The Importance of Acculturation in Understanding Research with Hispanic-Americans

This article provides a brief review of empirical studies that have addressed the role of acculturation across a variety of psychosocial variables (ie., family socialization, social-support networks, alcoholism, and psychosocial adjustment). Special attention is given to two methodological weaknesses inherent across studies: the lack of a satisfactory scale to assess the complex construct of acculturation and the excessive reliance on self-reports for information perceived as "personal" to Hispanics. Taking such weaknesses into consideration, recommendations to improve future research are presented.