Multicultural Identity Integration versus Compartmentalization as Predictors of Subjective Well-Being for Third Culture Kids: The Mediational Role of Self-Concept Consistency and Self-Efficacy

Magdalena Mosanya and Anna Kwiatkowska ()
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Magdalena Mosanya: Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Jaracza 1, 00-378 Warsaw, Poland
Anna Kwiatkowska: Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Jaracza 1, 00-378 Warsaw, Poland

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: Globalization has resulted in an exponential increase in the number of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), defined as being raised in a culture other than that of their parents (or the passport country) and meaningfully interacting with different cultures. Inconsistencies regarding the effect of multicultural and transient experiences on well-being exist in the psychological literature. We aimed to reveal associations between multicultural identity configurations (integration, categorization, compartmentalization) and well-being with the mediating role of self-concept consistency and self-efficacy. Participants ( n = 399, M = 21.2 years) were students at an international university in the United Arab Emirates. We used the Multicultural Identity Integration Scale, the Berne Questionnaire of Subjective Well-Being, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Self-Consistency Subscale from the Self-Construal Scale. The findings suggest that not merely exposure to diversity but also internal integration versus identity compartmentalization moderate the well-being of TCKs. We explained such mechanisms via partial mediation of self-consistency and self-efficacy. Our study contributed to a better understanding of the TCKs’ identity paradigm and pointed to multicultural identity integration as vital to TCKs’ well-being via its effect on self-consistency and self-efficacy. Conversely, identity compartmentalization decreased well-being via a reduction in the sense of self-consistency.

Keywords: third culture kids; multicultural identity; well-being; self-consistency; self-efficacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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