Page 130 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment
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                                Social network sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, have become a popular means of communication in the past years (Smith & Anderson, 2018; Statistica.com, 2018). With the use of SNSs, interactions of sojourners with their social networks were no longer limited to face-to-face interactions in the host country. SNSs extended opportunities for communication with significant others in the host- and the home-country, and this could be helpful in maintaining relationships. At a glance, this was a positive development for sojourners considering that stable, meaningful relationships are important for one’s overall adjustment (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). However, the relevance of SNSs in sojourners’ adjustment was yet an understudied topic. This gap in scientific knowledge was the impetus for this dissertation.
The overall goal of this dissertation was to advance our understanding of the roles of social network sites in sojourners’ adjustment. To achieve this goal, I conducted a set of studies using a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on scholarship from various disciplines such as media and communication, cross- cultural/acculturation psychology, clinical psychology, social psychology, and migration studies. The starting point was to integrate the main assumptions of the seminal models on sojourners’ adjustment (Berry, 2003, 2006; Ward, Bochner, & Furnham, 2001), and derive a general conceptual framework that guided the research process. This general framework of sojourners’ adjustment was premised on the proposition that communication processes and social interactions impact sojourners’ adjustment via subjective outcomes. This served as the backbone of the studies presented in this dissertation.
This concluding chapter provides a summary of the key findings of the studies in this dissertation. It also includes an integration of the key findings across the various studies, reflecting on the theoretical implications. The last parts of this chapter discuss the methodological contributions, practical implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research.
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