The purpose of the current study was to test a model of socialization among a sample of adult Korean adoptees. Based on the tenants of homophily and social identity theory, it was hypothesized that participants' early racial and ethnic socialization experiences would account for their current intragroup friendships as adults, and that this relationship would be mediated by early intragroup contact and moderated by early ethnic identity status. The two ethnic and racial socialization variables (i.e., ethnic heritage activities and racial in-exposure) significantly accounted for participants' relationships with other Korean adoptees and nonadopted Koreans, and the effects were partially explained by early intragroup contact. Results of multigroup testing indicated the proposed socialization model was non-invariant across groups, such that the effects of ethnic heritage activities on intragroup contact and the effect of racial in-exposure on friendships with Korean adoptees were significantly different based on early ethnic identity status.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.