6. Boneva y Hanzon 2001. Toward a Concept of a Migrant Personality

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Toward a Concept of a Migrant Personality

Bonka S. Boneva* and Irene Hanson Frieze

University of Pittsburgh

In this article we argue that individuals who want to emigrate possess a syndromeof personality characteristics that differentiates them from those who want to stayin their country of origin. Based on our own research, as well as other research findings, we show that those who want to resettle in another country tend to bemore work-oriented and to have higher achievement and power motivation, but lower affiliation motivation and family centrality, than those who do not want toleave their country of origin. This migrant personality syndrome is seen as only

one of the variety of factors that determine migratory behavior. We further discusssome of the possible implications of our findings for the receiving and the sendingcountries and possible psychological interventions that can ease the acculturationof immigrants.

A satisfactory theoretical and methodological account of international migra-tion should consider the motivations, goals, values, and aspirations of individualswho decide to resettle in another country (Gans, 1999; Massey, 1999). Is there a setof motives, values, and traits that characterize the personalities of people who emi-grate? In this article, we argue that desire to emigrate is associated with a specificset of personality characteristics that differentiates people who want to emigratefrom people who want to stay in their country of origin. We propose a model of thepersonality factors that predict desire to emigrate. Further, we discuss our previousfindings that, indeed, across six cultures, desire to emigrate, compared to desire tostay, was associated with significantly higher achievement, power motivation, andwork centrality and lower family centrality.

Research on international migration has consistently shown that economicfactors play an important role in the process: People tend to emigrate from less to

*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bonka Boneva, Department of Psychology, 405 Langley Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 [email: [email protected]]. The authors gratefullyacknowledge the support of the Russian and East-European Center at the University of Pittsburgh thathelped make this research possible.

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© 2001 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57, No. 3, 2001, pp. 477–491


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more economically advanced countries (e.g., Rumbaut, 1994). There is a consen-sus among immigration researchers that “migration occurs between demand-pull

factors that draw migrants into industrial countries, supply-push factors that pushthem out of their own countries, and networks of friends and relatives already inindustrial societies who serve as anchor communities for newcomers” (Martin,1993, p. 4).

Yet not all people in economically disadvantaged countries want to leave forcountries with better economic conditions. In fact, research indicates that thosewho want to emigrate are not necessarily among the poorest in their country of origin. For example, in a study of potential emigration from Bulgaria, a formerlysocialist East European country, those who wanted to emigrate had significantly

higher income and were more often owners of an apartment or a house than thosewho wanted to stay (Domozetov & Yossifov, 1991). Similarly, Jamaican lowerclass students were found less likely to want to leave their country of origin thanmiddle and upper class students (Tidrick, 1971). In a cross-cultural studyof desiresto emigrate, Frieze and colleagues (2000) found no clear relationship betweenemigration desires and the overall economic conditionswithin a particular country.Some countries, like Russia and Croatia, for example, that were not doing econom-ically well had in fact lower rates of emigration desires than other countries, likethe Czech Republic and Slovenia, that were economically doing much better.

In other words, there is some evidence that economic and other environmentalfactors cannot fully account for the desire to emigrate. Take, for example, emigra-tion and immigration policies (see Dovidio & Esses, this issue). Even under themost restrictive emigration policies, some individuals take high risks and leave,whereas others stay even under “open door” emigration policies and unfavorableeconomic conditions (Boneva, 1991). Another major factor discussed in interna-tional migration research is the network of relatives and friends who have previ-ously emigrated in the receiving country. Such ties, connecting potential migrantsto those who have already emigrated, are transformed into a resource that makes

resettlement in the new region more possible (Massey, 1999). A social network inthe country of destination triggers migratory behavior, however, only for someonewho already wants to emigrate (see, e.g., Light, Bhachu, & Karageorgis, 1993).

We argue here that unfavorable economies in country of origin, emigrationand immigration policies, network support in the receiving country, and otherenvironmental factors create the conditions for wanting to leave, but desires to doso are based in the personality of those who make the choice. Thus, under the sameenvironmental conditions, some individuals choose to leave whereas others chooseto stay. In order to better understand immigrants, it is necessary to study who

chooses to leave and why. Sociologists and demographers have looked at generalgroups of emigrants and the conditions that make people want to leave, whereas thepsychological predictors of choice to leave have been much less studied (Rogler,1994).

478 Boneva and Frieze


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We propose here a model of personality characteristics that contribute todesires to emigrate or stay. We argue that a certain personality syndrome leads to

desires to leave one’s country of origin. Based on our own research, aswell as otherresearch findings, we show that those who want to resettle in another country tendto be more work-oriented and to have higher achievement and power motivation,but lower affiliation motivation and family centrality, than those who do not wantto leave their country of origin. This personality pattern, together with otherpsychological factors, interacts with environmental factors and opportunities toproduce actual migratory behavior (see Figure 1).This model further suggests thatindividuals who actually move to another country may do so for a variety of rea-sons, and thus we would not expect that all immigrants have similar personalities.

We do argue, however, that a certain pattern of personality characteristics will bepredictive of higher levels of desire to emigrate.

The Migrant Personality 479

Fig. 1. The role of personality in desires to emigrate.


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Origins of the Concept of the Migrant Personality

The idea that certain people are predisposed to migratory behavior emerged inthe late 1960s and 1970s. Jennings (1970), for example, introduced the term“mobicentric man” to describe the behavior of individuals who value motion andaction very highly and who are constantly “on the move.” Later, Morrison andWheeler (1976) used the term “pioneering personality” to describe individualswho appear to like to relocate geographically. Morrison and Wheeler claimed that,inthedecisiontoemigrate,theneedfornoveltypersemayplayasdecisivearoleasthe perceivedeconomic opportunity in the destination country. These twoconceptsof a migrant personality, however, were not empirically tested.

More recent research indirectly supports empirically the idea that some indi-viduals are “predisposed” to migrate. For example, individuals who have oncemigrated have been found to be more willing to migrate again, as compared tothose who have never migrated (e.g., Kupiszewski, 1996; Neuman & Tienda,1994; Sakkeus, 1994). This, again, would suggest that emigrants are not justresponding to a particular set of economic conditions and that there is somethingspecific about the personality of those who desire to move.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a few studies emphasized the role that personality dis-positions, in addition to situational factors, play in choice to relocate geographi-

cally. Touraine and Ragazzi (1961), for example, found that migration is a resultnot only of circumstances favoring migration, but also of a specific personalitydisposition that theauthors identified as “an impellingdesire for upwardmobility.”Next, Taylor (1969) described three major types of migrants. According to theauthor, “resultant migrants” are those who are pressured by the situation to move;they seize a single predominating opportunity to leave, without much consideringit in advance. Taylor (1969) defined “dislocated migrants” as those who choose tomigrate because of “dislocation” from their primary group; for example, they jointheir husbands or wives, who have already emigrated to another region. But the

most typical, Taylor claimed, are the “aspirers”: individuals who migrate becauseof overall dissatisfaction with how they have been doing. They move, Taylor(1969) wrote, because they aspire to doing better for themselves and their children.Taylor’s results, however, were based on internal migration, with a small samplefrom a rural British community. But in a later study of international migration witha larger sample, Richardson (1974) similarly concluded that emigration was basi-cally a function of “dissatisfaction in attaining goals.” These findings suggest thatonly in some individuals does lack of opportunities trigger dissatisfaction and adesire to relocate geographically in search of better opportunities.

A few studies have directly linked dispositional motives to migratory behav-ior. In an in-depth study of Navajo Indians, Kolp (1965) found high achievementmotivation to be associated with a tendency to travel in constant search of morechallenging goals, which he termed “restlessness.” Using McClelland’s (1961)



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work showing a correlation between achievementmotivation of the population andthe economic development of a country, Matter (1977) found that during a period

of economic stability or decline, mean achievement motivation scores were lowerfor those remaining in the community than for those who left. Graduates with highachievement motivation, the author concluded, tend to remain in the community aslong as the community is ”achieving" but tend to depart when it is “declining”(Matter, 1977, p. 171).

Other studies of international migration show that immigrants, at least fromcertain countries, exhibit high achievement motivation. For example, highachievement motivation was found among Japanese immigrants (Caudill &DeVos, 1956). DeVos and his colleagues have done extensive research on the

achievement motivation of Asian immigrants (see, e.g., Caudill & DeVos, 1956;DeVos, 1973, 1983). Korean immigrants have been found to quickly adapt toAmerican life, a fact attributed to their high achievement motivation (DeVos,1983). Korean immigrants, DeVos (1983) argued, who have left their country of origin “to seek better economic and social opportunities in the United States”have brought with them “a very strong internalized need for achievement andaccomplishment” (p. 68). However, DeVos (1983) did not compare achievementmotivation scores of Korean immigrants to a comparable group of Koreans whodid not leave in order to determine whether the two groups differ on achievement

motivation.In their research on the achievement motivation of Latino immigrants,

C. Suarez-Orozco and M. Suarez-Orozco (1995) compared achievement scores of Mexican youth in Mexico and Mexican immigrant youth to the United States, butthey found no significant difference on achievement motivation between the twogroups. The detailed analysis of the themes in their qualitative data, however,shows no difference only on certain themes scoring for need for achievement, suchas, for example, on helping others. Yet Mexican immigrant youth, as compared totheir counterparts in Mexico, told more stories about actively seeking ways out of

an undesirable situation, and in their stories determination to succeed more oftenhad to do with competence and hard work (see C. Suarez-Orozco & M.Suarez-Orozco, 1995, pp. 175–178). Both these themes are indicative of mastery,the core of the achievement motive. In another study—of male Jamaican studentsin two Jamaican universities—Tidrick (1971) found that overall, those whoplanned to emigrate showed higher achievement motivation than those whowanted tostay inJamaica or to goabroadonly temporarily tostudy and thenreturn.

A few studies suggest that high levels of affiliation motivation could bepredictive of desire to stay (e.g., Scott & Scott, 1989). This presents a viable

answer to a question that has puzzled immigration researchers: Why is it that someregions are a source of extensive emigration, whereas other regions with compara-ble social and political conditions have no emigration at all. Scott and Scott (1989)argued that certain communities “breed” highly affiliative personalities whereas



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others do not and that this acts as a stronger determinant of desire to emigrate orstay than the economic “push-pull” factors. Thus, it may be that certain regions

have people with generally higher levels of affiliative motivation, and theseregions would have fewer people who want to emigrate.

Dispositional Motives as a Factor in Desire to Emigrate

To understand better the role of personality factors in emigration desires, wefirst studied dispositional motives (see Boneva et al., 1997, 1998). We expectedthat in countries of economic stagnation or decline, individuals who score high onachievement and power motivation and low on affiliationmotivation would tend to

want to emigrate. We argued that if existing conditions do not allow for satisfac-tory outlets of these motives, then individuals with high achievement and powermotivation would seek better opportunities in other countries, whereas those highin affiliation motivation would want to stay, independent of the economicconditions.

The achievement motive has been defined as a recurrent concern to surpassone’s own standard of excellence or to do something challenging and unique(McClelland, 1961). Since “achievers” are constantly looking for something morechallenging and want to avoid routine, they tend to become restless and mobile

under conditions that reduce challenges and limit their strivings (Kolp, 1965;McClelland, 1985; Sheppard & Belitsky, 1966). If the social environment does notallow for “efficient” or productive behavior, “high achievers” may migrate in orderto find better opportunities.

The power motive has been defined as a concern about having control over orimpact on others, which is often expressed as a desire to be recognized and toimpress others (McAdams, 1988; McClelland, 1975, 1985; Winter, 1973; see alsoFrieze & Boneva, 2001). Those high in power motivation are more willing to takerisks and endure dangers in reaching their goals than individuals low in power

motivation (Fersch, 1971). Also, the general disposition of power-oriented peopleis dissatisfaction with oneself and with one’s position in society (McClelland,1975; Winter, 1973). This may also lead to a decision to emigrate. Descriptions of immigrants as “adventurous and risk-taking” and “more energetic and enterprisingthan those left behind” (Glazer, 1990, p. 28; see also M. Suarez-Orozco, 1990) fitinto a personality of someone with high power and achievement motivation.

The affiliation motive can be defined as a concern for social acceptance ora desire to establish and maintain interpersonal relations (Emmons, 1997;McClelland, 1985). The core of the affiliative experience is connections with otherpeople and the building of a strong social network. Since individuals high on affili-ation motivation are particularly concerned about maintaining relationships, theyare also emotionally concerned over separation from their social network(McClelland, 1985; Mehrabian & Ksionzky, 1974). This would suggest that amigratory behavioral pattern is indicative of low affiliation motivation.



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Our hypothesis that individuals who wanted to leave their country of originwould score higher on both achievement and power motivation and lower on affili-

ation motivation than those who wanted to stay was first tested with 1,050 collegestudents in three Central and East European countries: Albania, the Czech Repub-lic, and Slovenia (for more details, see Boneva et al., 1997, 1998). We argue thatthe self-selection process takes place in the country of origin, not in the receivingcountry. As shown in Figure 1, by studying actual immigrants, one is not able toseparate clearly the effects of migration opportunities from the underlying desiresto immigrate. Thus, it is necessary to study immigration desires before the actualimmigration behavior occurs.

Albania, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia were selected for the study

because of the high emigration rates that formerly socialist Central and Europeancountries have been experiencing since political and social changes were intro-duced there in the late 1980s. The recent mass emigration from this part of theworld has largely been a result of the new emigration policies of “opening thedoors,” in addition to the huge differentials in economic development, social con-ditions, and political stability between the industrial Western democracies andex-socialist East European societies (Chesnais, 1991; Wallace & Palyanitsya,1995). Some studies, however, have indicated that desire to emigrate in this part of the world was not triggered solely by economic and political factors (see, e.g.,

Bobeva, 1994; Vishnevsky & Zayonchkovskaya, 1994).Data were collected between 1993 and 1996 for the studies reported here.

Emigration desires were tapped by the question “Where would you like to live forthe majority of your adult life?” Those respondents who chose the option to live inanother country were the group of the “potential emigrants.” A comparison groupcomprised those who chose to stay in their country of origin in response to thisquestion. We measured dispositional motives by self-report scales: the achieve-ment motivation scale (Helmreich & Spence, 1978), the power motivation scale(Schmidt & Frieze, 1997), and the affiliation motivation scale (Mehrabian, 1970).

Although the scales we used were developed in the United States, a growing num-ber of studies show that personality variables identified within one culture can bemeaningful in other cultures and can be applied in cross-cultural comparisons (seee.g., Lee, McCauley, & Draguns, 1999).

Our results confirmed that there were, indeed, significant differences acrosscountries in achievement and power motivation between those who wanted toleave their country of origin and those who wanted to stay. Individuals who indi-cated that they wanted to live in another country for the majority of their adult liveshad higher achievement motivation and higher power motivation than those who

did not want to leave (see Boneva et al., 1997, 1998).In the same study, the affiliative motive was examined for the Albanian sam-

ple, with the expectation that those who wanted to leave their country of originwould score lower on affiliation motivation than those who wanted to stay, since



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they would not be as concerned with leaving their relatives and friends behind.Potential emigrants in Albania scored lower on affiliation motivation than those

who wanted to stay, although there was also a significant Gender × Desire to Emi-grate interaction. Further analysis showed that the hypothesized prediction wasconfirmed only for men, not for women. Albanian college women who wanted toleave the country did not differ on affiliation motivation from women who wantedto stay but had significantly higher affiliation motivation than Albanian men whowanted to leave. Apparently, our expectations for affiliation motivation as a nega-tive predictor of emigration desires need to be further explored.

Values as a Factor in Desire to Emigrate

McClelland (1985) has argued that dispositional motives interact with valuesto produce behavior. In order to understand better how achievement, power, andaffiliation motives work together with basic values to affect the choice to emigrate,in a second study, with a different sample, we examined the interactions of thesemotives with work and family centrality (see Frieze et al., 2000).

It is well known that a primary reason for choosing to emigrate to anothercountry is to enhance work opportunities (see, e.g., Fassmann & Munz, 1994).Thus, it would be expected that those who see work as more central in their lives

would be more likely to desire to emigrate to countries that have better economicconditions than those who do not see work as central. Based on our previous find-ings (Boneva et al., 1997, 1998), we also expected that those who wanted to emi-grate would score higher on both work centrality and achievement and powermotivation, as compared to those who wanted to stay. In our first study, there wassome evidence that higher scores on affiliation motivation were associated withwanting to stay, at least for men. Since it can be expected that highly affiliativepeople value family, in our second study we predicted that those who would wantto leave the country would score lower on family centrality. If family and family

relationsarecentraltoanindividual,she/hewouldnotwanttoleavethembehind.These hypotheses were tested with a new cross-cultural sample of 2,754

college students from Croatia, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Slovenia, tested in1997 through 2000 (for more details, see Frieze et al., 2000). Those who wanted toleave their country of origin scored significantly higher on work centrality andlower on family centrality, as predicted. Motives alone, however, did not predictemigration desires, except in the Czech sample. For the more recent Croatian, Slo-vene, and Russian samples, students who wanted to leave their country of origindid notdiffer significantly on achievement or power motivation from students who

wanted to stay (although means were in the predicted directions). But the interac-tions between work centrality and achievement or power motivation were signifi-cant. Those high in work centrality and achievement (computed as a product of thetwo scores) were more likely to want to leave, as were those high in work centrality



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and power motivation (again, a product of the two scores). These new findingsindicate that motives alone may not be sufficient to predict desires to emigrate. In

this study achievement and power motivation levels appeared to be important indetermining desires to emigrate only in individuals valuing work and, presumably,desiring to express their achievement and power motivations through their work.For this reason, both motives and values are listed as personality predictors of desires to emigrate.

As expected, within this study, college students who wanted to emigratescored significantly lower on family centrality than those who wanted to stay (seeFrieze et al., 2000). These findings, however, need further clarification. In fact,both groups—potential emigrants and nonmigrants—scored high on family

centrality, and family centrality mean scores were significantly higher than workcentrality mean scores.

In the immigrant literature, a number of studies have emphasized the impor-tance of family for immigrants (e.g., Greenwell, 1997; Leslie, 1992; Schweizer,Schnegg, & Berzborn, 1998; Sycip & Fawcett, 1988). These studies are not neces-sarily in disagreement with our findings that people who desire to emigrate tend toscore lower on family centrality and affiliation motivation. People may also immi-grate when they want to be reunited with their immediate family in another coun-try. They would not, most probably, have emigrated, were it not for the desire to

join their family. We do not expect this immigrant subgroup that we call secondaryimmigrants to possess the dispositional syndrome of primary immigrants (thoseindividuals who make the initial decision to leave their country of origin).

In fact, in countries like the United States, where immigration policies havestrongly encouraged family reunification, primary immigrants are only a portionof the total immigrant population. At present, about half of first-generationimmigrants in the United States have entered the country on the basis of familyreunification (J. P. Smith & Edmonston, 1997). This last category would beexpected to have higher affiliation motivation and family centrality than primary

immigrants.

Social Implications of Research on Dispositional Motives

and Values of Migrants

How much do we learn about immigrants by studying the psychological pre-dictors of desires to emigrate or stay? First, desires have been consistently found topredict actual behaviors (e.g., Ajzen, 1991; Perugini & Conner, 2000). Based onresearch findings, Taylor (1969) has shown that desire to emigrate is the first step

toward the actual move—in the context of other predictors of migratory behavior.Second, personality is a comparatively stable structure throughout the life span,and dispositional motives that form in early childhood do not, as a rule, changesignificantly later in life (see, e.g.,McClelland, 1985). On this basis, we expect that



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our findings of the motivational structure of potential emigrants will hold true forprimary immigrants.

Our model may not, however, apply to refugees: people who leave in order toavoid very harsh economic and/or political conditions. On the onehand, onewouldexpect that refugees, who have moved under the conditions of very strong “pushfactors,” would not share the same dispositional motives or values as primaryimmigrants who choose to resettle. The same question, however—why, under thesame strongly unfavorable political and/or economic conditions, some people stilldecide to stay whereas others leave—applies to refugees, too. Also, once dis-placed, some refugees will want to return to their country of origin as soon asconditions there normalize,whereas others want to stay in the receiving country for

good, independent of economic and political improvement in their country of origin. Although political and legal distinctions between refugees and immigrantsshould not be ignored (Bernard, 1977; Gold, 1992), the question of what personal-ity factors play a role in the decision to leave or stay in their country of origin, andlater, to stay or leave the receiving country, needs to be further empirically exam-ined for refugees as well.

Consequences of the Emigration of High Achievers Who Value Work

It appears that in the emigration process, the originating country loses some of its citizens who are most strongly involved with their jobs and careers. The motiva-tional model proposed here suggests that frustration of the aspiration to work up toone’s true abilities and the desire that one’s work allow for higher levels of achievement can drive individuals to leave their country of origin. The phenome-non known as “brain drain,” for example, appears to relate to the proposed migrantpersonality model. It is expected that individuals with high education and skillswho aspire to better jobs in other countries will be work-centered “highachievers.”Undoubtedly, the loss of highly achievement-motivated individuals, who are also

work oriented, might potentially create serious social and economic problems forsending countries with high emigration rates. Work by McClelland and others hasindicated that high or low levels of achievement motivation in the populations of acountry result in increased or decreased levels of economic development(McClelland, 1961, 1985).

In the literature, strategies for preventing high emigration levels have beenassociated with improving the economic conditions in the country (see, e.g.,Teitelbaum, 1991). In addition, the availability of adequate channels of expressingpolitical and/or economic discontent for those with frustrated high achievement

and/or power motivation is a possible “quick fix” in the process of preventing highemigration rates.Building civil societies in East European countries cancontributeto lowering the emigration rates.



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An informative example of this can be seen in a study of Italian emigration atthe beginning of the 20th century. Studying emigration patterns in Italy from 1902

to 1913, MacDonald (1963) found that some poor regions had much lower emigra-tion rates than other, comparably poor areas. In his further analysis of the reasonsfor such differences, the author came to the conclusion that one major factor inemigration was whether opportunities to express one’s economic and politicaldiscontent were available. In those regions where there were established politicalchannels for peasants and laborers to express their dissatisfactions and their aspira-tions for a better life, the emigration rates were significantly lower than for regionswith no such channels. Such findings fit into our model of the migrant personality.It can be expected that creating opportunities for outlets to frustrated motives and

values will additionally reduce desire to emigrate from countries of economicstagnation or decline.

Personality Dispositions of Immigrants and Psychological Interventions

Knowing the specific dispositions and values of immigrants is indispensablein understanding their behavior in the receiving country. Undoubtedly, immigra-tion is a source of stress, and the problems that accompany resettlement in a newcountry are legitimately the concern of many psychologists (Al-Issa, 1997). Immi-gration is also a means to personal advancement, however, and this aspect of

immigration has been unfairly ignored (Kuo & Tsai, 1986; Tiryakian, 1980).Immigrants often experience their resettlement in terms of maximizing opportuni-ties in the new setting (see, e.g., Glazer, 1990; Simon, 1990; M. Suarez-Orozco,1990). They “have moved more or less voluntarily from their land of origin toanother society because they believed that such a move would result in improvedeconomic well-being, better overall opportunities, and/or greater political free-dom” (Ogbu, 1990, p. 46).

In their new country, however, immigrants undergo a psychologically compli-cated process of adjustment to the social, cultural, and political conditions that can

lead to severe frustrationof their strivings. Better understanding of the migrant per-sonality would help in studying immigrant responses to the frustration or fulfill-ment of their expectations in the social and political environment of the receivingcountry. For immigrants high in power motivation, for example, finding immedi-ate outlets for the expression of their strivings in the country of choicemay be espe-cially difficult immediately after resettlement. The frustrated power motive canlead to socially undesirable behavior, like aggression, for example (McClelland,1985; McClelland, Davis, Kalin, & Wanner, 1972; Winter, 1973). On the otherhand, since “high achievers” tend to delay gratification (McClelland, 1985), the

immediate frustration of achievement-motivated new immigrants may not have asnegative psychological consequences.The power motive has been found to be particularly situation dependent: Its

expressions depend on social class and gender values and habits (Frieze & Boneva,



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2001; McClelland, 1985). For example, studies have associated high power moti-vation with aggressive behavior in men and in individuals with low education, but

not in women and highly educated persons (e.g., Veroff, 1982). Thus, we wouldexpect women immigrants, or immigrants with higher education, who were high inpower to exhibit aggressive behavior rarely. Male immigrants, however, especiallythose with low educational status, who were high in power motivation might getinvolved in deviant or antisocial behavior, since power motivation has been associ-atedalsowith high levels of risk taking. A few studies have indeedfound high ratesof aggressive behavior among male immigrants of low educational status (e.g.,Sorenson & Telles, 1991).

Personality psychology could help in building strategies to cope with frus-

trated motives. One way to help immigrants with a high power orientation, forexample, could be to get them involved in small groups, where they can play a spe-cial role. Power-oriented individuals like to play organizational roles, to influenceothers, and to be recognized (McAdams, 1988; McClelland, 1985). Gettinginvolved in mentoring programs, running community organizations, or participat-ing in church management within their religion all could be suitable ways for frus-trated emigrants to express power motivation (Frieze & Boneva, 2001).

High rates of illness among immigrants reported in some studies (see e.g.,Al-Issa, 1997) could also be a result of their specific motivational structure.

McClelland and colleagues (McClelland, Davidson, Floor, & Saron, 1980;McClelland & Jemmott, 1980) found that individuals with high power motivationand low affiliation motivation, when under stress, exhibit decline in immune resis-tance. There is also at least some indication that this relationship may hold primar-ily for men. If further research confirms that our model applies to immigrants, thenmale immigrants, who are expected to have high power and low affiliation motiva-tion, would be more prone to sickness, since, with migration, they are undoubtedlyexposed to stress.

Obviously, there are immigrants who do well, and there are others who have

certain psychological problems and/or create problems for the society. Some of this, we believe, is related to a specific syndrome of motives and values associatedwith the migrant personality. Other personality characteristics specific to thosewho choose to emigrate could also contribute to the way immigrants feel, think,and behave in the receiving country. Further understanding of the migrant person-ality can help us develop psychological interventions to facilitate immigrants’adjustment to the new sociocultural environment.

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BONKA BONEVA is teaching at the University of Pittsburgh while holding aresearch position at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie MellonUniversity. She has a PhD in sociology from the University of Sofia and has donedoctoral work in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She previouslyworked as a senior researcher in the Department of Social Psychology of theBulgarian Academy of Sciences, a lecturer at the University of Sofia, a visiting

scholar in the Anthropology Department of Northwestern University, and a vis-iting associate researcher in both the Anthropology and Psychology Departmentsat the University of Pittsburgh. Her diverse research interests and publicationsinclude dispositional motives of people who migrate, acculturation, and social andethnic identities.

IRENE HANSON FRIEZE is a professor of psychology and holds an appointmentwith theCenter for Russian and East-European Studies [REES] at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research on Central and East European students was assisted by a

Fulbright Fellowship and by funding from REES and the Women’s StudiesProgram at the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to emigration, her work looksat career planning of college students and predictors of gender role attitudes.
