Warum längsschnittlich nicht gleich entwicklungsbezogen ist: Klärung von Missverständnissen in der Akkulturationsforschung – Eine Erwiderung auf Berry (2025)

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Eingegangen: Dezember 5, 2025. Angenommen: Dezember 8, 2025. Veröffentlicht: Dezember 9, 2025. https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00047 · © 2025 Die Autoren

Autorendetails

: Institute of Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen

: Institute of Psychology, Leibniz University Hannover

*Korrespondenz bitte an Please address correspondence to Philipp Jugert, philipp.jugert@uni-due.de, Institute of Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstraße 2, S06 S03 B18, 45141 Essen, Germany.

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Articles Citing This Paper

  • David L. Sam, Jonas R. Kunst (2026). Acculturation Reimagined—Charting new directions in a pluralistic world. advances in/psychology. https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00052

Dies ist eine KI-generierte Übersetzung des Titels, der Zusammenfassung und der zentralen Erkenntnisse; der Haupttext des Artikels bleibt in englischer Sprache.

Zusammenfassung

In seinem Kommentar zum Themenheft Acculturation Reimagined stellt Berry (2025) unseren Vorschlag infrage, dass die Akkulturationsforschung von einer entwicklungspsychologischen Perspektive profitieren könnte, und legt nahe, dass eine solche Perspektive bereits gut etabliert sei. In dieser Erwiderung erkennen wir an, dass entwicklungspsychologische Ideen seit Langem Teil der Akkulturationsforschung sind, und beanspruchen keine Originalität für deren Einführung. Wir vertreten jedoch die Auffassung, dass die bloße Anerkennung des Wertes entwicklungspsychologischer Ansätze, das Zitieren klassischer Entwicklungstheorien oder das Zurückgreifen auf Längsschnittdesigns das volle Potenzial nicht ausschöpft. Tatsächlich besteht eines der gravierendsten Missverständnisse in diesem Feld in der Annahme, dass die Messung von Individuen zu mehreren Zeitpunkten gleichbedeutend mit der Einnahme einer entwicklungspsychologischen Perspektive sei. Der nächste und dringend notwendige Schritt ist stattdessen eine wahrhaft entwicklungs-akkulturationsbezogene Perspektive mit expliziter konzeptueller und methodischer Integration – eine Perspektive, die Kontinuität und Wandel über die Lebensspanne hinweg erfasst und Akkulturation in umfassendere entwicklungspsychologische Überlegungen einbettet. Unser Artikel arbeitet solche entwicklungspsychologischen Konzepte heraus und behandelt beispielsweise, wie Entwicklungs- und Akkulturationsstadien miteinander verflochten sind oder wie Zeit in akkulturativen Prozessen konzeptualisiert werden kann. Wir veranschaulichen, wie solche Überlegungen in der Akkulturationsforschung umgesetzt werden können, mit dem Ziel einer stärker integrativen empirischen Arbeit, die ein tieferes Verständnis kultureller Anpassungsprozesse über die Lebensspanne hinweg fördert.
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Zentrale Erkenntnisse

  • Dieser Kommentar unterscheidet nachdrücklich zwischen der bloßen längsschnittlichen Datenerhebung und einer wahrhaft entwicklungs-akkulturationsbezogenen Perspektive und argumentiert, dass zeitlich geordnete Messungen allein noch keine Entwicklungswissenschaft darstellen. Indem die Autoren Entwicklung als konzeptuelle Linse und nicht als methodisches Etikett in den Mittelpunkt stellen, verorten sie die Akkulturationsforschung innerhalb lebensspannen-, aufgaben- und kontextsensitiver Rahmenmodelle statt in einfachen Stadien- oder Trajektorienmodellen.
  • Jugert und Titzmann entwickeln ein erweitertes Lebensspannen-Konzept von Entwicklung, um Akkulturation als einen heterogenen, nicht-normativen und potenziell nicht-linearen Prozess neu zu konzeptualisieren. Diese weitere Linse verdeutlicht, wie altersspezifische Entwicklungsaufgaben und Phasenübergänge mit der kulturellen Anpassung interagieren, und erklärt, warum Kinder, Jugendliche und Erwachsene unterschiedliche akkulturative Pfade beschreiten und warum universelle Stadienmodelle (z. B. die U-Kurve) theoretisch unzureichend sind.
  • Der Kommentar schlägt konkrete entwicklungspsychologische Instrumente vor – etwa das Akkulturationstempo und in Lebensphasen eingebettete Designs –, um künftige empirische Arbeiten anzuleiten. Diese Konzepte verfeinern nicht nur die theoretische Fassung von Akkulturationstrajektorien, sondern liefern auch Entscheidungsgrundlagen hinsichtlich der zeitlichen Abstände von Erhebungen, der Zielgruppen sowie der Modellierung von Kontinuität und Wandel und operationalisieren damit das Spezifitätsprinzip in der Akkulturationswissenschaft.
Der Volltext wird auf Englisch fortgesetzt

Clarifying Misconceptions

In his commentary on the special issue “Acculturation reimagined”, Berry (2025) dismisses our (Titzmann & Jugert, 2024) suggestions for how acculturation science could profit from a developmental perspective, arguing that we have ignored how extensively developmental psychology has already informed the field. To support his criticism, he cites earlier theories (Erikson, Vygotsky, Bronfenbrenner) that have informed acculturation research as well as the fact that longitudinal studies exist. We would like to respond to his criticism and to clarify our point of view because we believe that a developmental science perspective has the potential to substantially improve acculturation science by contributing a nuanced understanding of time and the interaction and co-action of acculturation and development.

First of all, however, we want to point out that we are by no means the first to bring a developmental perspective into the field of acculturation research, nor did we claim this. To do justice to the pioneers of developmentally informed acculturation research, we note that developmental perspectives on acculturation date back to Ramirez (1983) and Schönpflug (1997), and the first elaborated conceptual model of acculturation development was presented by Motti-Stefanidi et al. (2012), including Berry as a co-author. We probably should have clarified that the aim of our contribution was not to provide a review of existing methods, approaches, or theoretical conceptions of a developmental acculturation perspective (for this see Juang & Syed, 2019; Oppedal & Toppelberg, 2016; Ward & Szabó, 2023). Instead, we wanted to provide concepts that can be utilized by acculturation scholars to develop novel and more dynamic perspectives on acculturation, which can be more or less easily implemented in research programs. Berry’s response reflects two common misunderstandings among acculturation scholars about what a developmental perspective is. The first is related to the question of how development is conceptualised. The second refers to the question of how change can be measured. In the following, we will elaborate on both.

Acculturation ReimaginedPart of a Special IssueAcculturation ReimaginedThis article belongs to a curated special issue. Discover more research on this topic from the full collection.Explore the special issue →

Berry’s response reflects two common misunderstandings among acculturation scholars about what a developmental perspective is. The first is related to the question of how development is conceptualised. The second refers to the question of how change can be measured. In the following, we will elaborate on both.

What does a developmental perspective on acculturation mean?

To answer what a developmental perspective on acculturation entails, we first need to distinguish conceptualizations of development. In developmental psychology a narrow and an expanded concept of development can be differentiated. In the narrow view, development is considered as a series of progressive steps or stages, unidirectional and geared towards a state of maturity. Developmental progression in this conception is supposedly irreversible and universal or normative, i.e., the same for everyone. This narrow conceptualization is incorporated into standardized developmental testing procedures that are utilized, for instance, to inform the design and implementation of support interventions. To some extent, acculturation theories reflect similar approaches, e.g., Oberg’s (1960) U-Curve or Gonsalves’ (1992) stages of cultural adjustment, which both assume typical adjustment processes.

An expanded concept of development considers the whole lifespan, includes both universal and differential development, moves away from a narrowly defined concept of maturation to include sustainable changes (including dealing with losses and impairments), and departs from the idea of ‘normative’ development to include specific constellations or dispositions that can involve developmental deficits or challenges. This expanded concept of development searches for explanations for continuity (stability) and discontinuity (innovation) in emotions, cognitions and behaviour. In acculturation research, this wider conceptualization offers a lens through which acculturation phenomena become more contextualized, diverse, and dynamic, as it offers explanations of different trajectories. Such a perspective can, for example, describe why acculturation processes differ between children, adolescents, and adults: Different age groups are confronted with different developmental tasks which can accelerate or decelerate specific adaptation processes (Jugert & Titzmann, 2020; Motti-Stefanidi, F., Berry, J., Chryssochoou, X., Sam, D. L., & Phinney, J., 2012). In both the narrow and the wide conceptualization of development, longitudinal assessments are required to assess change. This is a long-established understanding in developmental psychology, one that also has been repeatedly called for within acculturation research to measure acculturation-related change (Fuligni, 2001; Kunst, 2021) . However, it is one of the gravest misconceptions in the field that measuring individuals over multiple time points is equivalent to adopting a developmental perspective. A developmental perspective is foremost a conceptual question and not one about measurement. Of course, it is true that purely cross-sectional designs, which still dominate acculturation research, do little to improve our understanding of acculturation development.

All of these considerations have been expressed—more or less explicitly—within acculturation research, and we never intended to claim exclusive credit for these ideas. However, in our view, merely acknowledging the need for a developmental perspective, referencing a developmental theory, or reducing a developmental approach to the use of multiple measurement points does not make full use of its potential. Instead, we argue that acculturation science would benefit from conceptual and methodological guidelines embedded within a genuinely developmental–acculturation perspective. This constitutes the next, and much-needed, step.

Our article elaborates such conceptual considerations and illustrates how they can be implemented in acculturation research to facilitate the emergence of further empirical work. For instance, the concept of acculturation tempo, inspired by developmental approaches to puberty, may shed light on interindividual differences in the duration of typical stages such as the “honeymoon phase,” “homesickness,” or “culture shock” (Cushner et al., 1986; Oberg, 1960). Examining interactions between developmental and acculturative changes—drawing, for example, on life-stage or phase-transition perspectives—can offer a contextualized and developmentally embedded understanding of acculturation processes. This represents an empirical route toward implementing the specificity principle in acculturation research (Bornstein, 2017).

Taken together, our suggestions may contribute to a more dynamic understanding of acculturation—one that informs the design of longitudinal studies, enables clearer predictions of change processes, provides a rationale for optimal spacing of assessments (shorter intervals for groups that adapt more rapidly vs. longer intervals for groups with slower adjustment), and clarifies how external processes shape trajectories of change. Ultimately, such an approach would bring us closer to the core aim of acculturation research: examining the complexity of acculturative changes over time.

Conflicts Of Interest

The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Frequently Asked Questions

  • What does this article argue is the key difference between longitudinal and developmental perspectives in acculturation research?

    The article argues that a longitudinal design is purely a measurement strategy, whereas a developmental perspective is fundamentally a conceptual framework. Simply following individuals over time does not, by itself, make a study developmental. In this response to Berry (2025), Jugert and Titzmann (2025) insist that development must structure the questions asked, the processes modeled, and the interpretations offered. A genuinely developmental–acculturation perspective requires explicit theorizing about continuity, change, timing, and life-stage tasks, not just repeated assessments.

    Details

    1. The commentary notes that one of the “gravest misconceptions” is equating multiple time points with developmental thinking.
    2. It emphasizes that developmental perspectives start with how change is conceptualized, not with data structure.
    3. Acculturation research is criticized for relying on cross-sectional work and for treating longitudinality as sufficient.
    4. The authors call for conceptual and methodological guidelines explicitly embedding developmental theory into acculturation designs.
  • How do Jugert and Titzmann redefine development for application in acculturation research?

    Jugert and Titzmann (2025) endorse an expanded, lifespan view of development rather than a narrow, stage-based progression toward maturity. In this commentary within the special issue “Acculturation Reimagined,” they argue that development encompasses both gains and losses, universal and differential pathways, and stability as well as innovation in behavior, emotion, and cognition. This reconceptualization allows acculturation to be viewed as diverse, contextually embedded, and often non-linear, rather than as a single normative sequence. It thus aligns acculturation research with contemporary developmental science rather than older maturationist models.

  • What is meant by 'acculturation tempo' and why is it important for studying cultural adaptation?

    Acculturation tempo refers to interindividual differences in the speed and duration of typical acculturation stages or phases. Drawing on developmental work on puberty, Jugert and Titzmann (2025) use this notion to capture how quickly individuals move through experiences such as the honeymoon phase, homesickness, or culture shock. In this commentary, they argue that tempo is a critical but understudied dimension that can clarify why individuals exposed to similar contexts exhibit markedly different adjustment timelines. It moves the field beyond static stage models to consider rate of change as a central explanatory variable.

  • How do developmental stages and acculturation processes interact according to this commentary?

    According to Jugert and Titzmann (2025), developmental stages and acculturation processes are intertwined rather than parallel or independent. In their response to Berry (2025), they argue that age-specific developmental tasks—such as identity formation in adolescence or role transitions in adulthood—shape how individuals experience and manage cultural adaptation. Consequently, the same acculturative context can yield different trajectories depending on life-stage, and acculturation itself can accelerate or decelerate ongoing developmental tasks. This interaction calls for designs that embed acculturation study within the broader developmental ecology of the lifespan.

  • What methodological guidance does the article provide for future developmental–acculturation research designs?

    The commentary offers methodological guidance by linking conceptual developmental insights directly to design decisions in acculturation research. Jugert and Titzmann (2025) recommend that researchers align measurement spacing, target populations, and modeling strategies with hypothesized developmental and acculturative dynamics. In this commentary on the “Acculturation Reimagined” special issue, they suggest using concepts like acculturation tempo and life-stage transitions to determine how often to assess participants and which age groups may require denser data. Methodology is thus treated as a derivative of developmental theory, not a neutral technical choice.

References

Berry, J. W. (2025). Comments on the papers in the Special Issue “Acculturation reimagined: Setting the stage for the next era of inquiry”. Advances.In/psychology, 2(1), e00432. https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00041

Bornstein, M. H. (2017). The Specificity Principle in Acculturation Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science : A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 12(1), 3–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616655997

Cushner, K., Cherrie, C., & Yong, M. (1986). Intercultural interactions: A practical guide. Sage.

Fuligni, A. (2001). A Comparative Longitudinal Approach to Acculturation among Children from Immigrant Families. Harvard Educational Review, 71(3), 566–579. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.71.3.j7046h63234441u3

Gonsalves, C. J. (1992). Psychological stages of the refugee process: A model for therapeutic interventions. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 23(5), 382–389. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.23.5.382

Juang, L. P., & Syed, M. (2019). The Evolution of Acculturation and Development Models for Understanding Immigrant Children and Youth Adjustment. Child Development Perspectives, 13(4), 241–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12346

Jugert, P., & Titzmann, P. F. (2020). Developmental tasks and immigrant adolescents’ adaptation. In D. Güngör & D. Strohmeier (Eds.), Contextualizing immigrant and refugee resilience: Cultural and acculturation perspectives (pp. 33–50). Springer.

Kunst, J. R. (2021). Are we facing a “causality crisis” in acculturation research? The need for a methodological (r)evolution. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 85, A4-A8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2021.08.003

Motti-Stefanidi, F., Berry, J., Chryssochoou, X., Sam, D. L., & Phinney, J. (2012). Positive immigrant youth adaptation in context: Developmental, acculturation, and social-psychological perspectives. In A. S. Masten, K. Liebkind, & D. J. Hernandez (Eds.), Realizing the potential of immigrant youth (pp. 117–158). Cambridge University Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-14793-005

Oberg, K. (1960). Cultural Shock: Adjustment to New Cultural Environments. Practical Anthropology, os-7(4), 177–182. https://doi.org/10.1177/009182966000700405

Oppedal, B., & Toppelberg, C. (2016). Acculturation development and the acquisition of culture competence. In D. L. Sam & J. W. Berry (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology (pp. 71–92). Cambridge University Press.

Ramirez, M. (1983). A Psychology of the Americas. Pergamon Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-026311-3.50007-0

Schönpflug, U. (1997). Acculturation: Adaptation or Development? Applied Psychology, 46(1), 52–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01092.x

Titzmann, P. F., & Jugert, P. (2024). The dynamics of acculturative change: The potential of a developmental perspective in acculturation science. Advances.In/psychology, 2(1), e553629. https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00029

Ward, C., & Szabó, Á. (2023). Acculturation, cultural identity and well-being. Nature Reviews Psychology, 2(5), 267–282. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00171-2

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