOEs held prior to drinking and individuals' subjective perceptions of post-drinking outcomes. The present study was designed to fill this void.

Testing the social identity-intergroup differentiation hypothesis: 'We're not American eh!'.

The social identity-intergroup differentiation hypothesis is a hotly debated issue among social identity researchers (Brown, 2000; Turner, 1999); it states that individuals having a stronger in-group identification will perceive greater differences between their in-group and a relevant out-group. This study examines the importance of three factors when testing this hypothesis: the strength and salience of in-group identification, the relevance of the out-group for social comparison, and the relevance of the dimension of social comparison. The hypothesis was examined in relation to the national identity of a sample of Canadian students.