Is “Putting Yourself in Their Shoes” Beneficial in a Multicultural Environment?

The rising rates of immigration and globalization have created many multicultural societies, where individuals identify with more than one culture. Drawing on the perspective-taking theory, this research investigates the effects of perspective-taking on the perceived compatibilities of two cultural identities captured by Bicultural Identity Integration (BII). One experiment was conducted using Chinese participants to examine the relationship between perspective-taking and BII and to explore the moderating role of acculturation type (immigration-based vs. technology-mediated). The findings suggest that the perspective-taking positively influences one’s level of BII and the acculturation group moderates such effect. In particular, individuals experiencing technology-mediated acculturation reported a positive relationship between perspective-taking and the level of BII. Such a relationship is not evident among those who acculturate as a result of immigration.