Majority acculturation through globalization: The importance of life skills in navigating the cultural pluralism of globalization

Abstract

In contemporary globalized societies, traditional sociocultural structure and guidance have been increasingly disrupted, challenging people’s self-understanding, global perspective, and well-being. These transformations have enhanced the need for competency in navigating diverse meaning systems and cultural pluralism. The development of generic life skills provides relevant abilities to deal effectively with everyday demands and challenges in multicultural complexity. As cultural globalization comprises both similarities and differences across various locations, it is valuable to disentangle what relates to universal processes and what concerns culture-specific consequences through cross-cultural research. In the present study, we examined the association between life skills and endorsement of peaceful dialogue, meaning in life, and perceived stress through dissimilar reactions to globalization (multicultural acquisition and ethnic protection) across the highly dissimilar contexts of the United States (n = 312) and Pakistan (n = 285). The results indicate that life skills were significantly associated with peaceful dialogue and meaning in life in both contexts, but the negative relationship with perceived stress only reached significance in the U.S. sample. Life skills were positively associated with peaceful dialogue and perceived stress through multicultural acquisition in the U.S. sample, and life skills were positively associated with meaning in life through ethnic protection in the Pakistani sample. The results are discussed vis-à-vis similarities and differences, suggesting life skills are relevant capabilities for addressing globalized challenges in everyday life.