Over 200 million people live in a country different from the one in which they were born. These immigrants face an important task of acculturation as they navigate through new values, customs, and attitudes of the new culture. An important part of acculturation involves changes in cultural identity (i.e., identification with the culture of the country of origin and the new culture). Past research has found that cultural identity is associated with well-being. To account for this finding, theories that assume a directional relationship between the two variables have been proposed. However, virtually no studies have followed immigrants over time to evaluate whether changes in life satisfaction and identity affect each other, and how life satisfaction and identity evolve over time for immigrants is not clearly understood. The current study used a sample of over 5,000 immigrants to Germany who reported on their life satisfaction and cultural identity over a period of 26 years. I examined trajectories of the two variables and used trait-state models to evaluate the extent to which each variable is influenced by stable and changing determinants. Life satisfaction of immigrants generally followed similar trajectory and had similar influences as life satisfaction in the general population. Identification with Germany increased over time, with most change occurring over the first decade following immigration. In addition, individual differences in cultural identity were highly stable over time, suggesting that cultural identity is largely determined by stable influences. The study replicated a positive association between identification with the host country and life satisfaction. The majority of the association was found at the stable level, suggesting common stable influences on both variables. Further analyses indicated that some of the association between well-being and identity is accounted for by personality traits that influence both variables. After accounting for the relationship at the stable level, no prospective effects of cultural identity on life satisfaction (or life satisfaction on cultural identity) were found. However, country of origin, gender, and age of immigration moderated change in cultural identity and life satisfaction over time in meaningful ways.
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