Are daily intergroup interactions distressing? An end-of-day diary study of associations between daily intergroup interaction proportion and psychological distress/well-being

Abstract

Laboratory-based studies show that intercultural interactions often cause people to feel stressed and anxious. However, we know fairly little about how intercultural interactions unfold outside of the laboratory. The present study examined associations between the proportion of daily intercultural interactions among 97 university students and their daily distress as well as daily well-being, using a 21-day end-of-day diary design. Overall, on days where participants had a larger proportion of intercultural interactions compared to their habitual level, they reported more psychological distress, with a small effect size. This association was similar for participants with majority status and for those with minority status. Daily proportion of intercultural interaction was unrelated to daily psychological well-being. We also observed no associations between daily intercultural interaction proportion and distress/well-being across days (using lagged analyses). This work extends laboratory-based findings that intercultural interactions are taxing to unstructured naturalistic settings.