International students face a variety of challenges in their acculturation process. Acculturation, the process of adapting to a new cultural environment, is highly variable and influenced by environmental and individual factors that exist before or arise during acculturation. Among the moderating personal factors existing prior to acculturation, adult attachment has received attention as an important variable impacting the acculturation process and adaptation outcomes. Based on the bi-dimensional model of acculturation (Berry, 1997) and the concept of adult attachment (Bowlby, 1977), the current study hypothesized that an insecure attachment (i.e., high attachment anxiety and avoidance) would predict more acculturative stress, less psychological adaptation, and less sociocultural adaptation. We also hypothesized that students who highly identified with their heritage culture and were highly acculturated to the U.S. culture would experience higher levels of psychological and sociocultural adaptation. Also, we examined if adult attachment moderated the effects of acculturation on international students’ psychological and sociocultural adaptation. International students enrolled in higher education institutions in different geographic locations in the United States (N = 221) completed measures of adult attachment, acculturation, acculturative stress, and psychological and sociocultural adaptation. The results suggested that attachment anxiety was a significant predictor of international students’ psychological adaptation. High acculturation to the U.S. significantly predicted more sociocultural adaptation. Attachment avoidance significantly moderated the effect of acculturation to the U.S. culture on international students’ psychological distress, while attachment anxiety was a significant moderator for the effect of acculturation to the U.S. culture on sociocultural adaptation.

国际学生在适应过程中面临各种挑战。适应是适应新文化环境的过程，其变化很大，并受适应之前或过程中存在的环境和个体因素的影响。在适应之前存在的适度个人因素中，成人依恋已受到关注，成为影响适应过程和适应结果的重要变量。基于适应的二维模型（Berry，1997）和成人依恋的概念（Bowlby，1977），当前的研究假设不安全的依恋（即高依恋焦虑和回避）将预测更多的适应压力，减少心理适应能力，以及较少的社会文化适应能力。我们还假设，高度认同自己的遗产文化并高度适应美国文化的学生会经历更高水平的心理和社会文化适应。此外，我们研究了成人依恋是否能缓解文化适应对国际学生心理和社会文化适应的影响。在美国不同地理位置进入高等教育机构的国际学生（N = 221）完成了对成人依恋，适应，适应压力以及心理和社会文化适应的测量。结果表明依恋焦虑是国际学生心理适应的重要预测指标。对美国的高度包容极大地预示着更多的社会文化适应。依恋避免可以显着缓和美国文化对国际学生心理困扰的影响，而依恋焦虑则是美国文化对社会文化适应的影响的重要调节剂。