Among the cultural groups that increase South Korea’s diversity, there are adolescents returning to Korea after their stay abroad. From 15 in-depth interviews with those who stayed abroad for longer than 5 years, 11 codes were generated. The codes were divided into two categories: “assets” when the multicultural experience served as resources for the returnees adapting to Korean culture successfully and “disadvantages” when the multiple experience remained fragmented for the returnees experiencing difficulty in re-acculturation. The distinguishing factors between the success and difficulty in re-acculturation appeared to be the cultural identity as Korean and the “openness to experience.” The interwoven nature of personal and social factors stood out, along with the role of cultural identity throughout the process. Also the “openness to experience” as a strategy of integrating the past experiences is discussed, as well as the implications of the findings and the suggestions for future studies in the contemporary multicultural South Korea as a host society.
The purpose of this study was to examine cultural differences and related difficulties which Korean- Chinese women in Korean society experience at work and the different styles of their cultural adaptation. For this, semi-structured interviews consisting of questions related to these issues were conducted on 17 Korean-Chinese women living in the metropolitan area (average age: 34, SD = 9.25, average stay in Korea = 4 years, SD = 2.24). After analysis of qualitative data based on Giorgi’s(1985) method of phenomenological analysis, a total of 225 significant statements were found and those were grouped into 23 subcategories, which were then grouped again into 9 categories. Cultural differences and related difficulties appeared in identity, verbal communication, political and economic aspects, and relational and sexual affairs. It was also revealed that Korean-Chinese women adapted in the three ways of Active, Passive, and Avoident. Lastly, various social actions that can aid the adaptation of Korean-Chinese women to Korea based on these results were discussed.
This study explored the moderating effects of social supports (family support, home friends support, foreign friends support) and cultural identity (home identity, foreign identity) on the relationships of reverse culture shock and subjective well-being. Participants were 157 returnees who left home-country prior to the age of 19 and resided in the foreign-country for more than three years. The results of hierarchical regression analyses on two-way interaction effect between reverse culture shock and each hypothesized moderator (e.g., family support, home friends support, foreign friends support, home identity, foreign identity) indicated that reverse cultural shock and subjective well-being was negatively related and their relationship was moderated only by family support. Specifically, the relationship between reverse culture shock and subjective well-being was weaker when the level of family support was higher. Subsequently, three-way interaction among reverse culture shock, one of the social support factors, and one of the cultural identity factors was investigated using hierarchical regression analyses. The results showed that the three-way interaction among reverse culture shock, family support, and home identity was significant. The slope difference tests yielded that the relationship between reverse culture shock and subjective well-being was stronger when both levels of family support and home identity were lower compared to when either level of family support or home identity was higher. These results imply that environmental factors such as family support and intrapsychic factor such as home identity might function as a buffer against the negative consequences of reverse culture shock experience.
Do cultural differences affect moral decisions? Two studies were conducted to investigate whether attitudes of individualism vs. collectivism have an impact on ethical decision making. Study 1 (N=92) showed that utilitarianism was preferred in a situation, in which an intervention resulted in the best outcome (i.e., saving more people's lives), while deontology was preferred in a situation, in which the focus was on negative consequences of the intervention (i.e. personal sacrifices). Additionally, there were differences between the idiocentrics and the allocentrics groups regarding morality aspects. In the idiocentrics group, harm and fairness were regarded as more important than other moral aspects, while in the allocentrics group, not only harm and fairness, but also ingroup and authority were perceived as critical moral aspects. In Study 2 (N=30), after lexical decision tasks were conducted for culture priming, the mouse tracking method was used to explore response dynamics of moral decision processes, while judging appropriateness of interventions in moral dilemmas. In Study 2, in a condition, in which the small number of victims were focused upon, there were more maximal deviations and higher Xflips in the individualism priming group than in the collectivism priming group, which showed that the participants in the individualism condition had more deliberative processes before choosing their answers between utilitarianism and deontology. In addition, the participants in the individualism priming condition showed more maximal deviations in the mouse trajectories regarding ingroup related interventions in moral dilemmas than those in the collectivism priming condition. These results implicated the possibilities that the automatic emotional process and the controlled deliberative process in moral decision making might interact with cultural dispositions of the individuals and the focus of situations.
The aim of the present study was to examine moderating effects of self-esteem on perceived transgression wrongness and forgiveness defined as Worthington and Scherer’s (2004) emotional forgiveness and decisional forgiveness when receiving apologies. Data collected from 861(486 males, 375 females) Korean college students were analyzed with hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The results were as follows. First, on emotional forgiveness, the two-way interaction effect of perceived transgression wrongness and explicit self-esteem was significant. And on decisional forgiveness, the two-way interaction effect of perceived transgression wrongness and explicit self-esteem was significant. The effect of perceived transgression wrongness on emotional and decisional forgiveness for individuals with high explicit self-esteem is stronger than its impact for individuals with low self-esteem. These findings show that explicit self-esteem may play an important role in forgiveness in college students through interactions with perceived transgression wrongness. Second, on emotional forgiveness, the three-way interaction effect of perceived transgression wrongness, explicit self-esteem, and implicit self-esteem was significant. The effect of perceived transgression wrongness on emotional forgiveness for individuals with high explicit self-esteem having high implicit self-esteem is stronger than its impact for individuals with low explicit self-esteem having high implicit self-esteem. These findings show that discrepancies between implicit and explicit self-esteem are detrimental to emotional forgiveness. But, on decisional forgiveness, the three-way interaction effect of perceived transgression wrongness, explicit self-esteem, and implicit self-esteem was not significant. Implications and limitations of this study were discussed.