Gender features of social and psychological adaptation of migrants in the United States

Abstract

In order to investigate the gender characteristics of migrants adaptation, we tested 60 married people who moved to the United States within one year. All respondents have higher education, are capable, belong to the middle class, have real estate and cars, at least one of the spouses works. All respondents moved to the United States on very favorable terms. The techniques we selected allowed us to conduct this research remotely via Google Form on the Internet. For our study, we chose the following techniques: Maskulinity-Femininity Test (S. Bem), Marriage Satisfaction Questionnaire (T. Romanov and G. Butenko), Socio-psychological Adaptation Questionnaire (C. Rogers and R. Diamond), SAN Test, "Big Five" Questionnaire. We found out that only masculinity correlates with adaptation: the higher is masculinity, the higher adaptation is. Further correlation analysis revealed that masculinity has the highest direct correlation with internality, that is, a person's belief in his/her power to determine his/her life abroad. Other masculine traits that have an impact on adaptation include self-acceptance, desire for domination, and emotional stability. We were surprised by the lack of correlation between masculinity and acceptance by others. Since the discovered correlation hasn’t shown a connection between masculinity and femininity, we can train masculinity without paying attention to gender. We have found that the masculine traits that enhance the adaptation process in the new country are internality, positive self-perception, desire for domination, and emotional stability. That is why we counted on our 3-day training. Our training is similar to personal growth training as it primarily develops self-regulation skills, emotional competence, self-perception, acceptance by others and will power. In addition, through mini-lectures, the participants can learn about the stages of adaptation, the concepts of cultural shock and acculturation, which will help them to understand those new processes they face in a new country and simplify such a complex and stressful process as adaptation.