Language Acculturation, Acculturation‐Related Stress, and Marital Quality in Chinese American Couples

• Author: Yang Hou,Lisa A. Neff,Su Yeong Kim
• Date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12447
• Published date: 01 April 2018

Y H, L A. N,  S Y K University of Texas at Austin

Language Acculturation, Acculturation-Related

Stress, and Marital Quality in Chinese American

Couples

The current study examines the longitudinal

indirect pathways linking language accultura-

tion to marital quality. Three waves of data were

collected from 416 Chinese American couples

for 8 years (Mage.wave1 =48 for husbands, 44 for

wives). Actor–partner interdependence model

analyses revealed that for both husbands and

wives, lower levels of language acculturation

were associated with higher levels of stress over

being stereotyped as a perpetual foreigner. Indi-

viduals’ foreigner stress, in turn, was directly

related to greater levels of their own and their

partners’ marital warmth, suggesting that for-

eigner stress may have some positive relational

effects. However, individuals’ foreigner stress

also was associated with increases in their own

depressive symptoms, which predicted higher

levels of marital hostility in the partner.Overall,

these results underscore the complexity of how

language acculturation and foreigner stress

relate to marital quality and the importance of

considering the interdependence of the marital

system.

University of Texasat Austin, Department of Human

Development and Family Sciences, 108 East Dean Keeton

St., Stop A2702, Austin, TX 78712-1248

(houyang223@gmail.com).

Key Words: acculturation, Asian Americans, dyadic/couple

data, longitudinal, marriage, stress, coping, and/or

resiliency.

Culturally informed ecological perspectives for

understanding marital outcomes among ethnic

minorities underscore the importance of con-

sidering the broader cultural contexts in which

couples reside. Specically, these perspec-

tives argue that ethnic minorities’ experiences

with acculturation (i.e., the process and extent

of adopting the language and cultural values

of the majority culture) should have signicant

implications for their marital well-being (Helms,

Supple, & Proulx, 2011). However,to date only a

few empirical studies have investigated the asso-

ciation between acculturation experiences and

marital quality. This work, which has focused

primarily on Latino families, has demonstrated

that levels of acculturation and the stress of cul-

tural adaption often predicts poor marital quality

(Flores, Tschann, VanOss Marin, & Pantoja,

2004; L. Garcia, Hurwitz, & Kraus, 2005; Helms

et al., 2014). However, acculturation-related

stressors may not always be harmful for mar-

riage; growing research suggests that stressful

experiences can have both positive and negative

implications for marital quality through different

mechanisms or under different conditions (Ran-

dall & Bodenmann, 2009; Story & Bradbury,

2004). Therefore, further research is needed not

only to examine the generalizability of prior

results to other minority groups but also to

examine the potential for acculturation-related

stressors to have dual effects on marital quality.

To this end, the current study investigates

the longitudinal pathways linking acculturation

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (April 2018): 555–568 555

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12447