Does Motivation to Migrate Matter? Voluntary and Forced African Migrants and Their Acculturation Preferences in New Zealand

Abstract

As there is no research on forced migration of African migrants to New Zealand, in particular on the interrelations among psychological motives to migrate and psychological acculturation preferences, the present study aims to address this gap. One hundred and five forced and voluntary African migrants to New Zealand completed a questionnaire, which included two measures (a) the Psychological Motives to Migrate (Tharmaseelan, 2005) and (b) the Psychological Acculturation Index (Mace, 2004). Demographic information, including data on the New Zealand government immigration categories through which the migrant gained entry and length of time in New Zealand, was also collected. Multivariate analyses indicated that motivations to migrate do matter when it comes to acculturation preferences. Further, it was found that psychological motives to migrate were better predictors of acculturation preferences than the government immigration categories. Specifically, voluntary migrants (those motivated by ‘family life improvement’ and ‘exploration’) preferred to adapt to New Zealand culture, while forced migrants (those motivated by ‘escaping’) had a higher preference to maintain their culture of origin. Duration of time in New Zealand was correlated with acculturation preferences. Implications of the findings point to the importance of assessing motivations to migrate from a psychological perspective.

Psychology and Poverty Reduction: A Global Special Issue

“…In the domain of social and community life, theoretical contributions can be found in Table 1 concerning how people’s implicit processes and biases mediate coping with changes through immigration into “their” communities (Pedersen & Fozdar, 2010); for making supportive attributions about appropriate forms of antipoverty interventions (Hastie, 2010); about new settlers’ adaptation patterns and styles (King, Welch, & Owens, 2010; Udahemuka & Pernice, 2010); and about the motivating qualities of social identity as a mediator for poverty reduction initiatives (Thomas, McGarty, & Mayor, 2010). These mediators are not part of the “culture of poverty,” but perhaps more constructively can be seen as part of the “culture[s] of daily life” (Kumar, 2010).…”

Goal pursuit during the three stages of the migration process

“…However, fear-of-failure economic motives (Winter-Ebmer, 1994) and the drive for mere financial betterment seem to be detrimental for the migrant (Doerschler, 2006). The beneficial effects of the motivation to explore, expand one`s horizons, gain intercultural knowledge and skills, enjoy freedom, and improve personally and professionally transpires from several studies (e.g., Doerschler, 2006;Udahemuka & Pernice, 2010). Indeed, self-determined and intrinsic motivation (Chirkov et al, 2007(Chirkov et al, , 2008Yang et al, 2018;Zhou, 2014), acculturation motivation (Chirkov et al, 2007(Chirkov et al, , 2008Dentakos et al, 2017;Kitsantas, 2004), and non-compelled motivation (Pinto et al, 2012) were shown to be generally beneficial for both the well-being and later adjustment success of various groups of migrants.…”

“…One explanation is that premigration motivation is predictive of psychological or sociocultural adaptation but not necessarily of career success. Udahemuka and Pernice (2010) investigated whether the motives used by Tharmaseelan et al (2010) predicted the acculturation orientation of forced and voluntary African migrants in New Zealand. They found that migrants with exploration and family motives were more likely to embrace cultural adaptation orientation, whereas migrants with escape motives were more likely to prefer maintenance of their heritage culture.…”

Forced Migration, Social Exclusion and Poverty: Introduction

“…There is also a need for additional employment and educational support. Udahemuka and Pernice's (2010) study of African migrants in New Zealand found that forced and voluntary migrants differ according to their acculturation style which, as Murray reported, may influence whether forced migrants access mainstream services, form broad friendship support networks and enjoy positive psychological wellbeing.…”