An examination of the relatedness of acculturation strategies and perceived self-efficacy of immigrants in a multicultural city

Abstract

Some migrants may fail to achieve their life goals in their new location whereas others succeed, this may be due to their perceived self-efficacy of a life in the foreign land, the present study examined the relationship between acculturation strategies and self-efficacy. The study was conducted among Chinese, India and other foreign national’s immigrants in Nigeria. They were measured on, acculturation strategies, multicultural competence, and self-efficacy The study was conducted among 170 purposively selected participants. T-test, and Pearson correlation analysis and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were the statistical instruments used to analyse the data. Result of the study shows that migrants who adopted integration acculturation strategy scored significantly higher on perceived self-efficacy measure than migrants who adopted marginalisation acculturation strategy. There was also a significant relationship between multicultural competence and self-efficacy. However, the study was unable to find differences in the acculturation strategies of subjects based on their nationalities. The study discusses the need for persons wishing to relocate to a place with different culture the need to be conscious of the necessity of change about their value systems, roles, and attitudes as these may have implications on their self-efficacy in the new place.

Keyword: migrants, self-efficacy, multicultural competence, acculturation