Social networks, acculturation strategies and refugees' wellbeing in Italy

The literature on the refugee experience has often highlighted how the nonvoluntary nature of the migration process, the traumatic experiences and the resources loss, expose migrants to acculturative stress (Rossi & Mancini, 2016). Acculturative stress promotes attitudes of separation or marginality (Sem & Berry, 2010), which in turn contribute to generating psychological disease and poor socio-cultural adaptation. However, various studies have shown that this acculturative stress in related to several factors and, among these, also on the personal, social and contextual resources to which forced migrants can draw once they arrive in the host context (Rossi, 2018). Focusing on social resources, this study analyzed how the frequency of contacts, the cultural heterogeneity and the emotional closeness of the social network in the host country is related both to the acculturation attitudes and the to the psychological well-being of forced migrants in Italy. A semi-structured interview composed of Name generator, Acculturation Attitudes Scale and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale were administered to a sample of 160 forced migrants (refugees = 111; Males = 123, Mage = 29.96). The path analysis showed that, by promoting integration, it was above all cultural heterogeneity and the emotional closeness of the social network that increased the migrants' psychological well-being.