Initial part of longitudinal research on psychological and social adaptation including personality problems with Polish immigrants in Canada

Abstract

Background The psychology of personality is cognitively one of the most interesting fields. In its full extent it tries to correspond to questions concerning the individual and his or her psychological life. Different personality variables manifest themselves in human everyday actions, and affect decision making and, along with intelligence, the way of adaptation to new environmental conditions. Participants and procedure The presented work is a result of the initial longitudinal examination conducted in the second half of the 1980s on a group of 44 Polish immigrants to Canada. The second part of this study is continued on the same sample of respondents after 25 years. Results The emigration waves caused by economic transformations in the eighties, just as is happening currently, in the country of origin grew to huge numbers. It shows the interactive process of changes taking place not only in society but also in the notion of the individual. Adaptive problems show themselves in all aspects of emigrants’ lives. Motivation, discrimination, employment, frustration and mental health become the resultant of personality factors manifested in the ways of adaptation to new, extremely different conditions of everyday life. Conclusions This examination, in spite of the time in which it was conducted, is gaining in value, particularly at present. In our times we have also observed mass emigration of young, educated citizens who, similarly to the emigration of the 1980s, are coming across the same adaptive problems.