Acculturation to the culture of the host society as well as to one’s heritage culture have been shown to impact immigrants’ adjustment during the years following resettlement. While acculturation has been identified as an important factor in adjustment of Vietnamese immigrants (Birman and Tran in Am J Orthopsychiatr 78(1):109–120. doi:10.1037/0002-9432.78.1.109, 2008), no clear pattern of findings has emerged and too few studies have employed an ecological approach. The purpose of this paper is to contextualize the study of acculturation and adjustment by taking an ecological approach to exploring these relationships across several life domains, using a bilinear scale, and examining mediators of these relationships for adult Vietnamese refugees (N = 203) in the United States. We call this approach the Ecological Acculturation Framework (EAF). Results of a structural equation model (SEM) showed that job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between American acculturation and psychological distress, demonstrating that this relationship was specific to an occupational domain. However, while Vietnamese acculturation predicted co-ethnic social support satisfaction, it did not predict reduced psychological distress. Implications for a life domains approach, including domain specificity, are discussed. © 2015, Society for Community Research and Action.

Social support Occupation Acculturation Life domain specificity Refugee

Vietnam refugee human Refugees middle aged Stress, Psychological mental stress Emotional Adjustment Aged Job Satisfaction Adaptation, Psychological social support ethnology Cross-Sectional Studies Surveys and Questionnaires Young Adult United States cross-sectional study Occupations psychology classification Humans male occupation Acculturation Viet Nam Socioeconomic Factors female adaptive behavior socioeconomics questionnaire cultural factor psychological adjustment adult migration Emigration and Immigration Maryland