This is a pilot study which is conducting by Ali Hooman with his budget. Please try to see the results with consideration and don’t generalize it.
Immigrants and Cut-off
Ali Hooman
It is possible that immigrants and refugees have common goals, but the fundamental distinction between them is that immigrants leave their countries voluntarily whereas refugees are forced out of their countries. Many researchers believe that one of the basic reasons for immigration is economics. Potockly-Tripodi (2002) suggest that immigrants leave their countries voluntarily, usually in search of better economic opportunities. Kemp and Rasbrige (2004) also write that immigrants are “people who leave their homeland to seek economic or social benefit and thus tend to be pulled to a new land by desire or need for benefit”. Yeboah (1993) studied the development and political factors of immigration. He concluded that migration is a product of socio-cultural changes, due to educational developments, 2) economic developments, and 3) psychological factors.
Psychological Factors for Migration
Attachment theory suggests, before we can talk, we form internal working models about how reliable, responsive and understanding our caregiver is (Bowlby,1982). These models continue to inform our behaviour later in life, and become active when we experience separation or threat of loss from significant others, and during times of stress, frustration, or anger. Bawlby (1988,p121) believes when individual (of any age) is feeling secure, he is likely to explore away from his attachment figure. When alarmed, anxious, or unwell he feels an urge towards proximity.
Generally, four attachment statuses are recognized: one is secure attachment, also called autonomous (F). The other three are insecure and are called Dismissive (Ds), when needs for safety and security are ignored, and support is not there when is needed. The second one is Preoccupied (E), when needs for safety and securities are sometimes ignored, but sometimes care is intrusive, sometimes caregiver needs help instead of giving help. The last one is Unresolved (U), when there is potential for isolation when needy or even danger from those on whom you depend. Eke, Chope and Emmerkamp (2005) believe that in this status of attachment, there is no time to think or feel, and there are strong emotions that can overwhelm.
Migrants want to achieve their positive goals in a new country, but the migration is often associated with major psychological problems such as stress before, during, and after the event. Ecke et al.(2005) believe that although immigrants are extremely diverse group, adults who emigrate nearly always experience separation from family of origin, extended family, and country . They mentioned that immigrants are more likely than non-immigrants to have an insecure attachment representation. In their research they found that Dutch and Belgian immigrants in California have a high rate of unresolved attachment status compared to non-immigrant Californians, unrelated to their length of time in the United States, to their marriage status, or to their reasons for immigration.
Lee (2007) in his survey for British Columbia of Canada has mentioned,” immigration is transforming Canada at an accelerating rate”. In 2005, Canada admitted immigrants from over 200 countries with a high degree of racial, ethic, and religious diversity. He also concluded immigrants bring human capital, investment capitals, and cultural diversity. On the other hand, we can also see increasing poverty, underemployment, health issues and settlement, stress from adjusting to a new culture, stress on families and split families problem in immigrants. Lee also mentions that often immigrants women who arrived healthier than most Canadians, within 10 years we can see a decline in their health status. Schiff (2004) in her article, states America has sometimes been referred to a “Nation of Cut-offs” because it was settled largely by immigrants.
Emotional System, Fusion, and Cut-off in Family System Theory
Titleman in defining the theoretical context of Bowen theory states that emotional system is product of several billion years of evolution, which is driving force of the family and the other relationship systems. He mentions that “the concept of relationship system is a description of what happens among family members, their communications, and interactions, whereas the concept of emotional system is an explanation of what happens. The emotional system refers to what “energizes” the family system, and includes those aspects that human have in common with other form of life ( Titelman, 2003, P 19).
Bowen (1978) postulated that emotional system is governed by the interplay of two counterbalancing “life forces”, individuality, and togetherness, which are rooted in biology. He also defined the concept of “fusion” as the emotional oneness or emotional stuck-togetherness between family members and refers to the ways that people borrow or lend self in relation to one another. The function of fusion is to ensure that individuals within the nuclear family will remain attached to the emotional nucleus, usually parents.
From the late 1960s, Bowen used “emotional Cut-off” in his system theory to refer to emotional distancing (Bowen, 1978, P 535). In 1975, the concept of emotional cut-off formally became the eighth concepts of his theory along with the other concepts, differentiation of self, triangles, nuclear family emotional process, family projection process, sibling position, and societal process. At that time Bowen (1978,P 382) wrote:
The life pattern of cut-offs is determined by the way people handle their unresolved attachments to their parents. All people have some degree of unresolved attachment to their parents. The lower the level of differentiation, the more intense the unresolved attachment. The concept deals with the way people separate themselves from the past in order to start their lives in the present generation. Much Thought went into the selection of a term to best describe this process of separation, isolation, withdrawal, running away, or denying the importance of parental family (1978, P, 382).
Bowen (1978,P 382) defined the concept of cut-off as “ the way people separate themselves from the past in order to start their lives in the present generation”.
Goldberg (2000, P 292) in his book with interpretation of Bowen theory about cut-off, wrote:
Emotional cut-off in system theory describes the way one generation cuts off emotional contact with the previous generation in order to avoid potential relationship problems.
Day and Burr (2003, P 276) note that emotional cut-off is a method of trying to deal with fusion that is generally ineffective. Emotional cut-off refers to attempts to deny fusion rather than resolve it. The result is that people may stop interacting with their family, or they move away from their family, but they are still emotionally fused. In these situations, the fusion still has the same effects, even though the parental family may be thousands of miles away.
Papero (1990, P 62) explains the emotional cut-off as a natural process, which on a simple level people speak of the need for personal space. In his opinion, distance seems to be the safety valve of emotional system. In extreme examples people constantly search for closeness, but react intensely to it when they stumble over it. He states the concept of emotional cut-off addresses the manner in which people attempt to manage the emotional attachment to their parents and important other individuals. One may deny the attachment, or one may separate oneself physically from the family, and some mix of these mechanisms may also be employed. Bowen (1978) states:
The person who runs away from his family of origin is as emotionally dependent as the one who never leaves home. They both need emotional closeness, but they are allergic to it (P. 382).
Titleman (2003) tries to define emotional cut-off as the emotional process between the generations. He believes “emotional cut-off, the emotional process between the generations, refers primarily to an individual’s relationship with his or her parents after leaving home”. He also states, “cut-off is not created or sustained by a single individual. It takes two or more individuals to sustain cut-off”.
Bowen (Kerr and Bowen,1988) wrote that the cut-offs can “describe the immature separation of people from each other” (p. 346). Titleman (2003) refers to this definition and concludes “Bowen’s use the phrase ‘separation of people from each other’ to indicate that phenomenon of cut-off can refer to a process between an individual and others besides his or her parents. The degree and intensity with which cut-off occurred for individual in relation to parents is the degree to which that individual will cut-off from others in the present and future generations” (pp. 23-24).
The purpose of this study is to find satisfactory answer to this question that “have immigrants camouflaged their cut-offs by migration? “. In this way, tries to find the answers to these two questions: 1) how is the distribution of cut-off scores in immigrants?, and 2) do Immigrants in relation to non-immigrants, have higher level of emotional cut-off?
Method
Participants. Participants were Iranian adults (n=53) living in Vancouver, British Columbia, age over 25 years old, who took part to this study as a voluntary subjects, and all of them are voluntary immigrants.
Instruments. The DSI-R (revised Differentiation of Self Inventory) is used in this study. This inventory has 46 items constituting four sub-scales: Emotional Reactivity (11 items), I-Position (11 items), Emotional Cut-off (12 items), and Fusion with Others (12 items). To rate each item, respondents used a 6 point Likert- type scale, ranging from not at all true of me (1) to very true of me (6). Sub scale scores are calculated by reversing raw scores on all items on ER, EC, and FO and one item at IP subscale. The average of scores will show the score for each scale. High scores reflecting greater Differentiation of Self, less ER, EC, and FO, and more skill in taking IP in relationship. Skowron and Schmitt (2003) reported their instrument reliability with internal consistency coefficient of .92 for DSI full scale, ER .89, IP .8, EC .82, and FO .85.
Procedures. Adults, over age 25, who were interested to take part in this study, were selected as an available sample. After briefing each of them about what this Inventory measures, asked them to rate the items. in front of researcher or send it by Email. Some of them cooperated with this study if the results of each scale send to them. For a few of them who had problem in reading the questions in English, translated form of that is used.
Results and Discussion
Descriptive Statistics. Table 1, represents number of subjects, mean, median, standard deviation, variance, skewness, standard error of skewness, kurtosis and its standard error of kurtosis, minimum and maximum mean scores of each subscales and full scale (DSI). As this table shows the subscale of differentiation of self (DS) ranges from 2.72 to 4.93 ( M= 3.7, SD=.63).
In response to this question that “how is the distribution of cut-off scores in immigrants?”, skewness and kurtosis indexes show that the distribution of cut-off scores has not significantly skewed and its height is not less than normal distribution in its population. This characteristic is the same for the other subgroups and full scale (DS).
The inter-correlation of all subscales and full scale ( total score, which represents the level of differentiation of self) is summarized in table2. Results for all testing show a significant correlation among subscales and all subscales with total score.
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Graph 1 shows the distribution of Emotional Reactivity, which has no bias and in its population tends to follow normal distribution.
Graph 2 shows the distribution of I Position, which is nearly symmetrical and its population tends to follow normal distribution.
Graph 3 shows the distribution of Emotional Cut-off in sample, with its descriptive statistics. As the curve on the histogram shows this distribution in a large population tends to be symmetrical and have a normal shape.
Graph 4 shows the distribution of Fusion with Others. It seems the height of distribution of this subscale scores is different with normal distribution, but considering the values of kurtosis and the standard error of kurtosis ,it has not statically significant difference with normal distribution.
Graph 5 shows the distribution of Differentiation of Self in our study group. Although the skewness of this scores seems to be positive and majority of subjects belong to lower level scores, the observed index of its skewness (1.37) is not high enough to be statistically significant.
In order to answer the second question , which asks “ do Immigrants in relation to non-immigrants, have higher level of emotional cut-off?” the results of statistical tests for comparing means for two independent groups is shown in table 3. Skowron and Schmitt (2003) conducted a research in order to test the reliability and validity of the Fusion with Others subscale of DSI-R on 225 adults. Their statistical index is used for this study for comparing the mean score of our sample group with their non-immigrant group.
It is interesting to note that there were no significant difference between non-immigrants and immigrants in Emotional Reactivity, “I” Position, Emotional Cut-off, Fusion with others, and in the level of Differentiation of Self Scales.
Table 3. The results of statistical test for comparing means for two groups Non-immigrants Immigrants
Varables / Means for non-immigrants / Sd for non-immigrants / Means for immigrants / Sd for immigrants / T- value for n1=53 & n2=225Emotional Reactivity / 3.15 / 1.06 / 3.39 / .93 / .23
‘I” Position / 4.07 / .85 / 3.85 / .86 / -.26
Emotional Cutoff / 4.34 / .93 / 4.07 / .80 / -.3
Fusion With Others / 3.84 / .98 / 3.47 / .59 / -.4
DSI-R total score / 3.86 / .72 / 3.7 / .63 / -.23
In conclusion, On the basis of findings of this study, the answer for this research question which asks : “have immigrants camouflaged their cut-offs by migration? “ is negative, and does not support the findings of researchers who believe immigrants in comparison to normal groups have more unresolved attachments.
As Bowen explicitly stated that the cut-offs can “describe the immature separation of people from each other” (Kerr and Bowen, 1988, p. 346), this is possible to postulate the “separation” in voluntary immigrants is not an immature separation.