The effect of global mobility on third culture kids: Do early childhood mobility and cultural changes contribute to poorer general mental health in adulthood?

Abstract

The mobility of families is growing continuously, and as the world becomes increasingly multi-cultural, the global mobility of families is becoming a vital factor to consider regarding the development of children that lead their lives moving between multiple cultures. Studies on adults who grew up in a globally mobile family due to their parents’ occupations are mostly theoretical in nature; such individuals are referred to as “Adult Third Culture Kids” (ATCKs). This study is a cross-sectional survey, between-subjects design study that compares the general mental health, levels of anxiety, depression, and stress, and signs of posttraumatic growth of government and business ATCKs, military ATCKs, and a group of mono-cultural adults. It was hypothesized that ATCKs, both military and government & expatriate, show more general mental health problems, signs of depression, anxiety, and stress as well as increased posttraumatic growth than monocultured adults. Secondly, this research hypothesized that ATCKs from government and business families show more general mental health problems, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, but less posttraumatic growth than ATCKs from military families. To test the hypotheses, I enrolled 217 participants from all three groups, asking them to complete an online survey which contained a questionnaire to measure the presence of common mental health disorders (SRQ-20), a questionnaire to measure symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS-21), as well as a questionnaire assessing posttraumatic growth (PTGI-SF). The data provided preliminary evidence in favor of a part of the first hypothesis of this study. Although the SRQ-20 showed statistically insignificant results overall and in all groups, the DASS-21 showed statistically significant differences between both ATCK groups and the mono-cultural adults. Contrary to the expectations, the second part of the first hypothesis could only be partially supported by the research results. The PTGI-SF provided support for the hypothesis that ATCKs from government and business families show significantly more posttraumatic growth than mono-cultural adults. However, ATCKs from military families did not reach a statistically significant result in comparison to mono-cultural adults. The general picture emerging from the analysis is that there is a significant difference in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress between monocultural adults and ATCKs overall.