The Cost of Being "True to Yourself" for Mixed Selves: Frame Switching Negatively Affects Biculturals' Perceived Authenticity, Impacting Well-Being, Intercultural Person Perception and Dating Prospects

As diversity increases throughout the world, a growing number of biculturalspeople who are regularly exposed to and identify with at least two culturesnavigate multiple cultural contexts on a daily basis. Despite the growth of this population, we know relatively little about what it is like for biculturals to manage the demands of their multiple cultures and how the ways in which they do so affect their characteristics and experiences. This dissertation research examines the psychological and social consequences of one common way that biculturals negotiate their cultures known as frame switching, whereby a bicultural adapts their ways of thinking and behaving to meet the demands of their immediate cultural context. Situated within North America contexts (Canada and the US), biculturals frame switching behaviour may violate the Western conception of authentic behaviour and carry unintended costs for biculturals. This dissertation contains two papers that explore the consequences of biculturals frame switching across an array of non-trivial outcomes, providing statistical and causal-chain evidence that these negative effects are mediated by perceived inauthenticity. Paper 1 presents two experiments addressing the negative effects of frame switching on: 1) biculturals self-perceived authenticity and the subsequent impact on their well-being and 2) monocultural Canadians perceptions of a biculturals authenticity and the subsequent impact on impressions of the bicultural on multiple desirable traits. Paper 2 presents four experiments addressing the negative effects of biculturals frame switching behaviour on monocultural Americans perceptions of their authenticity and the mediating role of authenticity on subsequent consequences for general impressions and dating prospects of biculturals. Finally, the contribution of this dissertation within the broader fields of biculturalism, social identities, and intergroup research and future directions are discussed.