The hypothesis that it is the variability of a person's identity-as op
posed to the particular combinations of identities-that produces stres
s during the acculturation process was examined. Two hundred ninety-fi
ve native Anglophone students at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Ca
nada, provided demographic data and completed the following measures:
the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck & Beck, 1972), Rosenberg's Self-Es
teem Scale (1965), the Situated Identity Measure (Clement & Noels, 199
2), and the Psychological Stress Measure (Lemyre, Tessier, & Fillion,
1990). Results of ANOVAs contrasting level of identification and varia
bility of identification indicated that an exclusively Anglophone iden
tity was related to a higher level of depression, lower self-esteem, a
nd a higher level of stress than the other modes of acculturation, but
only when the variability in identity with the English group was high
. Thus, the participants who identified strongly with the English grou
p but were not committed to this identity experienced more psychologic
al adjustment problems.