Abstract
Loneliness is a major health risk with particular relevance for migrants, who are faced with the challenge of establishing social networks to avoid social isolation after migration. We suggest that forming new relationships may be hampered or facilitated by characteristics of migrants’ heritage culture (i.e., the culture that migrants were socialized in), specifically the level of heritage relational mobility (the amount of opportunities to form new relationships and individual choice regarding whom to relate to in the heritage culture). Individuals with higher (versus lower) heritage relational mobility may be able to more easily establish social networks after migration, because of being more experienced with forming new social relationships. As such, we hypothesized that they might be less susceptible to loneliness after migrating – at least in a host culture that is high in relational mobility. In two cross-sectional survey studies with samples from two of the largest groups of student migrants in the city of Groningen (Study 1: n = 118 German, n = 97 Chinese students; Study 2: n = 119 German, n = 92 Chinese students) in the Netherlands (i.e., a context with high relational mobility), higher heritage relational mobility was indeed related to lower loneliness. Having grown up in a cultural environment that offers opportunities to individually establish new social relationships may hence protect migrants from quite different heritage cultures from loneliness, at least if the host culture also offers such opportunities. We discuss alternative explanations, as well as theoretical and practical implications.
Highlights
Loneliness is a major health risk (Cacioppo, Grippo, London, Goossens, & Cacioppo, 2015; Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015; Richard, Rohrmann, Vandeleur, Schmid, & Eichholzer, 2016; Smith & Victor, 2018) that is highly prevalent in most modern societies (Yang & Victor, 2011)
To better understand differences in migrants’ susceptibility to loneliness, we focus on heritage relational mobility - that is, relational mobility in the culture that migrants were socialized in, and that they have internalized to some extent
Taiwanese teenage sojourners in Canada indicated experiencing less loneliness and less acculturative stress if their interpersonal competence was higher. We suggest that this process of establishing new relationships in the host culture can be facilitated or hampered by migrants’ heritage culture
Summary
Loneliness is a major health risk (Cacioppo, Grippo, London, Goossens, & Cacioppo, 2015; Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015; Richard, Rohrmann, Vandeleur, Schmid, & Eichholzer, 2016; Smith & Victor, 2018) that is highly prevalent in most modern societies (Yang & Victor, 2011). We believe that characteristics of a heritage culture are likely to put individuals at risk for, or protect them from loneliness because of the International Journal of Intercultural Relations 77 (2020) 140–150 norms about social relationships (e.g., whether it is normal and common to establish new friendships or choose one’s relationships; Yuki & Schug, 2012) that are implied by culture (defined in line with previous work as shared ideas - i.e., shared norms, beliefs, or values; Chiu, Leung, & Hong, 2011) These norms should partly be internalized by the culture’s members (Adams & Kurtiş, 2012) and impact on how they act in, and what they expect from, their relationships (Smith, Bond, & Kağıtçıbaşı, 2006). They may hamper or facilitate that migrants become and feel socially embedded after migration
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