A resilience-based and meaning-oriented model of acculturation: A sample of mainland Chinese postgraduate students in Hong Kong

Traditional acculturation research has focused mainly on acculturative stress and its negative consequences on the mental health of migrants. However, there has recently been a substantial paradigm shift in acculturation research from a psychopathological perspective to a resilience framework, which focuses on positive adaptation outcomes and their contributing protective factors. The purpose of this study was to investigate how to improve the emotional well-being of migrants by developing and testing a resilience model of acculturation using mainland Chinese postgraduate students in Hong Kong as the sample. A total of 400 mainland Chinese students were recruited from six universities in Hong Kong through a cross-sectional survey. A resilience-based and meaning-oriented model of acculturation was developed for Chinese students by path analysis and structural equation modeling. Threat appraisal and sense-making coping partially mediated the relationship between acculturative hassles and negative affect. The effect of acculturative hassles on positive affect was mediated by two pathways: the first was mediated by threat appraisal, sense-making coping, and negative affect; the second was mediated by meaning-in-life. The findings suggest that acculturative hassles and threat appraisal are significant risk factors and that sense-making coping and meaning-in-life are important protective factors for psychological adjustment in cross-cultural adaptation.

► This study developed and tested a resilience-based and meaning-oriented model of acculturation for Chinese students.
► Threat appraisal and sense-making coping partially mediate the relationship between acculturation hassles and negative affect.
► The effect of acculturative hassles on positive affect is mediated by two pathways: one is mediated by threat appraisal, sense-making coping and negative affect; the other is mediated by meaning-in-life.