The Role of Attachment Styles, Perceived Discrimination, and Cultural Distance in Adjustment of German and Eastern European Immigrants in the Netherlands

Abstract

This study investigates the relationships between attachment styles and psychological and sociocultural adjustment of European immigrants in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the role of the cultural distance between native and host cultures as it pertains to the adjustment of immigrants has been examined. The present results suggest that attachment styles are more related to the psychological adjustment of immigrants than to immigrants’ sociocultural adjustment. A comparison of the adjustment of German and Eastern European immigrants show that Germans immigrants, whose culture of origin and language are more similar to the Dutch one, are psychologically and linguistically better adapted than Eastern Europeans. Also German immigrants report lower perceived discrimination than Eastern European immigrants. Surprisingly, however, German immigrants endorse less either their native or Dutch identities than Eastern European immigrants. Findings conclude with speculations about the historically rooted experience of group-guilt among Germans living in the Netherlands, as a possible explanation for their low identification with their native and Dutch cultures.