Two-way acculturation: Rethinking cultural influence in a multicultural America

Jake Beniflah, Madeline Beniflah and Javier Farfan
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Jake Beniflah: Executive Director, The Center for Multicultural Science, USA
Madeline Beniflah: Vice President, Integrated Strategy and Client Services, BARÚ, USA
Javier Farfan: Professor of Practice Syracuse University, USA

Journal of Cultural Marketing Strategy, 2026, vol. 10, issue 2, 142-162

Abstract: Acculturation has traditionally been conceptualised as a one-way process in which minority groups adapt to a dominant majority culture. As the USA moves toward a multicultural majority, this paper reconsiders that assumption and proposes a two-way acculturation framework in which cultural influence is reciprocal and shaped through intergroup contact. Using a city-based design across Hispanic-dominant, Black-dominant and White-dominant contexts, the paper tests a moderated mediation model examining how race/ethnicity influences marketer-relevant attitudes through both current/direct and childhood intergroup contact. The findings show that intergroup contact significantly mediates relationships between race/ethnicity and three key outcomes: media representation perceptions, cultural diversity attitudes and multicultural advertising attitudes, with current/direct contact emerging as the stronger pathway. Results also indicate that these effects vary across city-majority contexts, highlighting the importance of local demographic environments in shaping exposure and interaction. The paper provides empirical support for a shift from unidirectional to reciprocal models of cultural influence and demonstrates that multicultural exposure plays a central role in shaping consumer attitudes. The findings suggest that multicultural marketing should be understood not as a niche strategy but as increasingly central to the broader marketplace in contemporary America. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.

Keywords: two-way acculturation; intergroup contact; multicultural advertising; cultural diversity; media representation; city context (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J7 M3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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