Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
Normative multiculturalism refers to individuals’ perceptions about the extent to which interactions between culturally diverse groups, multicultural policies and practices, and diversity-valuing ideologies are common or normative in one’s society. In this paper, we explore these dimensions of normative multiculturalism as predictors of social connectedness (trust) and psychological well-being (flourishing) in two socio-political contexts: The United States and the United Kingdom. Two hundred and eighty-four residents (143 Hispanics and 141 non-Hispanic Whites) in the United States and 375 (125 British Indians and 250 British Whites) participated in the research. The results revealed that normative Multicultural Ideology predicted greater trust and normative Multicultural Contact predicted greater flourishing in both countries; however, minority-majority group status moderated the effects in different ways in the two contexts. The positive effects of normative multicultural ideology were confined to Hispanics in the United States, while in the United Kingdom it held for both groups with the effects being stronger for Whites. In addition, the positive effects of normative multicultural contact on flourishing was stronger for Indians than for Whites in the United Kingdom. The findings are discussed in relation to socio-political context and group characteristics along with limitations of the research.
ScholarWorks Citation
Ward, C., Watters, S. M., Stuart, J., & Karl, J. A. (2020). Normative multiculturalism in socio-political context. In S. Safdar, C. Kwantes, & W. Friedlmeier (Eds.), Wiser world with multiculturalism: Proceedings from the 24th Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology. https://doi.org/10.4087/TJCZ3402
Acknowledgments
This paper is based on a presentation in the Invited Symposium Multiculturalism: International Perspectives at the XXIV Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Guelph, Canada, July, 2018
Jaimee Stuart is now at the School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Australia.