Thinking styles, emotion regulation, and their roles in Tibetan college students' acculturation into Han cultural environment

Abstract

The increasing inter-cultural communication in China has led to a growing interest in how the ethnic minorities cope with the encountered main stream (Han)culture of China. The present research compared Tibetan and Han college students studying in a Northwest China province, examining how Tibetan college students acculturated into Han cultural environment concerning their thinking styles, emotion regulation, acculturation strategy, academic performance, and psychological well-being.

The present research was composed of a pilot study and a main study. The pilot study was conducted among 105 Tibetan and 147 Han college students studying in a teacher-training university in Northwest China. It aimed at validating the measures that were to be used in the main study, exploring the possible effects that culture might have on thinking styles and emotion regulation, as well as tentatively investigating the relationships among the variables of interest.

The main study involved 483 Tibetan students from two nationality universities and 265 Han students from a teacher-training university who responded to the same set of questionnaires validated in the pilot study twice, with an interval of seven months. The quantitative procedure was followed by a qualitative one in which five teachers (one Han and four Tibetans) and eight students (Tibetans who participated in the questionnaire surveys) in the three sampled universities were interviewed. Both the quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to answer three research questions:1) How and why do the Tibetan students’ thinking styles and emotion regulation change as they study in Han cultural environment? 2) What are the relationships among Tibetan college students’ thinking styles, emotion regulation, and their acculturation strategy? And 3) What roles do thinking style, emotion regulation, and acculturation strategy play in Tibetan college students’ academic performance and psychological well-being?

The results suggested that the Tibetan and Han college students did differ from each other in their thinking styles and emotion regulation. Longitudinal data supported that the Tibetan students’ thinking styles, emotion regulation, and acculturation strategy, as well as the relationships among these variables changed across time. Thinking styles, emotion regulation, and acculturation strategy were all found to have direct effects on their psychological well-being and academic performance. The effects of some of the thinking style and emotion regulation variables on psychological well-being and academic performance were also found to be mediated by either or both of the two dimensions of the Tibetan students’ acculturation strategy (i.e., ethnic and dominant society immersions). Meanwhile, the four acculturation strategies (i.e., integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization) were also found to moderate the effects of the thinking styles and emotion regulation on the psychological well-being and academic performance. With the support from the literature and interviews, the quantitative findings were discussed. The findings of the present research would not only provide valuable information on assisting in understanding the development of people’s thinking styles, emotion regulation, and acculturation, but also provide helpful information for the higher education institutions to improve their teaching and management of the ethnic minority students.