Two-way acculturation: Rethinking cultural influence in a multicultural America

Acculturation has traditionally been conceptualised as a one-way process in which minority groups adapt to a dominant majority culture. As the USA moves toward a multicultural majority, this paper reconsiders that assumption and proposes a two-way acculturation framework in which cultural influence is reciprocal and shaped through intergroup contact. Using a city-based design across Hispanic-dominant, Black-dominant and White-dominant contexts, the paper tests a moderated mediation model examining how race/ethnicity influences marketer-relevant attitudes through both current/direct and childhood intergroup contact. The findings show that intergroup contact significantly mediates relationships between race/ethnicity and three key outcomes: media representation perceptions, cultural diversity attitudes and multicultural advertising attitudes, with current/direct contact emerging as the stronger pathway. Results also indicate that these effects vary across city-majority contexts, highlighting the importance of local demographic environments in shaping exposure and interaction. The paper provides empirical support for a shift from unidirectional to reciprocal models of cultural influence and demonstrates that multicultural exposure plays a central role in shaping consumer attitudes. The findings suggest that multicultural marketing should be understood not as a niche strategy but as increasingly central to the broader marketplace in contemporary America. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.