The Roles of Cultural Competence and
Cultural Motivation in Cultural Framing
Masters Thesis Defense
Natasha Koustova
Sept 12, 2011
Introduction
 Large immigrant population in Canada
 Engaged in lifelong process of negotiating between heritage
and host cultural influences
 Cultural framing theory suggests that biculturals may shift in
behaviours and attitudes depending on situational cultural
cues
 Some biculturals seem to be more responsive to cultural cues
 Present study examines two factors that may account for
these differences: cultural competence and cultural
motivation
Cultural Framing
 “the individual shift[ing] between interpretive frames
rooted in different cultures in response to cues in the
social environment” Hong, Morris, Chiu, & BenetMartinez, 2000
 Shift in Individualism-Collectivism
 Chinese prime = collectivistic attributions on the
interpretive task
 American prime = individualistic attributions on
the interpretive task
Priming Individualism-Collectivism
 South and East Asian cultures are more collectivist; North
American culture is more individualist (Hofstede, 1997)
 On an individual level, collectivism = interdependent selfconstrual; individualism = independent self-construal
(Markus & Kitayama, 1991)
 Useful construct for cultural framing
 bicultural East/South Asian Canadians should be more
interdependent in response to heritage cultural cues and
more independent in response to host cultural cues
Cultural Competence
 LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1993:
1. Possession of a strong personal identity.
2. Knowledge and use of cultural beliefs and values.
3. Sensitivity to the affective processes of the culture.
4. Knowledge of the language and ability to communicate.
5. Performance of behaviours that are socially required.
6. Interaction with social groups within the culture.
7. Ability to engage with institutional structures of the
culture.
Cultural Motivation
 Different theories (e.g., acculturation, ethnic identity, social




identification) recognize importance of desire for
membership in heritage or host cultures
In practice, operationalization often confuses motivation
(desire) with competence
Cultural motivation - cultural attitudes, ethnic identity,
reacting to positive and negative stress, and/or assessing
utility of gaining competence (Rudmin, 2009)
Present study defines cultural motivation as identification
with a culture
Some evidence that motivational factors can inhibit the
success of priming
Hypothesis
In response to a culture-specific cognitive prime, individuals
with high levels of competence and motivation with
reference to the culture being primed will score significantly
higher on a culturally congruent measure of
interdependence/independence than individuals with low
levels of competence and motivation.
Method
 Participants
 65 South Asian and East Asian Canadians
 11 males, 54 females, ages 18-44 (M = 23.1, SD = 5.69)
 47 first generation and 18 second generation participants
 Age of arrival to Canada varied from 2.5 to 37 years (M =
13.07, SD = 7.85)
 Had lived in Canada a minimum of 3 years
 From Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan,
Philippines, South Korea, and Sri Lanka
Procedure
1. Participants were randomly assigned to a
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
culture priming condition
Participants filled out heritage and host cultural
competence and cultural motivation measure
Participants completed a distraction task
Participants completed the culture priming task
Participants completed dependent variable:
Interdependence and Independence scales.
Demographic questionnaire
2 (heritage or host culture prime) x 2 (high or low cultural competence)
x 2 (high or low cultural motivation) between-subjects factorial design
Culture Prime Condition
Heritage
Independen
t Variables
Dependent
Variable
Host
High Heritage
competence/H
igh Heritage
Motivation
High Heritage
Competence/L
ow Heritage
Motivation
High Host
competence/H
igh Host
Motivation
High Host
Competence/L
ow Host
Motivation
Low Heritage
Competence/
High Heritage
Motivation
Low Heritage
Competence/L
ow Heritage
Motivation
Low Host
Competence/
High Host
Motivation
Low Host
Competence/L
ow Host
Motivation
Interdependence Scale Score
Independence Scale score
Culture Prime Conditions
 Participants completed a word search puzzle that contained
10 culture-priming words
 Heritage Culture Prime: Parents, Disciplined, Educated,
Hardworking, Family, Intelligent, Motivated, Efficient,
Traditional, Conservative
 Host Culture Prime: Multicultural, Beloved, Polite, Free,
Peaceful, Kind, Equality, Community, Wear flag, Educated
Measures
 Cultural Competence: Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS;
Stephenson, 2000)
 Heritage Culture Competence:17 statements, e.g., “I feel comfortable
speaking the language of my heritage country”
 Host Culture Competence: 13 statements, e.g., “I am informed about
current affairs in Canada”
 Cultural Motivation: Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale
(AMAS-ZABB; Zea, Asner-Self, Birman, & Buki, 2003)
 Heritage Cultural Motivation: 6 items, e.g., “I am proud of being a member
of my heritage culture”
 Host Culture Motivation: 6 items, e.g., “I am proud of being Canadian”
 Dependent Measure: Interdependence/Independence Self-
Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994)
 For Heritage Culture Prime condition: 12 Interdependence items, e.g., “I
respect people who are modest about themselves”
 For Host Culture Prime condition: 12 Independence items, e.g., “I am
comfortable with being singled out for praise or reward”
Preliminary Analyses
 Reliability:
 Cultural Competence
 Heritage Culture Competence Scale α= .90
 Host Culture Competence Scale α= .81
 Cultural Motivation
 Heritage Culture Motivation Scale α= .91
 Host Culture Motivation Scale α= .93
 Dependent Variable
 Interdependence Scale α= .80
 Independence Scale α= .82
 ANOVA assumptions:
 Both heritage and host Motivation distributions violated
assumption of normality
 Levene’s Test for homogeneity of variance was not significant
Preliminary Analyses (Correlations)
Principal Analysis
Principal Analysis
 Planned comparison of the high competence/high motivation
mean (M = 5.36, SD = .78) to the low competence/low
motivation mean (M = 4.65, SD = .81) was significant,
t(1,44) = 2.99, p<.01
 Significant main effect for cultural competence, F(1, 65) =
3.88, p = .05, η2=.06, on the analysis of variance suggests
that the significant difference between high competence/high
motivation and low competence/low motivation participants
is due primarily to competence rather than motivational
differences
Discussion
 The study hypothesis was supported:
 significant difference between participants with
strong competence and motivation as compared to
those with relatively weaker competence and
motivation in the primed culture.
 Main effect for cultural competence
 Overall high interdependence scores
 Cultural competence as separate factor from cultural
motivation
Limitations and Future Directions
 Limitations:
 Small sample size
 Skewed distributions
 Priming materials
 Future directions:
 Future research should include competence and
motivation as separate factors; concept of
motivation needs to be fleshed out and properly
measured
Implications
 The study distinguished between competence and motivation
to acculturate
 Looked at roles of cultural competence and cultural
motivation on responsiveness to cultural primes, which has
not been assessed in cultural framing studies
Thank you