Cultural orientation and racial discrimination: Predictors of coherence in Chinese American young adults

Abstract

The study examined the contribution of domain-specific cultural orientation and racial discrimination to subjective competence (as measured by sense of coherence) in American-born and immigrant Chinese American young adults. It was hypothesized that sense of coherence would be more strongly predicted by domain-specific cultural orientation for immigrants, but by racial discrimination for American-borns. A total of 122 American-born and 231 immigrant Chinese American college students living in a multicultural setting participated in this study. As hypothesized, domain-specific cultural orientation more strongly predicted sense of coherence for immigrants (coherence varied by cultural orientation on all three life domains studied) than for American-borns (coherence varied by cultural orientation on only one domain). Also, racial discrimination more strongly predicted sense of coherence for American-borns than immigrants. Implications of the findings are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.