Understanding Intercultural Relations: Majority Members’ Tri-Dimensional Acculturation Model

Research on acculturation suggests that harmonious intercultural relations form when minority group members adopt the majority culture whilst maintaining their heritage culture (i.e., integration strategy) and majority group members support cultural diversity. However, there is a tendency within the acculturation and intercultural competence literature to neglect acculturation as an explicit two-way process. Thus, the present chapter outlines research in the new field of globalisation-based proximal-acculturation, demonstrating that majority members can follow an integration strategy themselves by adopting minority members' cultures whilst maintaining their national culture. To even better understand this phenomenon, power is introduced as a third dimension, forming a new tri-dimensional acculturation model for majority members. The chapter then demonstrates how such a model and its resulting acculturation strategies can explain various psychological, sociocultural and intergroup relational outcomes. The chapter ends with a concrete exercise on how to use the proposed model in intercultural education.