Method

To be categorized as local, researchers suggest several indicators like country of birth (Sapienza, Hichy, Guarnera, & Di Nuovo, 2010), citizenship (Bourhis & Dayan, 2004), spoken language(s) (Montreuli et al., 2004) and self-identification as a local (Bourhis et al., 2010). A combination of factors was suggested by Bourhis and Barrette (2006) who defined locals as being born in a particular country, having the citizenship of this country, and an ancestral background in this country. Therefore, participants for the present study had to fulfil

the following requirements: they identified as American, they were born in the USA, as were both of their parents; they had spent the majority of their lives in the USA (at least 60%) and were currently a resident. Because I was interested in locals who had experienced at least a minimum of multicultural exposure within their own home country, participants also needed to have learned a second language for at least one year. The latter requirement was included because second language proficiency is the first step in gaining entrance to and learning skills in a new cultural environment (Benet-Martínez & Haritatos, 2005). For example, Chen et al. (2008) defined bilingual proficiency as a key indicator for biculturalism. Therefore, I chose second language acquisition as a minimum indicator for multicultural exposure within one’s own home country. The total sample consisted of 218 respondents (95 males and 123

females) between the ages of 18 and 69 (M = 33.78, SD = 12.72). 57% of participants were employed (student, 23%; unemployed, 20%). They were mainly Caucasian (77%; African- American, 11%; Hispanic, 2%, other, 10%), and of higher educational background (e.g., Bachelor or Master Degree, 60%; High-School Degree, 37%; No Degree, 3%).

3.3.2 Procedure

An online version of the survey was developed using the original English measures and accessed through an online survey-hosting website (www.surveymonkey.com). Data collection was restricted to Americans through Amazon Mechanical Turk, who received $.50 USD for completing the survey. Participants’ IP addresses were examined for duplicates. None were found.

3.3.3 Materials

Multi-Vancouver Index of Acculturation (Multi-VIA). The VIA (Ryder et al., 2000) consists of mainstream and heritage culture subscales with each containing 10 items rated on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). For the present research, the VIA was modified to assess locals’ national culture maintenance and

multicultural adaptation (see Table 3.1 for the items in the Result section). Participants were instructed as follows: ‘In brief, the following questions will measure to what extent you feel part of your American culture, and to what extent you feel part of and engage in a culturally ‘diverse’ or multicultural community in your own home country (i.e., different cultures than your British/German/American/Chinese/Indian cultural background). For example, I face multiculturalism on a daily basis due to my culturally diverse housemates, neighbours and colleagues (direct contact).’ The reliability and validity of this modified measure is reported in the Results section.

Host Community Acculturation Scale (HCAS). Various researchers (Bourhis et al., 1997; Bourhis et al., 2009; Bourhis & Montreuil, 2010; Montreuil et al., 2004) have

demonstrated that the HCAS scale is a reliable and valid measure for locals’ acculturation expectations towards the generic target group of ‘immigrants in general’. Yet, such phrasing was found to induce participants to devalue the respective target group (Bourhis et al., 2009). Instead of ‘immigrants’, the term ‘non-locals’ was applied in this study with an explanation as to who this group includes (e.g., migrants, students, and co-workers from a different cultural background than locals). Respondents rated on a 7-point Likert scale to what extent they “totally agreed” (7) or “did not agree at all” (1) with each of the five acculturation expectations (integrationism, individualism, assimilationism, segregationism and

exclusionism; e.g., “Non-locals should not maintain their culture of origin, nor adopt the American culture, because, in any case, there should be less immigration to this country.”). All five acculturation expectations were measured across two life domains: the intermediate private–public domain of culture (5 items), and the public domain of work (5 items). The internal consistencies of the individualism, segregationism, and assimilationism subscales were poor (> .50) and for integrationism even questionable (< .50; see Table 3.2 in the Result section; George & Mallery, 2003). As pointed out by Bourhis and Montreuil (2010), this may

be due to the two-item limitation per orientation. Thus, results with these subscales will be interpreted with caution.

Intercultural Sensitivity Index (ISI). The ISI by Olson and Kroeger (2001) was developed from Bennett’s (1993) DMIS, grouping global competencies into stages of

intercultural sensitivity. Paige et al. (1999) and Hammer et al. (2003) found higher reliability when the ethnocentric levels of Denial and Defence were combined, and when the

ethnorelativistic levels of Acceptance and Adaptation were combined, rather than left as individual constructs. Subsequently, the questions of the Denial and Defence subscales of the ISI were combined to measure the underlying dimension of ethnocentrism (8 items, e.g., “I have intentionally sought to live in a racially or a culturally distinct community.”).

Similarly, the scales of Acceptance and Adaptation were merged to measure ethnorelativism (8 items, e.g., “I believe that my worldview is one of many equally valid worldviews.”). The following item of the original Defence subscale was excluded as living abroad was not a requirement for survey participation: “I have lived for at least 2 years in another country and believe that American society should embrace the values of this other culture in order to address the problems of contemporary American society”. The remaining items were measured with a 5-point Likert scale anchored with “never describes me” (1) to “describes me extremely well” (5). Principal axis factor analysis (PAF) revealed the

emergence of two factors that corresponded with ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism (see Table 3.2 in the Result section for Cronbach’s alpha). Together they explained 41% of the variance, and all factor loadings were greater than .35.

3.4 Results