Reacculturation: Individual, Intergroup, and Sociocultural Determinants of Re-Entry Stress

<p><strong>Over the past decade, the number of international migrants has been steadily increasing, with many moving abroad temporarily and then returning to their country of origin. Although intercultural experiences offer significant benefits for both individuals and societies, returning to one’s home country is not always seamless. Previous research indicates that returnees often report heightened levels of stress due to difficulties with readapting back to their home cultural environment, which is known as re-entry stress or reverse culture shock. Re-entry stress is widely acknowledged as a potential threat to health and wellbeing, yet relatively little research has examined the specific factors that contribute to higher or lower levels of stress during this cultural transition. This research integrates acculturation theory (Searle & Ward, 1990; Ward et al., 2001; Ward & Kennedy, 1999), and the Stress and Coping framework (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), with recent work on cultural values (Minkov, 2017; Pelham et al., 2022), and social determinants of health (Braveman & Gottlieb, 2014; World Health Organization, 2023), to explore various re-entry stress factors that stem from a) individual differences and b) the sociocultural context of the cross-cultural transition. This thesis comprises two studies: (1) a systematic literature review of reacculturation and (2) a cross-cultural, quantitative investigation of multiple factors influencing re-entry stress, which analyses secondary data from a longitudinal study.</strong></p><p>Study 1, the systematic literature review, was conducted to provide an extensive evaluation of existing empirical evidence about re-entry stress and adaptation. Specifically, it sought to describe the prevalence of re-entry stress, how stress levels change over time, and the factors associated with reacculturation. The review examined 55 studies with various research designs (e.g., qualitative, quantitative) and diverse groups of participants (e.g., international students, work-related migrants, missionaries). Findings showed a prevalence of re-entry stress between 40–92%, revealed inconsistencies in measurement which posed an issue when comparing the results, and pointed to a lack of longitudinal data for examining changes in stress levels over time. The analysis identified a variety of demographic, situational, intrapersonal, interpersonal/intergroup, and contextual factors related to re-entry stress and adaptation, offering in-depth insights into over 30 factors. Overall, this study provided a comprehensive overview of the available evidence on reacculturation and highlighted important gaps in the literature, such as overrepresentation of privileged groups of returnees from the Global North and an absence of studies that systematically examine sociocultural factors.</p><p>Study 2 was designed to address several gaps identified in Study 1 by cross-culturally investigating previously neglected factors influencing re-entry stress. This study provided a quantitative examination of the influences of three coping styles (approach, acceptance, and avoidance) on re-entry stress at the individual level, and the influences of cultural values (collectivism and monumentalism), cultural homogeneity, and national wellbeing at the societal level. Additionally, it examined the interplay of these individual and societal-level factors by exploring how cultural characteristics moderated the relationship between coping styles and re-entry stress. Survey data from an 18-month-long longitudinal study with 1485 study-abroad high school students were analysed. Students came from 45 different home countries and studied abroad for 8-10 months in one of 51 host countries. The data were analysed through a series of multilevel models. When controlling for baseline levels of stress, the results showed that the acceptance coping style predicted lower re-entry stress while avoidance coping predicted greater re-entry stress. Furthermore, participants returning to countries with higher collectivism and cultural homogeneity reported greater re-entry stress. The relationship between approach coping and re-entry stress was moderated by collectivism, so that coping by not approaching the stressor was associated with greater stress among students from collectivist countries compared to individualist ones.</p><p>In sum, this research programme provided valuable new information about re-entry stress that is of both scholarly and practical importance. It illuminated the multitude of potential risk factors and protective factors of re-entry stress, and it highlighted the importance of developing adaptive coping styles and the role of the sociocultural context in the reacculturation process. Beyond its empirical contributions, this thesis proposes a theoretical framework for studying the reacculturation process and discusses implications for returnees and their support networks in developing effective approaches for successful readaptation.</p>