There’s some literature on identity integration which is related to your “one cultural network” idea in cross-cultural psychology. Benet-Martinez (one of the authors on the Hong fish study you talked about) is doing research on this.

There’s many methodological problems in this literature (from a knit-picky psychologist’s perspective) but the construct they’re getting at is what you’re talking about, although it’s in a bicultural immigration context.

Obviously there’s many contextual differences between immigrants and TCKs, but I think in general, when you’re exposed to multiple cultures you naturally perceive dissonance or value conflict, and you try to resolve this conflict. The end result I think, is your “one cultural network”. It’s the by-product of the negotiation that goes on in your head of different value systems. You make trade-offs, compromises, and forge conceptual links between different values to form an integrated, differentiated, “one cultural network” schema. You’re able to articulate when, where, and why certain values are right over others, or you try to blend them together. It’s the process of making an absolute out of not having any absolutes. I think cognitive complexity is definitely an outcome of this process.

But this is easier said than done though– the emotional consequences that many TCKs go through, and some never resolve, I think is the consequence of not being able to reach resolution. It’s hard comparing apples and oranges, or qualitatively different value systems. Add on top of that the accountability pressures you face from the cultural groups in question and you drive yourself crazy.

Anyway, great post. What is your real line of research? I used to be a molecular biologist but became a cross-cultural psychologist.

“Do you think that TCKs feel a need/pressure to be one or the other and I wonder how that correlates to the struggle with identity.”

I don’t know HOW that relates to the struggle of identity, but I know that it relates very tightly to it (or at least in my case).

When I repatriated to Brazil when I was 7, I felt the need/pressure to forget about my life and values from the UK. I find it’s related to the “either/or instead of both/and” construct that you talked about.

I’m not sure if this came from inside of me or from people around me, but I grew up believing that I could only be one OR the other.
UK and Brazil aren’t exactly very similar, so I grew up with a constant identity crysis and conflict of values.

From my younger years through my late teen age, I struggled as much as I could to NOT BE Brazilian, thus cultivating and maybe even exagerating some of the British values I had learned. I think sometimes it was all about being an opposite-Brazilian, because if I were anywhere near being a Brazilian it meant that I’d have to let go of being British.

I still don’t know if this is a natural human thought (that we have to be one OR the other) or if it was influenced by adults’ comments around me.

All I know is that I grew up in a country that was the opposite of many things I believed in. But at the same time, I thought it was my country. So there was a constant struggle inside of me, because I thought I HAD to be something that I couldn’t.

When I was 20 I decided to end this struggle by succumbing to the Brazlian culture and values. In a shallow level, I think I was successful (I went to the parties that everybody went, pretended to like the music that everybody did, pretended to behave just like them), but deep inside I had the feeling that I was getting farther and farther away from my real values.

It all came to an end when I was suffering from reverse cultural shock after having gone to Canada for 2 months, and found out about the TCK concept during the crysis.

Knowing about TCK gave me a sense of identity that I had never had before in my life.

It freed me from the obligation of being a Brazilian, thus “fixing” the last 5 years of identity/inner conflicts of my life (from 20 to 25, when I was shallowly happy for finally being able to fit in, but depressed deep inside for having to step away from my real values).

And at the same time, it freed me from the need of being anti-Brazilian (I don’t have to make a point in not-being one of them, because I don’t HAVE to be one of them). Thus “fixing” the inner conflicts I had had from 7 to 20.

Interestingly, it has also allowed me to like somethings from Brazil, that if I did before, I’d feel guilty (because then I would be betraying my “Britishness”).

So allowing myself to like/be parts of one AND parts of the other culture was very liberating.

I’m not sure this is good enough for a thesis, or even an article, but I am a living proof that the “either/or” thing has a HUGE impact on identity.

but when i decided to move to canada, i was fed up! i was all like “its time they just took me as is!” i made a conscious decision not change my speech, slang, accent, anything!

of course now its been almost a year and i am sick of explaining every other word that comes out of my mouth and am seriously considering just picking up north american english again.

ugh! and they say its one language…

Glad to hear you enjoyed reading the blog! Although academia may not have quite caught up with what we among ourselves know or suspect, what they have done (like the Hong et al paper) has helped me get some vocabulary to use as well. I’m happy that others benefit, too

I read your blog — i love it! It’s really very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to write such great stuff.That entry you wrote helped me understand and give me the vocabulary needed to explain this. I thought that i was the only one!!

I was wondering where you get all these great resources from? I would very much like to read them especially

Schaetti, B. F. (2001). Global Nomad Identity: Hypothesizing a Developmental Model (Doctoral dissertation, The Union Institute, 2001.) Dissertation Abstracts, 9992721

Is it possible for you to email it to me (if it is on your comp). I’m at

isa.roe@gmail.com

I’ll continue to read your blog!

Also for languages. I speak several languages at various levels of fluency and I also kind of switch between them in various situations. However Czech, which I am not as comfortable with, but had native level fluency in, has kind of taken a back seat and cannot use it with the ease I once did, since I no longer live in the environment and really none of my close family is from that language environment. I usually exclusively try to use one language in a situation, however sometimes when I am trying to speak fast I mix in words from other languages, because the word comes up first in that language.

I learned recently that there’s a term for that phenomenon: priming. Priming people is to show them something that unconsciously makes them use a particular concept. Even a few words or a picture is enough to make people unconsciously consider the priming, so they change their behavior without realizing they’re doing it or why they’re doing it. By priming people with a bunch of words that all connote old age mixed in with words that have nothing to do with age, you can get them to leave the experiment room walking slowly, as if they were old. You can get people to be more or less polite. Hong et al used cultural icons in the same way. If a few scattered words or a few pictures are enough, being around someone from a culture you know or living somewhere has GOT to be plenty and then some.