Nostalgia, social connectedness, and acculturation orientation among Syrian refugees

Abstract

We addressed in a cross-sectional study the role of nostalgia in refugee psychological acculturation orientation toward both home and host cultures, as well as the intervening role of social connectedness. We defined home orientation as efforts to maintain one’s original culture and identity, whereas we defined host orientation as efforts to engage with and adopt features of the host culture. We tested 915 Syrian refugees (56.2% women), aged 17 to 78 years (M = 35.94, SD = 10.64), who were settled in Western countries. Participants’ nostalgia for life in their home country was directly associated with higher home orientation and host orientation. Further, nostalgia was indirectly positively associated with home orientation through stronger social connectedness with their Syrian community, and it was indirectly negatively associated with host orientation through weaker social connectedness with the host community. We consider theoretical implications.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Constantine Sedikides: orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-889X

ORCID for Tim Wildschut: orcid.org/0000-0002-6499-5487

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