Cognitive Archetypes, Acculturation and Social Coping Trends among Small Scale Muslim Merchants in A Public Market in the Philippines

Abstract

Muslim settlers in Laguna, Philippines has increased over the years, thus it is important to understand their dominant cognitive archetypes that may be credited for their vulnerability to acquire behavior from their new environment. This could enable them to utilize the best coping strategy. Although a considerable review of literature and studies exist about archetypes, acculturation and social coping trends of individuals, scant attention has been given to Muslim migrants especially in the context of trade and business in local public market. This descriptive-correlational study determined how the cognitive archetypes of 110 randomly selected Muslim merchants are related to their level of acculturation and to their central social coping trend, and how their level of acculturation is related to their central social coping trend. Findings revealed that the respondents manifested the Great Mother archetype, have low level of acculturation and utilized the moving-away-from-people social coping trend. Moreover, rest of relationship revealed that the lower the respondents' level of acculturation, the more they tend to move away from people displaying the detached type of personality.