Culture mixing, cultural identification and acculturation in Hong Kong: Effects of Hong Kong-mainland culture mixing on Hong Kong residents and Mainland Chinese sojourners

Research on culture mixing has revealed that a fundamental phenomenon of exclusionary responses exists with regards to mixed cultural symbols that combine ingroup and outgroup representations. This finding is supported among various ethnic groups across different multicultural societies (Cheon, Christopoulos, & Hong, 2016); however, the mixing of sub-regional cultures and its impact on acculturation process has not yet received sufficient research attention. Moreover, how identification with the given cultures is connected to the reactions towards culture mixing has not been thoroughly investigated. Recent research has proposed two methods of managing cultural identities with distinct functions among immigrants (Ward, Ng, Szabo, Qumseya, & Bhowon, 2018), namely the hybrid identity style (HIS) and the alternating identity style (AIS). Adopting these two styles, we identified two pairs of cultural identities for majority and minority groups in Hong Kong and explored their role and impact on reactions towards Hong Kong-Mainland culture mixing.

The current project includes three component studies. In Study 1, the pattern of disgust towards culture mixing in the Hong Kong-Mainland context was replicated in both Hong Kong local and Mainland Chinese samples, and its negative association with HIS was identified. In Study 2, through two two-time-point longitudinal studies among Mainland Chinese sojourners, the negative cross-lagged impact of disgust towards culture mixing on satisfaction with life was observed in addition to the potential negative cross-lagged impact of HIS and the positive cross-lagged impact of AIS on disgust. In Study 3, using different multicultural ideologies, three separate studies attempted to develop a prime for Hong Kong local residents that reduced disgust towards Hong Kong-Mainland culture mixing. Multiculturalism priming was found to indirectly reduce disgust, whereas assimilation priming indirectly increased disgust through HIS. These results suggest that multicultural identities are crucial to understanding culture mixing, especially in societies like Hong Kong, where intergroup conflicts and cultural identity conflicts are closely related to both majority and minority groups. All rights reserved.